HIGh FLIGHT

by

DAVID HAGBERG
 NOVELS BY DAVID HAGBERG

Twister
The Capsule
Last Come the Children
Heartland
Without Honor
Countdown
Cross Fire
Critical Mass
Desert Fire
High Flight

 WRITING AS SEAN FLANNERY

The Kremlin Conspiracy
Eagles Fly
The Trinity Factor
The Hollow Men
Broken Idols
False Prophets
Gulag
Moscow Crossing
The Zebra Network
Crossed Swords
Counterstrike
Moving Targets
Winner Take All
                                    A TOM
ATOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK
NEWYORK
                                     NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that
 this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to
 the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received
 payment for this "stripped book."

 This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this
 novel are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is
 purely coincidental.

 HIGH FLIGHT

 Copyright @ 1995 by David Hagberg

 All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or
 portions thereof, in any form.

 Cover art by Alan Ayers

 Quotes from Bushido: The Warrior's Code by Inazo Nitobe, used with kind
 permission of Ohara Publications, Inc.

 A Tor Book Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc. 175 Fifth Avenue New
 York, NY 100 10

 Tor Books on the World Wide Web: http://www.tor.com

 Tbr@ is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc.

 ISBN: 0-812-51012-7 Library of Congress Card Catalog Number 95-12548

 First edition: August 1995 First mass market edition: August 1996

 Printed in the United States of America

 0 9 & 7 6 5 4 3 21
My apologies to the city of Portland,
Oregon, and vicinity. Fact is I placed an
imaginary aircraft company in a real
locate. No disrespect was intended.
Portland just seemed like the right place.
                                    This book is for
LAURIE.
We too have broken the surly
bonds of earth.
                                              HIGH FLIGHT

 Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds-and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of-wheeled and soared and swung
  Hung in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
 I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
  My eager craft through footless halls of air.
 Up, up the long delirious, burning blue
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
 Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
  And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
 The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

          Written by RCAF Flight-Lieutenant John Gillespie Magee, Jr.,
          shortly before his death at age 19.
 If he did not succeed, at least he dared greatly before he fell.

                     -Ovid on Phafthon

 I've tried to make the men around me feel, as I do, that we are embarked
 as pioneers upon a new science and industry in which our problems are so
 new and unusual that it behooves no one to dismiss any novel idea with the
 statement that "it can't be done!" Our job is to keep everlastingly at
 research and experiment, to adapt our laboratories to production as soon
 as practicable, to let no new improvement in flying and flying equipment
 pass us by.

                  -William E. Boeing, 1929
 SPRING 1990
 PROLOGUE

 Anarrow beam of light flashed suddenly in the
     dark confines of the airliner's electronics bay. A
     slightly built man dressed in the white coveralls
 of an American Airlines maintenance technician di
 rected the penlight toward a particular equipment rack.
 The boards were all dead. Not even standby power was
 being supplied to the jetliner parked at the ramp. The
 man studied the rack, and those on either side of it in the
 cramped                           quarters, then turned his flashlight
 away.
  Hunching down on his knees, he opened his tool kit and took out a plastic
  box, barely one inch on a side, laid it on the deck, then took out a
  screwdriver and began removing the six screws that held a narrow
  electronics panel marked HEAT MONITOR/ALARM, ENGINE, PORT in the center
  rack.
  Miyazaki Oshima's movements were as precise as they were soundless. He
  had practiced the drill dozens of times so that he could not possibly
  make a mistake. When he finished he set the screwdriver aside, slid the
  panel out from its slot in the rack, and propped it at an angle against
  his knees. Holding the penlight in his
 4 DAVID HAGBERG

