Black Wolf

“What the hell just happened?” he yelled.

“Tigershark, abort landing,” said the computer controller, belatedly catching up to the emergency. “Abort. Abort.”

“Thanks,” muttered Turk, checking his instruments.

The knock-it-off command should have sent the Sabres into a predesignated safe orbit at 5,000 feet, southwest of the runway in a clear range. But the radar showed them circling above and approaching for a landing.

“Ground, what’s going on?” said Turk. On the ground the Tigershark was as vulnerable as a soccer mom minivan, slow and not very maneuverable. He moved off the marked runway toward the taxi area, unsure of where the Sabres were going—a very dangerous position.

“Ground, what the hell is going on?”

“We have control, we have control,” sputtered Johnson. “Get off the runway.”

“Yeah, no shit,” grumbled Turk over the open mike.

“The engineers think there was an error in one of the subroutines when they were landing,” Johnson told Turk when he reached him at the prep area. The crew had taken over the Tigershark and were giving her a postflight exam. “They think Medusa defaulted into the wrong pattern.”

“ ‘Think’ is not a reassuring word,” said Turk.

“That’s why we test this shit out, Captain. Your job is to help us work things out.”

“Maybe if I controlled the planes from Medusa, rather than handing them off to you—”

“The test protocol is set,” said Johnson, practically shouting.

“You don’t have to get angry with me, Colonel,” snapped Turk. “I’m not the one that fucked up.”

“Nobody fucked up here.”

“Bullshit—the Sabre flight computer almost killed me. It’s supposed to be hands-off to landing.”

“You should have watched where the hell you were.”

“What? What?”

“Hey, hey, hey, what’s going on?” said Al “Greasy Hands” Parsons, stepping in between them.

Johnson ignored Greasy Hands, pointing at Turk. “You remember you’re in the Air Force, mister,” he told him. “I don’t care who your boss is. At the end of the day, your butt is mine.”

Johnson stalked away.

“I swear to God, if you weren’t here, I woulda hit him,” said Turk.

“Then you’re lucky I was here,” said Greasy Hands. He laughed.

“Blaming me for that? What a bunch of bullshit.” Turk was still mad. His ears felt hot because of the blood rushing to them. “He almost killed me. He’s supposed to override manually immediately if there’s a problem. Not wait for me to call knock it off. Not then. Shit. I get hit on landing, that’s it.”

Greasy Hands was silent.

“Damn,” said Turk. He shook his head. It was typical Johnson: bluster and blame on everyone except for himself.

“Come on,” said Greasy Hands. “I’ll buy you a beer at Hole 19.”

Hole 19 was a club at Dreamland.

“I gotta finish the postflight brief,” said Turk.

“I’ll finish it with you.”

Turk smiled. Greasy Hands was old-school, a former chief master sergeant now working for the Office of Technology. He’d served at Dreamland for years. Now he was Brea

“I’m OK, Chief,” said Turk.

“I’d like to tag along.”

“All right, come on. Boring stuff, though.”

“Boring’s good in this business,” said Greasy Hands, patting him on the back.

18

Chisinau, Moldova

The obvious next step was to disinter the bodies in the small cemetery and see if the records were wrong and one of them was Stoner’s.

Da

Nuri and Flash were waiting for him when he returned. They’d just come from the Russian bank, where they opened accounts with electronic access. They also scattered a dozen bugs around the place, all with video capacity. The bugs transmitted data to a receiving unit stashed in a garbage bin behind the building, and from there to the satellite network MY-PID used.

“Hey, boss,” said Flash. “Cool helo.”

“Don’t let the paint job fool you,” said Da

“We have some leads,” said Nuri, leading them toward the car he’d rented. “Some better than others.”

The best involved a doctor who specialized in sports medicine, and was quoted in the LeMonde story. MY-PID had tracked him to a small clinic in the capital. There was only one problem: the clinic had closed ten years before. At that point the doctor had ceased to exist.

At least officially. But MY-PID had tracked bank accounts he’d used, co

MY-PID turned up little information on Ivanski. He was Moldovan, of Russian descent, according to certification papers. He had no active practice in the country.

Were they the same person?

Nuri thought they probably were. And, interestingly, the doctor also had an account at the Russian bank, though the records showed it hadn’t been used for nearly four years.

“He has a pretty nice house,” said Nuri. He showed Da

“Maybe we should make an appointment and ask him,” suggested Da

“In town. But first we need background,” said Nuri. “We need to know what kind of questions to ask.”

“Ask him about steroids.”

“That’s the last question we ask,” said Nuri. “We don’t ask that until we’re reeling him in.”

“I don’t know if I’m buying this whole human engineering thing,” Da

“Enhancement, not engineering,” said Nuri. “You don’t like the idea that Stoner was involved? Is that it?”

“I don’t have feelings one way or another.”

It was a lie, but Nuri didn’t call him on it.

“Look, Stoner was Agency,” Nuri told Da

“It’s not foolproof,” said Da

“We’ll know about the cemetery in a few days,” said Nuri. “In the meantime, these are our best leads. Until Kiev.”