Читать книгу Armageddon - Dale Brown - Страница 16

The time difference between the States and Brunei made it difficult for Breanna to get any information without invoking official channels, which she didn’t want to do. Finally she thought of Mark Stoner, a CIA agent who’d worked with Dreamland on some recent missions and who was back east in D.C. By the time she tried him, however, it was midnight there, and when she got his machine she left a message, asking him to call ‘when he got a chance.’ Then she forgot about him until, to her great surprise, the hotel desk buzzed her room at 3 P.M. to tell her he was on the line.

‘Mark – what are you doing up at 2 A.M.?’ she asked.

‘It’s 3 A.M. here,’ said Stoner. ‘There’s a twelve-hour difference. No daylight savings. We’re a half-day behind you. You said you had a question.’

‘Couple of questions. Unofficially.’

Breanna told him about the aircraft, which according to the images captured by the Dragonfly had no identifying marks.

‘They came out of Malaysian territory?’ Stoner asked when she had finished her summary.

‘Looked like.’ She didn’t want to be too specific, worrying that anyone listening in would be able to gather information about the targeting system’s abilities – and she had to assume that might include Malaysian spies.

‘There are two Malaysian air bases, auxiliaries to civilian airports. Neither field is really set up to support military jets, at least not that I know.’

‘Can you check?’

‘Have you talked to the Department of Defense?’

‘I filed a report, but no one seemed particularly interested. A pair of Sukhois doesn’t really rock their world.’

Stoner was silent for a moment, then he asked, ‘If I gave you an address, could you get to it this afternoon?’

‘I think so.’

‘It’s in Kampung Ayer. Do you know what that is?’

‘The island city in the bay off the capital?’

‘Write this down.’

Breanna found Mack standing on the back of a pickup truck at the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean several miles southwest of the airport. A British-built truck sat nearby, with two Brunei air force sergeants working an old field radio in the back. Below the cliff was a narrow plateau of rocks just out of the water’s reach. Several pieces of plywood were set up as targets for an A-37B.

Breanna watched as the airplane came around from the north and made a run parallel to the coastline. The rocks bubbled and one of the plywood panels split in two. The airplane then rose abruptly, its right wingtip no more than ten feet from the cliff edge.

‘I have to say, pretty good,’ said Mack. ‘Tell her to nail the last target any way she wants,’ he shouted to the men in the truck.

Not five seconds later, the Dragonfly rolled back toward land, heading dead-on for the beach – upside down. The last piece of plywood folded in half.

Not that anybody on land had seen. They’d all ducked for cover as she blew past, maybe six feet off the ground.

‘New pilot?’ Breanna asked.

‘Yeah. I’m pretty desperate,’ said Mack.

‘He looks pretty good,’ said Breanna. ‘Even if he is a show-off.’

‘It’s a she,’ said Mack. ‘And actually, her looks are, uh, not exactly on the measurable chart. But she’s a helluva pilot. Why are you here?’

‘I’m doing you a favor,’ said Breanna. ‘We need to go out to a place in Kampung Ayer.’

‘We? Listen Bree, I’m due back in the capital in an hour to explain to my fellow ministers of defense how aircraft that don’t exist may very well have sunk that merchant ship. I don’t have time for a boat ride.’

‘I called Mark Stoner and told him about your Sukhois. He told me to go out to see someone there.’

‘Stoner’s the CIA spook who’s an expert on South Asian weapons?’

‘One and the same.’

The A-37 buzzed back. Mack didn’t duck this time.

‘I hate show-offs,’ he said, jumping out of the truck. ‘Especially when they’re worth watching.’

Kampung Ayer was a water village in the bay outside the capital. Buildings rose on stilts from the murky water, whose pungent odor matched its mud-red tint. Until today, Breanna had seen the lagoon city only from a distance. She stared at the people as she and Mack passed in their water taxi, amazed at how ingenious humans could be.

‘There,’ said the man driving the water taxi. They pulled up against a planked walkway that led to what looked like a floating trailer. Its rusting metal roof was weighted down by satellite dishes.

‘You wait, right?’ said Mack, pointing at him.

‘I wait,’ said the man.

Mack jumped up and started walking toward the house. Breanna scrambled to follow. She barely kept her balance on the bobbing boards, and had to grab Mack’s arm just as she caught up to him.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Watch it or we’ll fall into that sewer water.’

‘Thanks, Mack.’

Mack pulled open the screen door and they walked into what could have passed for a doctor’s waiting room. A young Malaysian sat behind the desk, paging through a magazine.

‘Mark Stoner sent us,’ said Breanna.

‘Cheese is expecting you,’ said the man, gesturing toward an open doorway to his left. ‘Go in.’

‘Cheese?’ said Mack.

The only light in the room came from a large-screen TV, which was tuned to CNBC. Hunched on the floor in front of a leather couch was a man pounding a keyboard. A bottle of Beefeater gin sat next to him.

‘Hello,’ said Breanna.

The man put his hand out to shush them, then continued typing.

‘You’re Cheese?’ asked Mack.

The man picked up the Beefeater, took a swig, then held it out to them without looking away from his laptop.

‘No thanks,’ said Breanna.

‘I’ll pass,’ said Mack.

The man took another swig, still typing with one hand. In his thirties or early forties, he was obviously American, wearing a light blue T-shirt and a pair of cut-off jeans.

‘Stoner’s people, right?’ he asked, still tapping his keys.

‘Yes,’ said Breanna.

‘I want to know about some airplanes,’ said Mack.

‘I don’t want to know anything. Nothing. Zero.’

‘Mark told me to come here,’ said Breanna.

‘Yeah, but I don’t know anything about it, okay? I have a Web link for you to look at in the other room,’ he said. ‘I typed it in already. All you have to do is hit enter.’

The man typed one more thing on his laptop, then put it down and got up.

‘James Milach. They call me Cheese because I made a killing in the stock market involving Kraft. No shit,’ said the American. He shook Mack’s hand – then bent over and kissed Breanna’s. ‘Beefeater makes me formal,’ he said, sweeping away into the next room.

Mack thought for sure he’d stepped into an insane asylum. Stoner was a spook, and spooks knew weird people, but this character was – a character.

But then this had been a particularly perplexing day all around. The sultan had expressed some concern about the Sukhois, but discounted Mack’s theory that they had been responsible for the attack on the merchant ship. The spy network, meanwhile, reported that there had been no activity at any of the airports on Borneo or even nearby Indonesia or Malaysia.

The Brunei navy’s pet theory was that the ship had been sabotaged by Islamic terrorists, who had placed a bomb aboard. While Mack wouldn’t rule that out, it was a convenient theory in that it kept the navy from having any responsibility. The investigation was continuing; thus far, no survivors had been found.

‘You hit the button, and then you can take it from there,’ said Cheese, standing over a Sun Workstation. ‘You got it?’

‘Sure,’ said Breanna. ‘This is the Web?’

Cheese smiled at her. ‘Not exactly. But you don’t want to know too much, do you?’

Mack rolled his eyes, then hit the key and bent toward the screen. Brown and black shades slowly filled the screen. It took a few moments for Mack to realize he was looking at a satellite photo of the northern part of the island, which was Malaysian territory.

‘Some sort of Russian satellite,’ said Breanna, pointing at the characters on the side of the screen. ‘You think he’s tapped into their network?’

‘I don’t know,’ he told her, leaning down to squint at the screen. ‘But that looks like the outline of a Sukhoi on what looks like a highway in the middle of nowhere. I’m going to have to look at a map but I think that’s Darvel Bay, on the eastern side of Sabah province. That whole area is just jungle. Or at least it used to be.’