 mouth and directing it on the subassembly's innards, he slid the cover
 panel back until its spring-loaded catches released, then removed it and
 put it aside. The unit was crammed with electronic modules each containing
 one or more computer chips. Few other components or wiring were visibile
 from the top. A metal tag bore the
 legend PE171.314.LP522, INTERTECH CORP., SAN FRANCISCO, CA., which matched
 the number on the small plastic box lying beside him on the deck.
  Oshima cocked his head to listen for any sound from above that might
  indicate someone was coming. But the equipment bay was utterly still. The
  air was close. It smelled of lubricating oil, hydraulic fluid, kerojet,
  and electronics. Irrationally he thought of this place as a coffin.
  Using a special tool that looked like a four-inch plastic pry bar, he
  removed one of the modules from the heat monitor/alarm subassembly, and
  replaced it with the one from the plastic box. Both modules were
  identical to the naked eye, and no routine maintenance diagnostic test
  would tell them apart.
  Making sure that the replacement module was firmly seated in its
  receptacle, he replaced the subassembly's cover panel, reengaging its
  catches, then slid the entire unit back into the equipment rack, pushing
  firmly to make sure the contact bar pins fully mated. Forcing himself not
  to speed up, not to make any mistake, he refastened the six screws
  holding the unit in place, returned the screwdriver, pry bar, and plastic
  box that now contained the original module to his tool kit, and carefully
  examined the area immediately around each screw head in case he had
  inadvertently scratched the metal. If he had, he could touch it up, but
  he had not, and he was satisfied.
  He remained crouched for a moment or two, listening, feeling, trying to
  sense the essence of the jetliner and the people who would fly in her
  soon. And die in her.
  He switched off the penlight and by touch returned it to his tool kit.
  The feeling of distress, he was taught, was
                  HIGH FLIGHT 5

 the root of benevolence. He felt as if he was finally becoming gishi-a man
 of rectitude. Of giri-duty.
  "It is true courage to live when it is right to live, and to die only
  when it is right to die." The precepts of Bushido. the Japanese warrior's
  code of honor. "But courage is a virtue only in the case of
  righteousness."
  Hiroshima. Nagasaki. These abominations to the Yamato Damashi-the soul-of
  Japan could not be forgotten. He'd been taught that, too, from childhood.
  He carried the resentment like a Samurai carried his swords.
  But the parliament's kowtowing to Washington over nothing more than
  commerce also ate at Japan's soul.
  At twenty-six, Oshima was not old enough to remember Yukio Mishima,
  Japan's greatest post-war novelist, who committed seppuku in 1970 to
  illustrate his belief that Japan's soul could be saved only by a return
  to Bushido. But he believed in what the master had taught, and at certain
  times his belief was clearly visible on his face as a saintly, beatific
  smile. He smiled now. By being here, by doing this thing, he was helping
  to preserve Japan.
  "I want you to have no illusions about the job you are being asked to
  do," Arimoto Yamagata told him six months ago. "You understand
  everything?"
 "Hai, Yamagata-san, " Oshima had answered sharply.
  "If your true purpose is discovered and you are arrested, we will deny
  any knowledge of you. The United States authorities will punish you, and
  when you finally come home you will be tried again, found guilty, and
  will be sentenced to a very long time in prison."
 "Seppuku . . . "
  "There will be no honorable death for you, if you fail."
  Yamagata's expression was stem, but the implication of what had gone
  unsaid made Oshima swell with pride. In failure there would be dishonor,
  but in success there would be rewards.
 "I will not fail, Yamagata-san.
 6 DAVID HAGBERG

  "I'm sure you will not," Yamagata said, finally smiling. They were seated
  alone, fifty miles outside of Tokyo, on a broad scrubbed teak deck that
  overlooked a pleasant garden. The gentle sounds of running water mingled
  with the musical tinkling of a windchime in the single, gnarled tree in
  the middle of the garden. The sand had been freshly raked, and Oshima had
  been asked to bear witness to the placing of a new rock near the pool.
  Yamagata called it "future," with a second name of "hope. 11

 "I will think of this place often," Oshima had said.
 "Yes, Oshima-san. And here I will think of you."
  Yarnagata worked for the powerful Ministry of International Trade and
  Industry-MITI -which was the nearest thing to an intelligence agency that
  Japan maintained. The ministry had influence in every comer of Japanese
  science, business, and government, and therefore nearly unlimited
  resources. Training Oshima on the proper equipment, in secret, getting
  him to the United States on a U.S. passport as Michael Oshima, and
  getting him the proper credentials so that he had access to the
  restricted sections of Chicago's O'Hare Airport had been no problem. Nor
  had getting through security this morning presented any difficulties. As
  a technician with the proper badges and work orders his presence was
  barely noticed.
 Now it was time to leave.
  Careful to make no noise, he picked up his tool kit, got to his feet, and
  climbed to the top of the ladder, where he stopped a moment to listen.
  So far as he could tell no one was aboard the aircraft. It was before
  4:30 in the morning and this plane's first scheduled flight wasn't due
  out until 7:30 A.m. The first of the maintenance technicians and
  housekeeping crew wouldn't be showing up until 5:30, which left him a
  full hour to get out.
 Plenty of time, he told himself. But he was jumpy.
  He pushed the trap door open a crack. The interior of the plane was in
  darkness, only a dim light came through the windows from outside. He
  hesitated a moment
                  HIGH FLIGHT 7

