The Vulture (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-six

Charlie turned his attention to the picture array Sam sent him. He forwarded it to the desk that handled facial recognition and e-mailed what he was doing to his opposite numbers in the FBI and Homeland Security. He didn't need an interagency kerfuffle over what could be perceived as the CIA meddling in domestic affairs. Possible terrorists with ISIS connections, he'd noted on the transmittal. That would give them pause but shouldn't upset anyone. Most of the people working national security issues were willing to cut the sister services a little slack now and again. It's just that they did not like surprises.

E-mails sent, he went back to scouring the databases available to him that might reveal anything that seemed off-kilter in Idaho. A second message from Ike sidetracked that search. He spent the next hour with the Agency task force responsible for real estate transactions and safe houses. Shortly thereafter, Western Sky Realty or whatever Ike decided to call it, had office space in Idaho. A packet of brochures and prospectuses outlining the oil exploration processes connected with fracking were shipped out on the next flight to the state as well. He left for a late lunch and returned to find he'd missed a call from NuFlyte Industries. They would be pleased to demonstrate their drone and when would Mr. Garland like to see the product? Charlie set up a meeting for the next morning and no, he didn't need to see it fly, he only need to know its capabilities and if the company would release one in his custody. He was told that even though it was an unusual request, considering the source, they would be happy to oblige. He sent out a requisition for field agents to assume duties at their fake real estate business, two women and two men ought to do it, he thought. As an afterthought, he asked for Karl Hedrick to be seconded from the FBI and added to the list. All their faces were erased from the databases used for facial recognition. Alice stuck her head in the door to announce that she had completed the task he'd given her. It had taken most of the afternoon and early evening. She dumped a thick stack of printouts on Charlie's desk.

“It's late and I'm going home. After reading all that, I need a stiff drink and long soak. Until I clock-in tomorrow, you'll have to get your own coffee. Good evening, Charlie.”

Charlie hefted the papers and shook his head. He began reading. After an hour, he remembered where he had run across Martin Pangborn before and, more importantly, the circumstances. It seemed unthinkable that that run-in had prompted all that had transpired since. He read on, dug into the scant history available about the businessman's childhood, the more detailed data about his business dealings, the havoc they'd caused countless families, and concluded that it was, indeed, possible.

He needed to warn Ike to be careful. If Pangborn ever figured out that his plan had failed, things could get very sticky, very fast. Charlie sat back and considered what or who else might be on Pangborn's agenda, or in his crosshairs, to be more exact. That's when he realized that, among others, he might be on the man's hit list, too. It was an interesting thought and one, if true, he might be able to use to his advantage. That assumed, of course, that Pangborn didn't know that he, Charlie, had stumbled onto him. A risky assumption.

Frank Sutherlin called to tell him that he and the deputies in Picketsville had teased out the where and how of the bomb-planting and who might have been involved. Unfortunately, the cop who'd been involved was dead, he said, and did Charlie know anything about a group called the Fifty-one or Fifty-first Star?

Charlie said he did now, but not enough. The last he'd seen of that logo was on a burned-out helicopter on an island in Maine. He'd put somebody on it in the morning and complimented Frank and all the people in the sheriff's office for work well done. Did he need anything else? Not right now but told them to keep digging. Was anyone else in the Rockbridge Sheriff's Office a member? Could he track the car driven by the cop killer? Frank said they were trying but there wasn't much to go on. Just the dash cam image. Charlie said to send it to him. He'd put his people on it.

It had been a slow process but things were starting to come into focus. He felt the tingle in the back of his neck. He was onto something. He turned his attention back to the printout of Martin Pangborn. Mr. Pangborn, it seemed, had himself connected all the way up to the former President of the United States. He was a consummate wheeler-dealer, a confidante to celebrities, a would-be kingmaker, and judging by some of the practices he'd employed in the course of acquiring his wealth, a nasty piece of business.

It was a little after midnight when Charlie believed he might have stumbled onto the connection between Pangborn and Senator Connors. It was pretty thin and he'd want to think about it before he said anything. Ike should probably know, but no one else. Something that explosive needed to be verified, rock solid. Martin Pangborn had friends and money in high places and would not roll over easily, even if he was a blackmailer.

He packed up and went home. He made sure no one followed him. Tomorrow, things should pick up.

***

The sun had been down and what passed for dinner consumed. Sam was occupied with the messages coming in over the encrypted airwaves. She felt pretty sure she had isolated the receiver they were looking for. All she needed was to connect a place to the messages. Which ranch, mansion, or motel harbored the recipient? She thought she'd need to drive around with a tracker and triangulate before she did. Tomorrow she'd request the fake bad guys to up the radio traffic.

