Nerve Center

How could the Boeing’s command computer leak across into C3?

Through the interrupts they used for the video, and to coordinate the flight information. But the gateway and thus ANTARES were in the way.

Impossible.

Impossible?

“Jen?”

“I just thought of an odd theory,” she said, explaining it to him. Zen’s eyes began to glaze after the first sentence, so she cut it short. “I’ll have to review a few sessions to see if I’m on the right track. I’m not sure I’m right, but it might be a start.”

“Do you have anything that can help us now? For the search’?”

“Sorry.”

Jeff started to roll away.

“Jeff, if you can get the hard drives back, we’d have a much better chance to figure out what happened.”

“Figuring out what happened isn’t my priority at the moment,” he said. “I want to find Dalton and Madrone.”

“So do I.”

Aboard SAR Helicopter Charlie 7

Over Sierra Nevada Mountains

19 February, 1715

SERGEANT PERSE “POWDER” TALCOM LEANED AGAINST the door window of the Pave Low as the big helicopter struggled against the wind. The cloud hanging on the mountainside seemed like a massive bear, trying to protect her young.

“Fierce fuckin’ rain,” he groused to Sergeant Lee “Nurse” Liu, who was standing behind him. “I can’t fuckin’ see fuckin’ shit.”

“Sleet,” corrected Liu. “Some of it’s even snow.”

“Whatever.”

“Use Captain Freah’s visor.”

“Helmet’s too damn heavy.”

“Then I will.”

Powder gave his companion a scowl, then braced himself to fit the smart helmet and its high-tech visor over his head. Freah’s suggestion that they take the new device had seemed like a great idea—until Powder put it on in the transport out to Nellis. The helmet had been formed for the captain’s head. It scraped the hell out of Powder’s ears going on, but floated around freely like a bucket atop a water pump once on.

No wonder officers thought differently than normal human beings; their heads were shaped weird.

Normally, a Pave Low would ride with two officers—pilot and copilot—along with a pair of flight engineers and two crew members ma

“There, right there,” said Liu, pointing to the ravine.

Powder flicked the visor into infrared mode. A brownish blob appeared at the lower left of the screen; the weather cut down greatly on the available detail, but there was definitely something warm down there.

“Get us the fuck down there,” Powder yelled to Brautman, who relayed the request to the pilot without the expletive.

“Too windy,” was the reply.

“Fuck that.” Sergeant Talcom took off the helmet, and then nearly lost it as turbulence rocked the helo. Liu grabbed the helmet and Powder tottered forward, grabbing at the bulkhead like a drunken sailor.

“You gotta get us fuckin’ down!” he yelled at the two men on the flight deck.

As a general rule, Air Force SAR helicopter pilots, and Pave Low jocks in particular, had boulder-sized balls. With the possible exception of their mamas, they weren’t scared of anything. This particular pilot had flown deep into Iraq during the Gulf War, and had a scar on his leg to prove he had done so under fire. But he shook his head.

“The storm is too much, night’s coming on, and that’s not a man down there,” he told Powder.

“How the fuck do you know?” demanded the sergeant.

“Because we’ve been looking at that spot for five minutes on the infrared.” answered the copilot, pointing to the Pave Low’s screen. A strong gust of wind caught the helicopter, and he snapped his head back to the front as the pilot steadied the craft. “The scope is clear,” he added. “No one’s there.”

“He’s on ours!” answered Powder. He jerked his thumb back toward Liu. “Or something is! I’m fuckin’ tellin’ yaour gear spotted something.”

“Look, Sergeant, you do your job, we’ll do ours,” said the copilot. “And watch your language when you’re talking to an officer.”

“Hey, fuck that,” grumbled Powder.

Liu squeezed next to him, the helmet on his head. The Whiplash crew members’ discrete-burst com sets didn’t interface with the Pave Low’s interphone, so he hadn’t heard the discussion.

“I see something,” he shouted to the others over the whine of the engines.

“We know,” said Powder.

“Not a person,” answered the copilot.

“I know,” said Liu. “But I have a theory.”

“What?” said Brautman.

“If that object below is the ejection seat, which I believe it must be, then perhaps the pilot came out nearby.”

No shit, thought Powder.

“In this storm, he would seek shelter,” continued Liu. “There are caves on the south side of the ravine.”

“We can look.” said the copilot, all of a sudden Mr. Compromise. He said something into his mouthpiece and the pilot began nodding his head.

“You’re a fuckin’ diplomat, you know that, Nurse?” Powder told Liu.

The wash of the motors drowned out Liu’s reply. The two Whiplash troopers resumed their posts at the windows, trying to scan through the heavy fog and drizzle.

The helicopter lurched sharply left, so quickly Talcom thought they were going in.

“Got something!” yelled the flight engineer.

Powder bent forward to look at the IR screen. A small greenish blob congealed at the bottom of the screen around other greenish blobs in a sea of fuzz.

“Our fuckin’ guy?” he asked Liu, who was sca

“Something,” replied Nurse. “The rain and sleet hinder the sensors.”

The pilots agreed the only way to find out was to go down there. But between the wind and the ravine, the closest the helicopter could come after three attempts was twenty-five feet.

“Tell the pilot to hold the fuckin’ thing steady and we’ll fuckin’ rappel,” Powder told Brautman.

“That’s a hell of a fall,” said the flight engineer.

“I ain’t pla

Brautman consulted with the pilots through his corn gear. “He’s up for it if you’re up for it.”

The helicopter stuttered against a wind shear.

“Fuckin’ damn, let’s kick ass.”

“Hey,” said Brautman, grabbing Talcom’s shoulder. “You sure?”

“Fuck you.”

Brautman laughed and shook his head.

“What?”

“You curse worse than anyone I’ve ever met”

“Fuck off.”

“Ten bucks says you can’t get through the rest of the mission without using the F word.”

Powder snorted. “Sure. Now let’s stop screwin’ around and do it. Liu, give me the damn helmet back and put on your own. Mama always told me never go out in a storm without a hat.”

The Pave Low reared sideways as the door slid open for Powder and Liu. The wash of wind, sleet, hail, and rain against Powder’s body felt like a tsunami, sending him off balance into the bulkhead behind the cockpit. The sergeant smacked the back of his helmet against the metal and rebounded like a cue ball with bottom English.

“Bitchin’ shit-ass weather,” said Powder, grabbing for the side of the door. He was careful not to use “fuck.” Ten bucks was ten bucks.

By the time he was three quarters of the way down the rope line, his thick weatherproof gloves were sopping wet. He managed to toe himself against a ledge six or seven feet over the cave Liu had spotted. The helo had descended a little further, but could hardly be called steady; one of the gyrations whipped him forward, and he just managed to avoid smashing his knee on the rocks. Leaning around the rope, Powder tried to see what the hell was below him—he didn’t want to be climbing through this shit for a lost mountain lion.