The previous time index showed the same hex code, as did the time index before that, and the one before that, and the one before that …
Ann scrolled through several screens of recorded time indexes, seeing hex code 46 41 55 4C 54 30 30 repeated again, and again, and again. The fault — whatever it was — had obviously occurred several hours earlier. She had to work backwards through a few thousand repetitive error codes to locate the triggering event.
After paging through a seemingly endless number of screens, all completely identical except for the time indexes, Ann finally spotted what she was looking for. The triggering event had occurred almost exactly five and a half hours into Mouse’s search mission.
Prior to the occurrence of the fault, every time index read, “54 52 41 4E 53 49 54.” That was the hex code for TRANSIT. Mouse had been operating in normal search/transit mode, carrying out his search plan without errors or problems.
At the five and a half hour mark, the instant before the error had been triggered, the hex code had changed to 43 4F 4E 54 41 43 54, for a single processing cycle, followed by hex code 4D 49 53 53 49 4F 4E.
Ann’s heart froze as she stared at the screen. The two strings of characters seemed to stand out more brightly than anything else in the jumble of letters and numerals on the laptop display.
Ann swallowed, and closed her eyes, trying to change those two error codes by force of will. She must have looked at the screen wrong. Her eyes were getting tired. Because those codes couldn’t be right. They couldn’t be.
She opened her eyes. The codes were still there, staring at her out of the laptop screen like a pair of accusing eyes.
Ann tried not to think about what they meant, but her brain performed the translation automatically. The first code translated as CONTACT. The second translated as MISSION.
She slammed the lid of the laptop closed. Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it!
Mouse had done his job. He had found the submarine. And then, when the robot had attempted to shift from transit mode into mission mode, he’d run into the same software glitch that Ann had been wrestling with for weeks. Right in the middle of the mode shift, his software had faulted and then triggered his emergency maintenance subroutine.
He’d been close enough to complete the mission, and instead, he’d turned away and returned to his launching coordinates.
How had that happened? Ann had written a software patch, to bypass that very problem. What had gone wrong? Why hadn’t it worked?
She opened the lid of the laptop, backed out of the error logs, and loaded the program modules she had written to prepare Mouse for this mission.
It took her only a few seconds to find the address in the program where the patch should have been installed. It wasn’t there.
Oh god! How had that happened? Had she forgotten to install the patch? She couldn’t have. There was just no way.
But she had forgotten. She’d been so cocky, so sure that she had done everything perfectly. And she had somehow forgotten a critical step. Maybe even the critical step.
This whole mess with the missile submarine could have been over by now, if she’d done her job. But she’d forgotten.
Or had she? What if it hadn’t been an accident? Or rather, what if she’d wanted to forget? Was that possible?
She didn’t like these Navy people. That wasn’t exactly a secret. And she didn’t want to be party to killing the crew of that submarine. That wasn’t a secret either.
Maybe she had made some subconscious decision to screw this up. She didn’t think so. It didn’t feel that way. But how would she know? How could she be sure?
What if this had been their one chance to get the sub? And she had screwed it up.
She closed the laptop again. What the hell was she going to do now?
CHAPTER 49
The U.S. Marine Corps CH-53D helicopter was flying low — the pilot hugging the ice, trying to blend his aircraft into the ground clutter to minimize detection by hostile radar.
Aft of the cockpit, Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Armstrong and the three other Marines assigned to his EOD response element occupied only a small corner of the helicopter’s 30-foot-long cargo/troop compartment. The team’s detection gear and disruption equipment took up more room than the team itself, but the big compartment was still nearly as empty as the icy terrain they were flying above.
Gunny Armstrong looked over his team. Hicks and Travers were sleeping. Staff Sergeant Myers was peering out through one of the starboard windows. They were good Marines, all three of them. They were trained, and motivated, and damned good at their jobs. Gunny was proud to have them under his command.
He turned to look out of his own window. “This ain’t gonna work,” he said. He spoke at a normal volume, and his voice was lost against the howl of the helicopter’s turbines and the chop of the rotors. He was talking to himself, anyway. No one was supposed to hear. “This ain’t gonna work,” he said again. “It ain’t gonna work … It ain’t gonna work … It ain’t gonna fucking work.”
He tugged the folds of his neck gator into a more comfortable position, and hauled the zipper of his ECWCS parka up another few notches. The parka, like the rest of Gunny’s Marine Corps issue survival gear, was part of the 2nd generation Extended Cold Weather Clothing System. And — like all the other ECWCS gear — it was patterned in the leafy greens, browns, and tans of the woodland camouflage scheme. There was supposed to be a white outer garment, for operations in snowy environments, but the Supply Sergeant had checked the wrong block on the requisition form, and they’d gotten a shipment of meat thermometers or something stupid like that.
So much for that camouflage shit. In their pretty green suits, Gunny and his fellow EOD techs were going to stand out against the ice and snow like a bulldozer in a bathtub. If anybody came looking for them, they’d be screwed. Of course, there was a good chance that they were screwed anyway.
Through the scratched Plexiglas window, the ice below was nearly a blur, sliding under the belly of the aircraft at 190 miles per hour. This entire mission was a blur. The whole thing had been thrown together at the last minute, with almost no preparation. And that was a good way to get Marines killed.
The plan called for the chopper to insert the team, and then turn south and head for the open sea, where it could refuel with one of the destroyers operating over the horizon. According to intel, the Op-Area was crawling with MiGs, and the CH-53 had a radar cross-section the size of a barn. Moving the aircraft to a standoff position made good tactical sense, but Gunny Armstrong didn’t like the idea of having his Marines stranded on the ice.
If the mission went sour, their options for rapid emergency evac were basically zero. Not that the ancient 53 was much of an evac platform anyway. The damned thing was older than Gunny’s father. It leaked, and rattled, and shook so hard that it wobbled your teeth. If this job was really as important as battalion was making it out to be, why hadn’t somebody called up one of the V-22s instead of this flying relic?
His only satisfaction lay in the knowledge that Master Sergeant Pike and Response Element One weren’t riding any better. They were at the western end of the Op-Area, flying in a CH-53 just as rickety as this old piece of crap, toward the Alfa and Bravo sites.