JSTARS and AWACS radars are no longer active, his computer reported suddenly. Aircraft departing this area of operations.
The two icons representing the E-3 Sentry and E-8C JSTARS were heading north-northeast, in the same direction taken by the Black Hawks and Chinook helicopters packed full of Sky Masters scientists and engineers, he realized. Which meant they were probably bound for Mountain Home Air Force Base, too. The southern Idaho base was the only military installation the helicopters could have had the fuel to reach.
What Barbeau thought she was accomplishing with this sudden show of force was a puzzle for later, Brad decided. Right now, the JSTARS departure gave him the freedom to head back to the Ranger without the risk of being detected. “Wolf One to Wolf Two and Three,” he radioed. “Returning to base.”
“Two copies,” he heard Nadia say. “I will pass the word to Captain Schofield.”
“Thanks, Two,” Brad said. “And look, we need to talk to Poland as soon as I get back, with full audio and visuals… if we can swing it.”
“Three here,” Whack Macomber said gruffly over the same circuit. “We’ve already reported the situation to Martindale and Wilk. What more do you want? Besides, a direct audio and video connection via satellite is gonna suck up a shitload of bandwidth… which means the chances of detection go up exponentially.”
Patiently, Brad replied. “Understood, Whack. But I think it’s worth the risk now that President Barbeau just tipped the chessboard over. We’re going to have to rethink our whole strategy. Text-messaging back and forth isn’t going to cut it.”
Over the radio link, Macomber grunted. “I suppose not, Wolf One. I’ll pass your request on to our high-and-mighty lords and masters. Three out.”
A private communication from Nadia on a separate channel caught Brad’s eye. “Fear not. I will make sure the grumpy colonel is persuasive. Kocham cię. I love you.”
Thirty minutes later, safely concealed under their camouflage netting, he opened his CID’s hatch and climbed down out of the robot.
Nadia and Macomber were waiting at the foot of the XCV-62’s ladder. “We’re all set,” the colonel said tersely. “Warsaw and Powidz are standing by. And I’ve patched the signal through to the troop compartment so that Schofield and his guys can listen in. Hope you knights of the air and metal don’t mind, but I figured our poor, unfortunate ground pounders deserve to know how fucked we are in real time.”
Brad hid a smile. In his heart, Whack remained the quintessential foot soldier. Though he was a superb CID pilot, the big, powerfully built man retained the attitudes he’d developed over years of service in the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Command. Machines were either transport, fire support, or trouble for the real fighters — the tough men and women who closed with and destroyed the enemy up close and personal… without anything more than bullet-resistant body armor to protect them. To this day, Macomber never really felt comfortable inside one of the robots. “When those fricking computers get done meshing with my nervous system,” he’d sometimes growl, “who’s really in charge? Me? Or the damn machine?”
Instead, Brad contented himself with politely gesturing Nadia and Macomber up the ladder ahead of him.
With three people crammed inside, it was hard to move around inside the Ranger’s small cockpit without banging into each other or some of the instruments. Brad settled into his pilot’s seat, carefully ignoring the way Nadia’s face flushed a little when she remembered the last time they’d been here together. Bright-eyed now, she clambered back into the right-hand copilot’s position while the colonel squeezed himself awkwardly into the narrow space behind their seats.
Brad tapped his MFD, bringing it live. Nadia did the same with hers. A menu appeared on their screens: SECURE SATELLITE COM LINK READY.
“Initiate satellite link,” he ordered quietly.
“Link open,” the Ranger’s computer said in a calm female voice.
Instantly, three familiar faces looked back at them from the big displays. Martindale and Piotr Wilk were in the Polish president’s private office in Warsaw. Patrick McLanahan, recognizable through his LEAF’s clear visor, was at the squadron HQ in Powidz. Because their signals were being simultaneously encrypted and then bounced through several different communications satellites, the images were grainy and slightly distorted. There was also a slight, but noticeable lag between video and audio, which added a herky-jerky quality to the conversation.
“Go ahead, Wolf Force,” Wilk said with a nod. “What is your situation?”
“Not great,” Brad admitted. “Barbeau is still flying troops in to Battle Mountain. Plus, I saw a number of civilians arriving in the most recent helicopter lift.”
“Those are probably intelligence and technical experts,” his father said. “My guess is DARPA, the CIA, and a whole alphabet soup of federal agencies are starting to dig around in Sky Masters’ databases. This is the chance they’ve been waiting for to ferret out a lot of the company’s closely held secrets — especially those concerning the construction of Cybernetic Infantry Devices.”
“Which they won’t find,” Brad pointed out. “From what Boomer told me, all of the CID-related components and data are safely hidden away somewhere off-site.”
Martindale frowned. “Unfortunately, that only ends up making Sky Masters appear even more guilty. It will look as though the company anticipated this forceful U.S. government reaction and took preemptive measures to hide its involvement in the recent attacks.”
“Swell,” Whack muttered. “So our guys do the right thing and it ends up feeding Barbeau’s paranoid fantasies.”
“That’s about the size of it, Colonel,” the Scion chief said. His mouth twisted into a frown. “Although now that the Russians have their own war robots, it might have been better if Richter and his people had simply left their CID files and materials in place for the U.S. authorities to find.”
Brad saw his father stir. “Not in a million years,” Patrick McLanahan said flatly. “The federal government has a shitty record of keeping really valuable secrets. Anything the CIA, DARPA, and the rest scooped up would end up in Gryzlov’s hands sooner or later. And right now, our rail guns and camouflage gear may be the only edge Brad and the other CID pilots have over the Russians.”
Piotr Wilk shrugged. “The point is moot, anyway. Short of extracting the location of those secrets from its Sky Masters prisoners, your government will not be able to lay its hands on this technology. At the moment, our first priority must be to decide our next course of action.” He looked straight into the screen. “Captain McLanahan, can you fly your aircraft out of there without being detected?”
“Negative, Mr. President. At least not yet,” Brad said without hesitation. “The JSTARS and AWACS planes are gone, but there’s still way too much U.S. military air and vehicle traffic in this area. Even if we could dodge radar detection, the Ranger’s not invisible. Some pilot or ground observer would be bound to spot us using the good old-fashioned Mark I eyeball. And then we’d be toast. Between the F-15E Strike Eagles based at Mountain Home and the Aggressor Squadron F-16s flying out of Nellis, we wouldn’t make it a hundred miles before being either shot down or forced to land.”
He glanced outside the cockpit windows. Even seen through their camo net, the daytime sky was still blindingly bright. “That all changes once the sun goes down. As soon as it gets seriously dark, we should be able to make a break for it… but not a moment sooner.”