Chapter 22
DIA Headquarters
Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling
Washington, D.C.
The crash of the Black Hawk in eastern Turkey didn’t register immediately.
To begin with, the area was extremely remote, the nearest population center being the tiny village of Tercan eight miles away.
There was almost no traffic in the late evening, and the first car that approached the scene braked into an immediate U-turn and bolted away.
It was a perfectly rational response—the road wasn’t far from the Syrian border, a place where flaming wreckage was always best avoided.
Mirroring the crash of SAM 719 two days earlier, an emergency locater transmitter on the Black Hawk activated when its accelerometer sensed the extreme forces of impact.
A few airliners overflying the area heard the warbling ELT signal and reported it to air traffic controllers.
Spurious activations, however, were common and usually inadvertent: careless mechanics or technical malfunctions.
The busy sector controller promised that someone would look into it, and shunted a message to a supervisor, who wasn’t yet on duty.
Also in the dark was the Turkish army tactical operations center that had been coordinating with the Black Hawk.
The TOC had no live data link with the chopper, only a VHF radio relay.
A lieutenant in the TOC sat waiting for a report on the latest interdiction effort, yet VHF coverage at low altitude, where Black Hawks lived and breathed, was spotty at best. As minutes passed with no word about the suspicious truck, he assumed no news was good news.
In a curious ode to the methods of modern surveillance, the first person to recognize the mishap was six thousand miles away, across the Atlantic and up the Potomac, in a windowless warehouse.
And it wasn’t a person at all.
MAADN had been working relentlessly for hours, parsing astonishing volumes of data drawn from every U.S.
intelligence service. Its AI software crushed satellite feeds, drone surveillance, and real-time electronic eavesdropping.
It referenced the interim accident reports from the crash in Bodrum, scientific treatises of how GPS spoofing might be carried out, and a history of every previous attack on record.
It pirated hacked feeds from CCTV cameras across Turkey and inserted itself into mobile phone traffic being monitored by MIT, that nation’s internal intelligence service.
These latter initiatives bordered deeply gray legal arenas.
Fortunately, and probably by design, for all the cutting-edge software driving MAADN forward, inputs for ethical oversight had not yet been considered.
The system was making good progress on the primary questions surrounding the loss of SAM 719. Then, at 1752:29Z, an input arrived that realigned the search entirely.
An NRO platform in low earth orbit sensed a high-intensity flare.
The satellite’s primary mission was to spot ballistic missile launches in the Middle East, but on a clear night, from three hundred miles above, a minor explosion in eastern Turkey captured its electronic attention.
MAADN immediately diverted all other trainable sources, of which there were three, to focus on the same precise coordinates.
Over the next ten minutes, it received a voluminous amount of data, which it interpreted with the dexterity expected of thirteen acres of processing power.
MAADN’s findings were condensed into a concise, human-friendly report—double-spaced Arial, fourteen point, black on white—that was immediately fired to its human controllers across the Potomac.
It landed with an electronic thud in the encrypted inbox of Cyber Cell 6.
Turkish Army Black Hawk has been shot down N39.79845° E40.50343°
Engaged by suspected surface-to-air missile while approaching vehicle for search relating to SAM 719 crash. Three vehicles involved in attack have departed scene. Currently moving eastbound and under surveillance.
Analysis of suspect Vehicle 1: Medium Duty GAZ-C41R13.
Modifications apparent to include probable power generation and antenna mounts.
Visible and infrared signature confirms modifications match profile for electronic attack platform.
Recent movements tracked with 72-hour lookback place vehicle near extended centerline of Bodrum Airport Runway 28R at time of crash.
Registration Georgian, owned by unknown shell company.
Current probability of Vehicle 1 being involved in electronic attack on SAM 719: 94. 63%.
“Holy shit!” said Craterly.
On the far side of the room Kyle and Moose were tucking into Chinese takeout. Moose had just collected the food at the main security station—none of them had eaten since arriving this morning.
“MAADN come up with something on our crash?” Kyle asked across the divide.
“Uh…sort of. But it’s reporting another crash.”
“What?”
Kyle and Moose dropped their chopsticks, hustled over, and read the flash message.
“Holy shit is right,” Moose seconded.
Before Kyle could even speak, a second message from MAADN appeared.
Four suspected casualties on Black Hawk. Based on Turkish army flight plan: Crew of three Turkish army regulars and one passenger, United States Navy officer, name and rank unknown.
Kyle felt as if the floor had been pulled out from beneath him. He was falling, tumbling.
“Kyle?”
He looked up and saw his coworkers staring at him. “I know of only two U.S. Navy officers involved in any of this.”
“It might not be Katie,” Moose said weakly.
Kyle managed a nod, tried to catch his breath. It reminded him of how he’d felt when he had boxed at Annapolis—recovering from a body blow.
“We need to get this to Bubba,” Craterly said.
“No,” Kyle countered, his voice suddenly hoarse. “That’s a sideways move. This has to go up.”
“General Compton?” Compton was the director of the DIA.
“Yes, but only to light a rocket under it,” Kyle said. “This goes straight to the top.”