 longer, then eased the trap door the rest of the way open. Laying his tool
 kit on the deck, he climbed up into the cockpit, careful to keep below the
 level of the windshield so that if someone outside happened to look this
 way, they would not see him.
  He closed and relatched the trap door, picked up his tool kit, and
  scrambled back to the galley where he straightened up a few feet forward
  of the main hatch.
  The weather was warm so the hatch was open directly onto the jetway back
  to the boarding gate. It had been figured into their contingency plans.
  If someone were on the ramp when he was ready to leave through the flight
  service area he could use the jetway and make his escape through the
  terminal.
  "It will not do to simply replace the central processor," Yamagata had
  said. "You must not be discovered. You must make your escape."
  Yamagata had shown up at Narita Airport a half-hour before Oshima's
  flight to Chicago. His presence came as a complete surprise and honor.
  Oshima had been deeply touched.
  "You must know that you are part of a large team that has worked for
  Japan's honor for a long time. This will not be a random act of
  violence."
 "I don't understand."
  "No need for you to understand, except that you are not a terrorist."
 "A warrior."
  Yamagata smiled. "Yes. You will be our shield, Oshima-san. "
  The novelist, Mishima, had maintained a private army to defend the
  emperor when the time came for revolt. It was called the Shield Society.
  Oshima was very proud that Yamagata had made such a reference even if it
  was obscure.
  He glanced a last time back toward the cockpit, then stepped out of the
  galley and through the hatch into the jetway. Act of terrorism or not,
  he felt queasy thinking about what would happen here shortly after
  American's
 8 DAVID HAGBERG

 Flight 413 took off. The crash would be blamed on a catastrophically
 sudden port engine overheat. The fanjet would disintegrate in midair,
 taking all or most of that wing with it. There would be no chance of
 recovery. Not one in a billion.
  No one was below on the ramp. Oshima unlocked the jetway service door and
  hurried down the stairs. The night air smelled of burned kerojet. The
  flight service area was lit up, but no one was in sight.
  Oshima pulled up short. A half-dozen suitcases tagged for Houston were
  piled on a baggage trailer. They'd not been there ten minutes ago when
  he'd come this way. While he'd been aboard 413, someone brought the
  baggage out.
  Now he could hear voices from somewhere in the back. In the direction of
  the break room.
  He stepped into the shadows. Ten minutes ago the field had been quiet.
  But now a pickup truck, orange lights flashing, crossed 14L toward a
  Delta hangar threefourths of a mile away. The hangar's main bay doors
  were open, and a big jetliner, all lit up, was parked inside.
  It was too early by at least an hour. No one was supposed to show up
  until after five. It was only 4:30. Something was wrong.
  No alarms had been sounded. No airport security officers were swarming
  around. But that wouldn't last long. The first American Airlines
  supervisor he encountered would probably ask questions that Oshima
  couldn't answer.
  He would be searched. The replacement module would be found in his tool
  kit. He would have failed.
  "There will be no honorable seppuku for you," Yamafata's words came back.
  His comrades would not rejoice in his passing.
  But he had forgotten nothing. He'd watched the airport through March and
  the first week of April. Timing the comings and goings of the maintenance
  and security staffs, the service people, the flight crews, and flights
  themselves until he could safely predict the day-
                    HIGH FLIGHT 9

