Nighthawk Read online

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zhang replied.

  “Then I suggest you contact your naval chief of staff.”

  Zhang’s posture stiffened. “Perhaps you’re right. It seems this latest bout of teamwork has outlived its usefulness.”

  “It was doomed from the start,” Davidov said. “At least this way we have no spoils to argue over.”

  Zhang moved to the head of the table and slid some papers together in a folder. In truth, he was pleased. Freed of the Russian shackles, his men could go to work immediately with no need to hide in the shadow of the Bear. “So it’s every nation for itself,” he said. “I assume your ships will be looking for the wreckage?”

  “Of course.”

  “As will ours,” Zhang replied. “I can only hope there will be no conflict.”

  “I wouldn’t expect any,” Davidov said, standing and drawing himself up to his full height. “By the time your fleet reaches South American waters, the Nighthawk will be in a crate on its way to Moscow with a large red ribbon tied around it.”

  Zhang scoffed at the boast and pressed an intercom button on the conference table. It buzzed his assistant. “Comrade Davidov will be needing a ticket back to Moscow,” he said. “Make sure it’s first class, China Air.”

  Davidov offered a bow of thanks and then turned for the door. Both of them knew he wasn’t going to Moscow.

  5

  NUMA Headquarters, Washington, D.C.

  Hiram Yaeger walked through the air-conditioned computer bay on the eleventh floor of the NUMA building before heading for home. He made the same checks every night and thought of himself as a ship’s captain inspecting his vessel, but it was really just a habit born from the early days of computing when things were not as reliable.

  Back when he’d first started, Yaeger had to check and reset huge reel-to-reel tapes and inspect processing connections by hand. When they first looked for bugs, it meant actual insects that had a habit of seeking out warm, dark places, getting themselves zapped on fragile micro electric circuitry and burning out what passed for microchips in the process.

  Years later, it was all about mainframe processing loads and hardwired connections. Now the computers did it all themselves, speaking to each other through Wi-Fi, checking and rechecking their own performance against preset parameters. All Yaeger really had to do was to make sure no one had unplugged the system from the electrical outlet.

  He checked anyway.

  Satisfied that everything was in order he made his way toward the outer office. “Good night, Max,” he said, speaking to the computer.

  “Night and day are the same thing to me,” the computer replied. “Unlike you, I work twenty-four hours a day.”

  Hiram had designed Max and the rest of the computers in NUMA’s state-of-the-art processing center. Years before Siri had begun talking, Yaeger had given Max voice processing and interactive capabilities. Why he’d ever added a sense of humor, he didn’t know.

  “No one likes a computer with a smart mouth,” Hiram said, pulling a light jacket over his shoulders and adjusting his wire-framed glasses.

  “I don’t have a mouth,” Max pointed out. “But your point is well taken. FYI: You have a visitor in the outer office. My sensors indicate Priya Kashmir has just used her badge to enter the room.”

  “Thanks, Max. See you tomorrow.”

  Hiram continued toward the outer office, grinning that he’d stumped Max by saying good-bye in a way Max could not correct or elaborate on. A small victory for the human race.

  He stepped through the door and spotted a figure in a wheelchair waiting for him.

  Priya Kashmir was Yaeger’s new assistant. Born in southern India, raised in London, and schooled at MIT—where she’d graduated at the top of her class—Priya had been set to join one of NUMA’s field teams when a three-car pileup left her paralyzed from the waist down.

  NUMA had honored her contract despite her injuries, paid for her medical treatment and given her a pick of assignments including working in the field if she wanted, insisting they’d find a way to make it work.

  By then, she’d already decided on a different path, asking if NUMA could use her skills in the computing department.

  “Hello,” she said cheerfully. “How are you this evening, Mr. Yaeger?”

  Her accent was a mix of British and Indian, with the slightest hint of a Boston Yankee thrown in for good measure.

  “Please stop calling me that,” Hiram said. “It makes me feel old.”

