The ground was rocky and felt frozen, but there were plenty of trees and vegetation. Her job was to find a good hiding spot and wait. Sometime during daylight hours, her contact person would arrive at the contact point and somehow make himself known to her. She had to stay hidden the rest of the day and night. Surely, she thought, the hue and cry for her was out. Surely, she prayed, the network had heard of the murder on base and activated itself. Surely, she pleaded, her contact would realize she was on the move and show this morning.
But the time came and went, and no one showed. Tears flowed down her cheeks, and her lips trembled in fear and loneliness. Nothing. She had never felt so alone, so helpless.
Since it was now daytime and she was less than a kilometer from both the highway and the bridge — and if she could see cars, they might be able to see her — Linda had no choice but to crawl away to the densest part of the little patch of trees near the park, crawl into the deepest and darkest dirt gully she could find, and wait. The river was just a few meters away across the parking lot, but she didn’t dare try to get water in daytime; there was even a coffee and doughnut vendor in the parking lot across the highway to the south, selling his goods to workers arriving at the steel scrapyard and woodworking factory on the south side of the highway, and even in her hole she could smell the boiled dough and strong black coffee. She always had rolled-up pancake crepes with jam, fruit, or cream cheese inside and coffee every morning, and now the emptiness in her belly was beginning to turn into a dull ache.
This was going to be impossible, she thought grimly. She had practiced her procedures, memorized her directives, and thought through her moves for years, and all the time thought she could do it, if she ever had to. But it was just barely twelve hours since going on the run, and she doubted whether she could make it even another twelve hours. Her handler said it could take days to activate the network, and then it was up to the contact person to decide if it was safe enough to try to make contact. Even then, the actual procedure took days — Linda wasn’t supposed to contact the first person she saw, but had to verify simply by waiting and watching if he or she was the right one. Sleep was impossible — every sound, every car noise, every voice she heard was a potential captor.
From her hole, she could see the parking lot and campground. A few hoboes came around, searching the garbage cans. To Linda’s immense shock, moments after the hoboes arrived, they were jacked up by local police and taken away. The police were everywhere, but they were out of sight, immediately pouncing on anyone who looked suspicious. After the arrest, the police would do a short search of the area, checking nearby bushes and trees for any sign of anyone else’s presence. They would sweep denser bushes aside roughly with nightsticks, beating them and looking for evidence of anyone’s presence, checking behind and around any shrubs that might be large enough to conceal a person, then disappear as quickly as they appeared.
It was hopeless, Linda thought. The contact person would never dare come anywhere near here, ever. Her handler had warned her exactly what would happen. Eventually, her hunger, loneliness, hopelessness, weariness, and fear would cause her to do something stupid, and she would be nabbed, and just like that, the game would be over.
She burrowed down as deep as she could into the dirt, sobbing softly to herself, afraid to show even the tiniest bit of skin outside her hole. It began to rain, big fat cold sleety drops, then soon started to snow. She had never been so cold in her life, and she knew she would probably die of hypothermia before long. When darkness fell, she felt brave enough to eat some dirty wet snow for water and carefully pile leaves and branches around herself, and with a sort of crude nest made for herself, she at least felt strong enough to make it through the night. But it was hopeless, useless. The police were everywhere, and the killing of a fellow cop only made them more determined to get the killer.
She expected, then soon hoped, that the police would swoop down on her and take her away any moment. Even being gang-raped and sodomized by vengeful police officers in an MSB prison cell would be far better than freezing to death.
High-Technology Aerospace Weapons Center,
Elliott Air Force Base, Groom Lake, Nevada
“Good morning, General Sivarek, General Smoliy, ladies and gentlemen,” Brigadier-General Patrick McLanahan said, as his image appeared on the secure videoteleconference screen. “I am General Patrick McLanahan, here to brief the special mission portion of this morning’s exercise. This briefing is classified Secret. Our rooms are secure, and this videoconference is being conducted on a secure closed circuit.” In the room with McLanahan were the pilots from the United States; in the conference room at Nellis Air Force Base were the crew members from Ukraine and Turkey involved in today’s exercise.
Patrick hit the button on his wireless remote computer controller, and the first PowerPoint slide popped onto a separate frame on the Nellis videoconference screen. “As you all know, the unclassified reason you’re here is that you’re on a goodwill tour of the United States and as part of NATO exercises here in Nevada. The classified reason is to test your aerial warfighting capabilities and to try to integrate your flight operations with some of the technologies we’re developing for NATO. This is the first in a series of six missions we’ll fly together to see how well we can coordinate both defensive and offensive operations from an aerial platform.”
“We have worked with AWACS controllers many times, General,” Sivarek pointed out.
“As have we,” Smoliy added. “Both Russian and NATO versions.” The attempt at one-upmanship had been going on ever since the two had met. So far, it was still on a friendly, although sometimes childish, level.
“You won’t be working with AWACS aircraft,” Patrick said. “At this point, we cannot reveal what kind of aircraft will be involved.”
“I should think we will find out soon,” Sivarek said. “If it is on the range and interfering with our pilots, we will shoot it down.”
“It is fair game on the range — if you can find it and take a shot, it’s yours,” Patrick said. “However, we ask you both to follow the range controller’s directions. If you are vectored away or are issued a ‘knock it off’ call, obey it immediately. We will attempt to keep you outside visual range of our aircraft, but we don’t want to interfere with training, either.”
“This sounds very interesting,” General Smoliy remarked. “It is an allied plane, but you do not wish us to see it. It will be controlling us, but you cannot tell us who or what it is. Very mysterious.”
“The entire concept is experimental at this point,” Patrick said. “Although we have received clearance to perform these exercises, the actual program itself has not yet been approved. If the program is canceled in midstream, the less you know about it, the better.”
“You are not placing a lot of trust in us, Patrick,” Sivarek said acidly. “We are allies — at least, I think we are still so.” Sivarek had made it very plain that he didn’t care for President Thomas Thorn and his attitude toward supporting his Eurasian allies.
“There is no offense intended, sir,” Patrick said. “You will be briefed on the entire program and the results of this exercise before you depart Nellis. Whether or not the program is implemented will be decided by others later.”
“Bes Para etmez,” Sivarek remarked grumpily. Literally it meant, “Does my head have a bald spot?” but in actuality it meant, “What’s the problem here?” But he nodded, indicating that he was through asking questions and was ready to continue. Smoliy, far more animated and affable, took another sip of tea and waited patiently.