 to-day, hour-to-hour activities anywhere within the O'Hare complex.
  He had picked this hour, four in the morning, on this day, Sunday, because
  this was the time when the airport was the quietest.
  He had forgotten nothing. But the airport was coming alive an hour too
  early!
  Somebody said something and laughed, and the swinging doors to the baggage
  service area opened.
  Oshima sprinted back out to the ramp as a truck pulled up fifty yards away.
  The driver got out and went into the service area.
  More service crew were coming into the baggage area, leaving Oshima no
  option except the route through the terminal. Forcing himself to remain
  calm, not to panic, he hurried upstairs, unlocked the door, and slipped
  into the jetway, hoping that no one had spotted him.
  Somehow he had his times mixed up, although he couldn't see how that was
  possible. But as long as he could get away clean it wouldn't matter.
  He started down the jetway toward the boarding gate when he heard voices
  coming his way, and he froze.
  "No firearms," his trainers had told him. "If you get yourself into a
  situation where deadly force is needed, you will have already failed."
 But he hadn't counted on being cornered like this.
  He turned back to the window in time to see a man in white coveralls start
  up the stairs. There were no options now.
  With only a few seconds leeway, Oshima reboarded the jetliner, yanked open
  the cockpit trap door into the electronics bay, scrambled down into the
  darkness, and closed and relatched the door overhead. His heart pounded,
  and he had to force himself to take even breaths lest someone come into the
  cockpit and hear him panting like a cornered animal.
  At first he heard nothing, but then someone came aboard. They stopped, then
  came forward into the cockpit directly over his head, and Oshima held his
  breath.
 10 DAVID HAGBERG

  There was silence for a few seconds, until something thumped against the
  hull, and a man in the cockpit spoke as if on a radio.
  "That's roger. I'm bringing up standby power for one minute to finish
  that ... ah, diagnostic on bus two-fourtwo-baker."
  A second later LED indicators on a dozen electronics panels around him
  suddenly came to life, and he nearly fell down, his knees weak, his
  breath catching in his throat.
  There was enough light for him to see the racks and wiring and hydraulic
  lines, and enough light for someone to see him if they opened the trap
  door.
  He eased back into the darkness as far as he could go, taking care to
  make no noise.
  Had he been stopped in the terminal he might have been able to bluff his
  way out of the airport. But to be caught here, like this, there would be
  no explanation other than the truth: He had sabotaged the airplane. But
  if he was trapped down here and could not get off, he would have to fly
  at 7:30.
  He sat down on his knees and heels, set the tool kit aside, and
  concentrated on his breathing so that he could fight off the rising panic
  that threatened to block his sanity and his courage. If this were the
  time and place for him to die, then so be it. In a way it would be a form
  of seppuku, and therefore honorable. He would not have failed.
  The panels went dead, plunging the electronics bay into complete darkness
  again. Oshima flinched despite himself.
  "I'm down," the technician radioed. "Looks like a broken connection on
  f-thirty-three-fifteen-baker. That's the circuit breaker for ... ah, the
  forward galley. Looks like an auxiliary. No, it's for one of the
  coffeemakers."
  The radioed reply was too faint for Oshima to make out.
  "The prep crew won't be aboard for another twenty minutes. I should have
  it done by then."
 It was ironic, Oshima thought, that a man's life could
                 HIGH FLIGHT 11

 hinge on something so insignificant as an electric coffeemaker.
  "Roger that," the technician said. "I'll set both panel clocks forward."
 Oshima looked up sharply.
  The technician chuckled. "It screws me up every spring, too."
  Daylight saving time, the thought suddenly crystallized in Oshima's head.
  Since he had arrived in Chicago six weeks ago he'd been too busy to give
  more than cursory notice to the newspapers or the radio or television.
  If he had paid more attention he would have realized that on this Sunday
  clocks across the United States were set one hour ahead. It was not 4:30
  A.m. now; it was 5:30 A.M.
  That irony was even more bitter to Oshima than the coffeemaker's faulty
  circuit breaker, and he almost laughed out loud.
  As he had promised Yamagata, he thought of the garden, and the windchime,
  and the rock named "future" and "hope," while with one ear he listened
  to the sounds from the cockpit and from the belly of the airplane as the
  first of the luggage was loaded aboard.
  Future and hope were meant to symbolize Japan's Yamato spirit. The rock
  placed in such a setting so obviously at peace and harmony with itself
  was meant as a focus or catalyst for the thoughts.
 Yoshida Sh6in once wrote:

 Full well I knew this course must end in death:
 It was Yamato spirit urged me on
 To dare whate'er betide.