Ruth listened with half an ear, her eyes on Ike. Ike was pacing. She recognized the behavior and knew that nothing in her bag of tricks would make him stop. She'd tried once and felt like a fool when Ike smiled absently and paced on by as she, wearing a lacy nightgown which was more lace than gown, attempted to lure him away. Even her feeble attempt at a hip thrust went unremarked. Ike apologized later and said he didn't remember anything. She'd found that hard to believe.

“Are you sure? I mean I know that thing that you don't wear often enough and if you had been in it and…did you say thrust? I would remember that.”

“I did and you didn't, Sheriff. Your loss. That is not something I do on a regular basis and after that rebuff, I might never again. It was cold.”

“That part, I remember.”

Ruth sighed at the memory and watched as Ike reached the end of his ambit and started back. She poured two fresh cups of coffee and offered Ike one as he walked by. “What do you need?” she said, hoping it would be something in her power to deliver, but certain it wouldn't.

He took the cup and sipped. “Movement.”

“Movement?”

“We are stuck. I need to move forward, sideways, even backwards if it will get us out of this rut.”

There wasn't much she could do about that. It was only after the crate arrived and its contents revealed the next day that Ike had what he needed to get back on track.

Chapter Twenty-seven

The UPS truck gnashed its gears, reversed, and drove away leaving the crate and several packages on the porch. Ike hauled them indoors and opened the largest one, the crate.

“Unless I missed something,” Ike said, “this is our drone.”

Sam shook her head. “It looks like a big model airplane. My brother used to put them together only his were made out of balsa wood and some of them had a rubber band motor. Is that Styrofoam?”

“It is, among other things.”

“So, we ask for a drone to put eyes on the ranch and this is the best that Garland can do?”

“You didn't think he was going to commandeer a Predator, did you?”

“I hoped. So what do we do with this Cracker Jack toy?”

“Give me an hour with the manual and I will let you know. In the meantime, why don't you locate the source of the chatter? Five will get you ten it is the New Star Ranch.”

Sam packed up her gear and drove off after assuring Ruth and Ike she would be back for lunch, so if they had plans that required complete privacy, they should act accordingly. Ruth told her to shut up.

“She has a point, though, Ike.”

“What. You want to romp? Now?”

“No…yes, but that's not what I meant. What the heck was Charlie thinking and how can that flimsy thing possibly solve your problem?”

“Patience. According to the book this is a technological marvel. Why don't you unpack the rest of the boxes? I gather we have real estate in town and agents on their way to help us. We will need to get them settled when they arrive and by then I hope we will have something for them to do besides pretend to be looking for fracking sites.”

Ruth tackled the rest of the boxes and Ike studied the drone manual. After an hour he'd unpacked all of the components and began to assemble it. Completed, it appeared much larger than either thought. Sam returned with her map and an expression that indicated she'd been successful.

“You were right. The signals are coming from and going to the New Star Ranch. Where did that thing come from?

“Good. That ‘thing' came out of the crate. Not much of a toy now, is it?”

In fact the assembled aircraft did not look like what any of them had imagined. It had a wingspan of nearly five feet and with its propulsion unit mounted high on its dorsal surface, it resembled a flying shark as much as it did a plane.

“You're going to launch that over the ranch? They'll see it in a minute and probably shoot it down.”

“Wait, wait for it….” Ike opened what appeared to be a briefcase but which revealed a panel that looked like the binnacle of an airplane cockpit. He flipped a few switches and the whole underside of the aircraft changed color. More than color, it seemed to sprout feathers. “Behold the wonders of nanotechnology.”

“Where did they come from?”

“This stuff is not my long suit but apparently the underside of the unit is covered with an ultrafine network of micro filaments or tubes which can respond to signals sent to them somehow. During the day, the underside of the thing looks for all the world like a large turkey vulture. That's its name, by the way, the Vulture. The Air Force and the CIA have the Predator, we have the Vulture.”

“Should I be impressed?”

“Yes, you should. Not only that, but it is programmed to circle like one of those birds. The problem with the earlier models of this kind of drone was that they looked like a bird, but that's all. They simply flew in circles. It wasn't long before the people on the ground caught on. This one banks and sails like a real bird. If you watch it through binoculars, for example, even the feathers seem to flutter in the air current and when it banks, according to the book, they flare as they would with a bird. Now watch.”

Ike flipped another switch and the feathers disappeared and the underside turned sky blue. “If you were watching it with binoculars, it just disappeared from view.”

“And at night?”

Ike flipped another toggle and the drone turned matte black.

“Holy crap. I want one of those,” said Sam.