  “Because your father was Mr. Yaeger?”

  “My grandfather.”

  She laughed, brushed a strand of mahogany hair from her face and handed him a note. “This just came in.”

  Hiram took the note. It was written in flowing script that could have passed for calligraphy. “Your Post-its should be in an art museum.”

  “I had a few minutes on my hands while I waited for the elevator,” she said.

  Hiram read the note. The message was far simpler than the writing. It was from Kurt Austin.

  “‘Need you to make Dumbo fly,’” Hiram read aloud. “‘Use those big ears and find me a splash-down site. And I need it quickly. Otherwise, you’re going to cost Rudi Gunn a bottle of Don Julio and box of hand-rolled Cuban cigars.’”

  A puzzled look settled on Hiram’s face. “Curious.”

  Priya had to agree. “I didn’t understand when Kurt rattled it off in the first place,” she admitted. “And I don’t honestly understand it now. But Kurt insisted you would know what he meant. I assume it’s some type of code.”

  Hiram sighed, took off his jacket and draped it over the back of the chair. “Sort of. It’s Kurtspeak for: can you pull an all-nighter and find me a miracle?”

  “Really? What’s the Dumbo reference? Isn’t that a flying elephant from the Disney cartoons?”

  “Dynamic Underwater Monitoring Band,” Hiram said. “We added the O for fun. It’s a series of highly sensitive subsurface listening posts NUMA has set up throughout the Pacific. There are several hundred major stations and five thousand tethered buoys. They listen for seismic activity.”

  “P-waves and S-waves,” Priya said.

  Hiram nodded. “With DUMBO, we can detect a large earthquake and pinpoint its location far earlier than the existing tsunami monitoring network, but we’re also able to monitor the smallest tectonic movements. Deep earthquakes that wouldn’t wake a light sleeper if he was dozing next to the china cabinet. We learn a lot more about deep-earth geology that way. We can even predict when a big one is coming by the prevalence or absence of tiny tremors.”

  Priya nodded, but she still looked confused. “What does that have to do with his mission and why does he want DUMBO to fly?”

  “The flying part is just Kurt being Kurt,” Hiram explained. “He thinks he’s funny. I warn you: Do not laugh at his jokes. It’ll only encourage him and you’ll never hear the end of them. But the idea is top-notch as usual.”

  From there, Hiram went on to explain about the missing Nighthawk and the rapid naval buildup to search for it. He tied the DUMBO project in as he finished. “Kurt wants us to listen to the tapes in case the seismic sensors picked up any sign of the crash. If they did, we can triangulate a location and save everyone a lot of time searching the South Pacific.”

  Priya’s eyes seemed to catch the light as she smiled. “That’s brilliant,” she said. “If it works. Can seismic detectors really be that sensitive?”

  Hiram hedged. “The network is far more sensitive than we thought it would be. We learned shortly after setting it up that other sounds from the ocean were being recorded. Subsurface mining off Taiwan, torpedo and artillery explosions at military test sites around the Pacific and even the last desperate groans of sinking ships. As those go down, they tend to break up, often accompanied by subtle explosions as the hull ruptures and tr
apped air is released. We were able to pinpoint the exact location of nine missing ships in the first six months of operations. But the Nighthawk is much smaller than your average seagoing vessel.”

  “Better than nothing,” Priya said, grinning.

  “Exactly,” he said. “It’s just unlikely to be easy, especially given this time frame.”

  She eased her chair forward. “How can I help?”

  “The first thing we have to do is download all the recorded data,” Hiram said. “Then we have to cross-reference it and begin the slow, painful process of weeding out the background noise, the magma and seismic activity that the sensors are designed to pick up and anything that doesn’t emanate from the search area. After that, we have to identify and remove shipping static, biological sources of interference like whale songs and schools of tuna, and at least a hundred other extraneous forms of underwater vibration.”

  The lights in the office brightened and the coffeepot in the corner switched on automatically and started brewing.

