Chapter 16
Crash Site
Bodrum, Turkey
Katie got the usual delay to complete her encrypted connection. She waited five rings before a familiar voice picked up at ONI.
“Watch desk, Specialist Second Class Pettigrew.”
After a mental stutter, Katie checked the time, did the math. It was much earlier at the National Maritime Intelligence Center in D.C.
“Bubba? It’s me…What are you still doing there? It’s after midnight and the last time we talked, you said you were going home.”
“Yeah, well. I’ve been stayin’ late some nights.”
He sounded sleepy. No, he sounded catatonic. Then it all came together for Katie.
“Oh, wait. It’s your son.”
A freighted sigh carried up to a satellite and then back down to earth. “They tell me that’s how it is with newborns. Little Bub ain’t been sleepin’ too well. Hour here, hour there.”
“How’s Cindy holding up?”
“Okay, I guess. She says she doesn’t mind if I just stay at work. No sense in both of us being zombies. There’s a recliner in one of the big closets over in admin—pretty danged comfortable.”
Katie could easily picture him crashed out on a closeted Barcalounger.
He said, “I’ve been trying to chase down that Learjet you asked about, boss, but I’m hittin’ a wall. It’s definitely a Langley bird, but they’ve got her records sucked down like a hog in muck.”
Katie stumbled on that visual, as she tended to do with Bubba’s colorful analogies. “Okay, let’s put that aside. I’ve got something new for you to work on.”
“Shoot.”
“This crash in Bodrum—we have reason to believe it might be sabotage. In particular, some kind of meaconing attack. You familiar with that?”
“The interception and rebroadcasting or altering of radio-navigation signals.”
“Ah…yeah, that’s it. Anyway, I need you to do a deep dive on adversary capabilities and also check reconnaissance footage for the night in question. I’ve been told it would have required hardware in the vicinity of the crash—a good-sized antenna and some associated electronics.”
“Fixed site or mobile?”
“Could be either.”
“For mobile I would suggest comparing high-res overhead archives to the footage for that night.”
“Do we have much satellite coverage in this part of Turkey?”
Katie heard taps on a keyboard, and she imagined Bubba calling up a map of orbital patterns.
“That specific area, east of Bodrum…it’s not exactly a hot spot for hostile activity.”
“So no recce birds?”
“Au contrary,” Bubba said in a terrible French accent.
“Bodrum itself might be a dud, but it’s sandwiched between some of the most heavily surveilled regions on earth.
On the west side you’ve got the Aegean Sea, which connects to the Bosphorus Strait—that’s the only door in or out for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
And to the right you’ve got a virtual police lineup of adversary states.
Turkey borders Iran, Iraq, and Syria, and the way the orbital tracks run on most of our high-res birds—heck, this crash site probably gets overflown fifty times a day by the NRO.
They normally wouldn’t waste electrons analyzing the area you’re looking at, but there shouldn’t be any shortage of raw footage to dig through. ”
“Perfect. You’ve got contacts there, right? At the NRO?”
A lengthy pause on the Maryland end. “I got a buddy at the head shed, yeah. But he’s a fast-burner, and when it comes to helping OGAs—that boy’s got all the patience of a bee-stung badger. If you want answers on this, fast ones, there’s a better way to go about it.”
“What’s that?”
“New unit standing up over at DIA.”
It was Katie’s turn to hesitate. “Seriously?” She knew he was referring to Cyber Cell 6—they’d received a classified briefing on its capabilities a few weeks earlier. More personally for Katie, her brother Kyle was a team lead in the program.
Bubba said, “They claim this new AI software can sort through massive amounts of reconnaissance to locate specific objects.”
“I remember the slide. But it sounded to me like it was something on the near horizon.”
“Right after you left for your little Italian vacay, we got a request from the DIA. Said they were looking for some real-world problems to work out the kinks in their new toy. I’d say your scenario is about a perfect fit. Not to mention a pressing national interest.”
“All right, fair point. Go ahead and get in touch with…whoever.”
He chuckled.
“What?”
“Well, ma’am, you know. It’s that thing between you and your brother.”
“What thing?”
“I’ve seen how competitive y’all are.”
“We are not! At least, not when it comes to our professional lives.”
“Look, I’ll try to route this through somebody else in the office. But at some point, Kyle’s going to figure out who’s asking for what.”
“It doesn’t matter, Bubba. He’ll do his job.”
“I’m sure he will. Oh, and one other thing you should know about, boss. It just came down from on high and has to do with your crash. Seems the CIA had been planning to put a plus-one on this flight, an asset they were trying to extract from Morocco.”
“Extract? You mean like a defection or something?”
“They didn’t give details, but that’s what it sounded like to me.”
“The Learjet,” she said, her thoughts catching up.
“Seems like a standard agency move. One quick and quiet connecting flight, and you disappear somebody into the global ether. Wouldn’t take more than a day to have ’em buttoned up in a Virginia safe house and surrounded by saber-toothed water lizards.”
Again, Katie pushed away Bubba’s charming visual. “But then this crash got in the way of their plan. I wonder if it could be our missing passenger.”
“Your what?”
She explained to him that the recovery efforts had come up one set of remains short.
“Well now, ain’t that a coincidence. Hang on, the CIA did send us something.” Katie heard typing, until Bubba said, “Their extractee was listed on the manifest as Ronald Hauptman. I figure that’s gotta be an alias.”
Katie tried to wrap her head around this new twist. What had started as a simple air crash was getting more complicated by the minute.
“Okay, I’ll look into it from my end. I remember that name being on the manifest, but I don’t think it’s one of the bodies that’s been identified.
Pass that on to Cyber Cell 6 as well, see if they can help figure out if it’s Hauptman that’s missing. ”
“Copy that.”
“And Bubba…”
“Ma’am?”
“Cindy is not okay. Once you get this ball rolling, go home and relieve her. That’s an order!”