“I'm impressed. Wow, think of the possibilities,” Ruth said. “You could have a dress made with that stuff. Someone comes to your party in the same outfit, you flip a switch and you have completely new dress.”

“Umm, yeah, I guess that could work.”

“Or you could change the color of your car to match your shoes. The applications are limitless.”

“Now you're being sarcastic.”

“You noticed. But, you heard it here first, that will be but a few of the civilian applications that some guy with perfect teeth and hair will flog on TV and sell a million dresses, cars, hats, you name it. It is a brave new world we are entering, kiddies.”

Sam grinned. “Okay. So what kind of payload can it carry and for how long?”

“It says here it can carry a HiDef TV camera and transmitter and at night, a night vision unit. It can fly around for eight hours before it needs refueling. Charlie says if we need really close-in stuff, they will reposition a satellite for us, but there would be a ginormous hassle to do that so we're not to ask unless we have something really big.”

“There is more space in there.”

“Yeah. The manual says it can carry a small explosive charge. I guess it would be rigged to go if it were to fall into the hands of the wrong people.”

“Or a small bomb?”

“That, too, I guess.”

“So now what?” Ruth asked.

“Now we fuel this bird up, set it to Vulture mode, enter the geographic coordinates and launch. Later this evening we can bring it back and reconfigure it for a night run.”

“One problem,” Ruth said. “What about our nosey oafs? Mightn't they be watching? And won't seeing this thing buzz off the property give them the heebie-jeebies, not to mention a very bad impression of who we are?”

“Point taken. We need to secure the perimeter. Charlie sent us some cameras and a monitor in that box over there. Let's take a walk.”

***

Ike studied the monitor. It had taken him a few minutes to adjust to its relatively small size. The camera in the bird, now circling the New Star Ranch a few miles away, held steady and in focus irrespective of the maneuvers the “bird” made. Ike guessed there were servos that kept the camera pointed and focused as the platform shifted its position in the sky.

“What did you expect to see?” Ruth had fixed sandwiches and passed one to Ike.

“Anything from a herd of cattle to a battalion of tanks. I don't know, really. The place is just too odd not to study. I would love to search one of those barrack-like buildings.”

“Could the Vulture swoop down for a closer look?”

“It could, but I don't want to draw attention to it just now. Up close only an idiot would think it's a big bird.”

“So you got nothing.”

“Not nothing, but what I do have, I don't know how to interpret. There are men down there. They move around like they have things to do. You know, working and so on. Then there seem to be some young people there as well. A fair number. It's like a camp. But boys only.”

“Any women?”

“Oh, yeah. No girls, though.”

“Hey…”

“I mean there are women, a number of them. Not as many as the men, but they are there. What I meant was, there don't seem to be any female children.”

“And?”

“And…I don't know. Why boys and no girls? I don't like asymmetry.”

“If I had any idea what that meant, I'd be impressed. What does it mean, anyway?”

“Look, you have men. You have women. Normal arrangement only more of the former than the latter. That would be an acceptable ratio on a ranch. Okay, you have children. One expects a similar ratio of boys and girls. Not true here. I don't see any young girls at the ranch, just boys. I want to know why.”

“Okay, here's a flash, Sheriff. At the distance you are scanning, you couldn't distinguish boys, young males, from girls. Not if they are in jeans and checked shirts, have short hair, and wear Nikes. I know you think you can but you can't. Those things that obsess men, the bumps and curves, don't appear until later. You could have all girls, for all you know.”

“You might be right and you might not. If I am correct and there's even a disproportionate number of boys to girls, I bet it's important.”

“You have a very suspicious mind. Okay, let's say you're right. How about they are running a boys' camp?”

Sam looked up from studying the screen. “I thought I read that the militia group there had a young people's subunit called the pioneers…something…Young Pioneers. That could be them.”

“There you go, Sherlock, the Mystery of the Too Many Boys solved

“Okay, that would explain it. And yes, I do—have a suspicious mind, that is. Hand me a beer, will you?”

“Here you go. Okay, enough with the gender issues, real and imagined. I've been thinking about my nano dress.”

“Your what?”

“The dress that is made with those micro fiber things that can change color and do stuff like make the Vulture disappear, that nano dress.”

“Okay, the theoretical dress. What about it?”

“How would it work if it disappeared, you know, went blank? Is it like Harry Potter's Cloak of Invisibility? Would I disappear too? That would certainly be convenient at times. Or would I be standing there in my panties? Or just wearing a dull white dress?”

“And you need to know this why?”

“It would make a difference if and how much I spend on underwear, that's why.”

“Eat your sandwich.”