  “More precisely, he means I have to do all that,” Max announced over a speaker. “Looks like we’re all working through the night together.”

  Priya laughed. “I swear, sometimes she misses you,” she said.

  Hiram noticed a sense of glee in the computer voice that he’d have sworn he never programmed into it. “Eavesdropping again, Max. That’s another bad habit.”

  “All in the name of efficiency,” Max replied. “Seismic data accessed, commencing download. Also, please advise Kurt that machine-rolled cigars are every bit the equal of—if not superior to—human, hand-rolled products.”

  Priya laughed. “Have you been smoking again, Max? You know that’s a bad habit.”

  “No,” Max said. “Just stating a verifiable factual principle.”

  Hiram chuckled. “You’re an expert at most things, Max, but I’m going to leave cigars and liquor to Kurt.”

  “Very well,” Max said. “Beginning audio analysis.”

  Hiram walked over to the coffeepot and poured two cups. When Max finished the grunt work, he and Priya would have to make the final choices regarding what frequencies would be allowed to remain in the recording. Not much to do until then.

  “Cream and sugar?” he said to Priya.

  “Two cubes, please. And, thank you.”

  Hiram dropped a sugar cube into the dark liquid. It made a tiny splash and almost no sound at all. The way he reckoned it, the Nighthawk parachuting into the ocean would do something similar, although it would be the equivalent of tossing a sugar cube into an Olympic swimming pool. He put their chances of hearing it, even with the network of sensors, at ten-to-one.

  He dropped the second cube in, stirred the coffee and watched the small block of sugar dissolve and disappear. At least the Nighthawk couldn’t do that.

  6

  Guayaquil, Ecuador

  After touching down in Ecuador, Kurt checked into the hotel and allowed himself a quick shower and a change of clothes. Refreshed, he caught a cab to a dockside warehouse on the outskirts of Guayaquil’s bustling port.

  Passing through a security checkpoint, he entered the cavernous building and quickly found his way to the section NUMA had taken over. There, hidden among towers of stacked shipping containers, he found a rack of hard-shelled diving suits, stacks of torpedo-shaped sonar emitters, a pair of small ROVs and several sleds with cameras and lights on them.

  Perched in the center of this collection, like a mad scientist amid his creations, was Joe Zavala.

  A few inches shorter than Kurt, Joe had dark, close-cropped hair, high cheekbones and deep, brown eyes that seemed soft and contemplative at times, fierce at others. As Joe moved among the crowded stacks of equipment with a checklist in his hand, he displayed the qualities of a cat. Never once looking up from the clipboard and yet never putting a foot wrong or hitting his head on the overhanging arms, jutting fins or brass propellers that surrounded him.

  Joe had been Kurt’s closest friend at NUMA for years. He was an amateur boxer, the most gregarious member of the Special Projects team and an avowed bachelor. He was also a mechanical genius and had built many of NUMA’s more advanced submersibles.

  “You look like the proverbial kid in the toy store,” Kurt said, alerting Joe to his presence.

  “It’s a candy store in that proverb, amigo.”

  “So I did a little rewrite,” Kurt said. “Looks like Rudi really came through. Where’d he get all this stuff? Aside from the hard suits, I don’t recognize any of this equipment.”

  “You shouldn’t,” Joe said. “Those submersibles came from an oil exploration firm. These sonar buoys are cast-offs from the Ecuadorian Navy—I have no idea if they even work yet—and those camera sleds came from the movie company that produced Megalodon Versus the Giant Squid.”

  “A classic, if ever there was one,” Kurt said.

  “So I’ve heard,” Joe replied.

  Kurt turned serious once more. “Rudi told me he’d chartered a group of fishing boats to supplement the fleet. I assume this equipment is for them?”

  Joe nodded. “And I have twelve hours to get it all ready and send them out. At least we’ve got our own people flying in to run the systems once they’re on board; otherwise, I’d have to teach everyone, too.”

