“Scott, look out there at eleven o’clock.” She pointed to the looming shape of a large surface vessel on the horizon ahead.
He nodded. “It’s an inbound supertanker. See how high he’s riding? He’s empty, coming in from California.”
The sun was riding low on the southwestern horizon as Scott studied the GPS screen. “The crash coordinates are just ahead, April, about five miles. The MOA starts three miles ahead. I’m going to turn and parallel it by a mile to make sure anyone watching doesn’t misinterpret what we’re doing.”
“So what are we doing?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Beats me. I… let’s just loiter out here and see if we can see anything unusual.”
“Scott, do you have a raft aboard?”
“You mean a survival raft? No.”
“Could you carry one?”
“Yeah, but, April, this is a flying boat, remember?”
“I’m not talking about safety. I’m talking about landing, inflating a radar-invisible rubber raft, maybe with a small motor, and putting over to the site with the camera, recorder, and battery and stuff.”
Scott was silent for a few seconds. “We could do that. I don’t see why not, but it would have to be at night, and I can’t risk landing us out here in open water at night.”
“How about landing at dusk safely out of the restricted area, tying up somewhere, and going in after dark?”
“We’d need exposure suits.”
“Jim has those. He told me.”
“Okay. We might just have time—”
“Not tonight. I’m thinking tomorrow. I want to be completely prepared.”
“Okay.”
She turned and looked at him until he met her gaze. “Everything rides on getting those shots on tape, and I think my friend Gracie, the lawyer, would tell you that I’ll need your testimony to validate what I see, what’s on the tape, and the fact that whatever we get will not have been electronically altered. That okay?”
“You mean, in court?”
“Yeah. Problem?”
He shook his head. “Oh, no.”
She grabbed his arm suddenly, her right hand pointing ahead.
“What’s that, Scott? That ship.”
“More of a boat. Hold on.” He altered course to the north slightly to get a better viewing angle.
“What is it?”
“That’s a Navy ship. I don’t recognize her, but she’s a fleet support or supply vessel of some sort. Don’t often see one like that up here. See the odd angles on the superstructure on the stem? I’m not sure what that’s for.”
“She’s westbound.”
He nodded. “Yes. And on a course that, if I’m reading this right, had to have passed directly over the crash site.”
TWENTY NINE
FRIDAY, DAY 5 OVER THE GULF OF ALASKA, SOUTHEAST OF ANCHORAGE EARLY EVENING
“This is the test director. We’re go for engaging, Sage Ten. Systems report?”
“Sage Ten flight deck is a go,” the chief test pilot’s voice replied from the Gulfstream.
“Sage Ten, Test One is go as well,” Ben Cole answered.
“Very well,” the test director continued, “then Test One is cleared to engage.”
Ben acknowledged the clearance and placed his index finger over the appropriate button, hesitating for a few seconds as he ran back through all the parameters. They were at twenty-two thousand feet, steady on a heading of 135 degrees magnetic in reasonably smooth air. Pressing the button should cause no sensation at all, just the display of streaming data from the AWACS as the pilot in the remote cockpit aboard the AWACS took over the controls.
“Engaging,” Ben said, feeling the tiny feedback click of the button as the computer screen changed to reflect the remote engagement. “System engaged and locked,” he continued.
“Crown is affirmative on the lock. We have control.”
Ben realized he’d been holding his breath and permitted himself to exhale and sit back slightly in his seat in the familiar environment of the Gulfstream’s otherwise deserted cabin.
Straight and level. Good!
On an intellectual level, he’d expected nothing less after hours of checking and rechecking to make sure no strange commands had been embedded in the Boomerang master code.
“So far, so good,” Ben said into the headset, aware that the comment would be considered nonprofessional by the hardcore test engineers.
The screen was changing suddenly, the list of streaming data locks staying the same, but the control inputs moving as the Gulfstream began banking left.
“Are you commanding a bank to the left?” Ben asked, the immediate anxiety in his voice all too apparent.
There was a small chuckle embedded in the rapid reply from the AWACS remote pilot. “Roger. That’s just me playing with the controls. Coming left twenty degrees and a thirty-degree bank, then I’ll come back to the right before getting into the systems checks.”
Ben willed himself to relax and look around. He massaged his neck muscles and realized they were as tight as steel bands, a direct reflection of the tension. He wondered if the Gulfstream pilots were feeling the same anxiety. If so, they’d never admit it, Ben knew. It was against the pilot code, and especially true of test pilots, though held observed the inherent discomfort of the pilots in giving up control to a mechanism or a remote pilot not under their command.
“Coming back to the right now,” the remote pilot was saying, his voice cheerful as he watched his “instruments” on the mock control panel with heading, altitude, and airspeed readings coming back up live from the Gulfstream.
The thought that this test flight was unfolding correctly and safely had been merely a wish a few minutes back. They had already passed the critical point in time when the computer had suddenly started diving them in the Monday night test flight. All systems seemed to be operating normally, which meant perhaps thirty minutes of flight maneuvers before they could go home and Uniwave could collect its life-giving green government check.
The problem of who sabotaged the program Monday night was still with them, of course.
“Okay, starting down the flight control list now with the speed brakes.”
A wave of warm feelings for Schroedinger and innate happiness that he would, in fact, be seeing him again filled Ben at the same moment another more sinister connection came together in his memory. He ripped his attention back to the moment, searching for whatever that connection had been.
Wait… something the AWACS pilot just said…
His seat began falling gently out from under him as his stomach got lighter, and Ben diverted his eyes to the altitude readout.
“Whoa! Gentle on the sudden descent there, Crown,” the Gulfstream pilot said.
“What descent… wait. Sage Ten, have you seized control?”
“Negative, Crown. We’re showing you still locked. Don’t tell me this is happening again?”
The figures on Ben’s computer screen confirmed the sequence, the converted business jet now moving vertically toward the terrain below and out of twenty-three thousand at a rate of first two thousand, then three thousand feet per minute downward.
“Oh, shit!” the remote pilot said. “Yes, Sage, it does appear to be happening again. I’m commanding a climb and you’re not following.”
“Are you showing the telemetry link still locked?” the Gulfstream pilot asked.
“Yes.”
“We’re descending now through flight level two-zero-zero, and I’m not going to wait very long this time before I pull the plug. Ben? Are you on?”
“Yes. All indications are contrary to what’s happening, except that I see the altitude loss. How low should we let her go before we disconnect?”