  “The more ships we have in the water, the faster we’ll cover the search area,” Kurt said. “But we’re going to need more than a fishing fleet to make this work.”

  Joe checked one more thing off of his list and put the clipboard down. “What do you have in mind?”

  “How much do you know about the DUMBO project?”

  “Big ears in the sea,” Joe replied. “You think you’re going to hear the Nighthawk going down?”

  “I was told those sensors could hear a pin drop,” Kurt said. “In this case, a fifty-billion-dollar pin that fell from outer space.”

  “That sounds like another bad movie,” Joe said.

  Kurt laughed. “The way I see it, if the Nighthawk hit the water hard enough, we might hear it. Even if it parachuted down and then sank, there are compartments that would implode from the pressure. The central core covering the cargo bay, fuel cells and control unit have been built to withstand a thousand atmospheres. Something about sending it to Venus one day. But there are other cavities that might rupture. Hollow spaces in the wings and tail. The wheel wells around the landing gear.”

  “Good point,” Joe said. “On top of that, parts of the heat shield would have been hitting a thousand degrees or more shortly prior to touch down. There might be an identifiable hissing and cavitation as that surface came into contact with the water.”

  “Never thought of that,” Kurt said. “This is why you’re in charge of building and repairing things.”

  “So who’s listening to the tapes?”

  “Hiram and Max. I told him to contact you if he needs any more information.”

  “Contact me?” Joe said. “Why? What are you going to be doing?”

  “I have to go meet a specialist from the NSA who’ll be riding shotgun with us.”

  “Are we really getting a chaperone?” Joe asked.

  “Looks that way.”

  Joe picked the clipboard up once again. “Well, that ought to slow our progress by at least fifty percent. What the guy’s name?”

  “Emily Townsend,” Kurt said.

  Joe’s eyebrows went up. “Strange name for a guy. Bet he got teased a lot growing up.”

  Kurt laughed. “From the profile they gave me, I don’t think Ms. Townsend gets teased much. Around the NSA, her nickname is Hurricane Emma.”

  “You know what that means,” Joe said. “Either we got stuck with her because we’re the problem children or we got stuck with her because she is one and the Navy didn’t want her on one of their ships.”

  “She’s got a background NASA would
kill for,” Kurt said. “A job with Rockwell right out of school, designing propulsion systems. Three years with Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and then the last five with the NSA. She’s definitely an expert in her field.”

  “An expert,” Joe said sarcastically, “okay? I’m upping my estimate to a ninety percent reduction in progress.”

  Kurt checked his watch. “I’ll do my best to charm her and turn her into an ally instead of an impediment. With a little luck, and some fine wine, all will turn out well. Trust me.”

  “You seem to be in a very good mood,” Joe said. “Nothing gets your blood up like a challenge.”

  “Especially when someone else is doing all the hard work,” Kurt said. “And all I have to do is charm an attractive woman.”

  “Good luck with that,” Joe said, turning back to his inventory of equipment. “But be careful. Some icebergs can’t be thawed.”

  Kurt left the warehouse and passed through the security gate unaware that he was being observed. Perched high in one of the oversized mobile cranes that moved the shipping containers around the port, two men were watching, one through binoculars.

  He lowered them, revealing dark eyes and little else. A filtered mask covered his nose and mouth, the kind some athletes wore while training in high pollution areas. His voice was muffled as he spoke through it. “When did they arrive?”

  “Within six hours of the Nighthawk disappearing,” the man beside him said. “They’re already gathering equipment and chartering vessels to help them search.”

  The masked man stared at the activity below him, like a chess master looking over the board. A slight wheezing could be heard in his lungs even with the filtered air to protect them. “The Americans reacted faster than even I expected.”

  “But you wanted them here,” the second man said. “Didn’t you?”

  “Of course, but it’ll do us no good if they learn too much too soon.”

  “We could slow them down,” the second man suggested. “Damage some of their equipment, scare off the charters, so they have to find new boats.”