  Someone else came aboard the jetliner, and later others, after which the
  panel LED indicators came on again, and more baggage was loaded aft and
  below.
  Oshima became calmer as his fear peeled away from him like layers of
  onion. He carefully examined each line of the verse that Sh6in had
  composed on the evening before his execution for being a traitor against
  the turn
 12 DAVID HAGBERG

 of the century "New Japan," and he understood its meaning. He knew the
 fatalism that Sh6in had felt, as well as the sense of inner peace that
 came before death.
  The master had been a bu-shi, in the old meaning, a fighting knight. It
  had been his only crime against modernism.
  But now in Japan the belief that the old ways were the best was coming
  back. Japan had lost her greatness, but she would regain it in this
  century, or within the first years of the next. The return to power was
  as inevitable as it was just and righteous.
  Oshima was barely conscious of the passage of time, although he was aware
  of the continuing preparation for the jetliner's first and last flight
  of the day.
  A fundamental difference between Americans and Japanese was that
  Americans believed anything worth doing was worth doing right. The
  Japanese, however, believed that anything worth doing was worth dying
  for. It was one of the reasons Japan would be victorious morally,
  financially, and, given the time, militarily.
  Oshima was startled when the engines came to life, one at a time. The
  noise was loud in the equipment bay.
  He could hear announcements being read over the airplane's public address
  system, though it was hard to~ pick out the exact words.
  The jetliner lurched, then moved slowly backward from the boarding gate.
  For a second, Oshima considered bypassing the heat monitor/alarm panel
  so that he could replace the original module without the flight crew
  becoming aware of it. But he dismissed the idea.
  The airplane turned and then started forward, bumping along the uneven
  ramp toward the taxiway.
  In the old days Samurai warriors learned to compose poetry in order to
  cultivate a gentleness of spirit to temper their passion for killing.
  Oshima had read about one ancient master who had instructed his
  warrior-pupil to construct a verse about the Uguisu, the warbler, or
  Japanese nightingale.
 The young warrior made a first crude effort:
                 HIGH FLIGHT 13

 The brave warrior keeps apart
 The ear that might listen
 To the warbler's song.

  The airplane stopped, then the engines roared and they accelerated down the
  runway, the noise rising sharply, and then even more sharply as they became
  airborne.
  The master continued to work with the young warrior until his soul
  awakened, and he wrote:

 Stands the warrior, mailed and strong
 To hear the Uguisu's song,
 Warbled sweet the trees among.

  The jetliner banked left as it continued to climb, and Oshima's thoughts
  turned again to the rock, "future" and "hope."
  At twenty-three thousand feet the airplane's port engine disintegrated
  without warning, shearing off the entire wing to within five feet of its
  root, blasting a hole seven feet in diameter in the side of the hull
  halfway back to the tail surfaces, and taking out all electrical power to
  the cockpit so that neither the twenty-five-year veteran captain, nor the
  ten-year veteran first officer had a chance to radio Mayday.
  Oshima was conscious all the way to impact in a farm field south of Joliet,
  and on the way down he wondered if a poem would be written about him
  someday.
 WINTER 1997
 ONE

 Kirk Collough McGarvey knew that someone was coming for him again. Wishful
 thinking or not, he'd had the feeling all through the fall semester where
 he taught eighteenth-century literature at Milford College on Delaware's
 east coast. At the odd moment he would stop in mid-sentence and glance at
 the door, half expecting to see someone there. Or he would pick up the
 telephone in his apartment, certain that it had rung, but there'd only be
 the dial tone.
  It had been three and a half years since he'd last had any contact with
  the CIA, or with anyone from official Washington, and nearly that long
  since he'd spoken with his ex-wife, Kathleen, although their only
  daughter, Elizabeth, now twenty-one, came down from New York several
  times a year to see him.
  "What's the matter, Daddy?" she asked at Thanksgiving. But he had no
  answer for her. Nervousness? Simple boredom? Once a field man always a
  field man, that was the drill, wasn't it?
 Pushing fifty, he wasn't over the hill yet. He was a tall,
 IS DAVID HAGBERG

 muscularly built man, with a thick shock of brown hair starting to turn gray
 at the temples, and wide, honest eyes, sometimes green, at other times gray.
 He ran ten miles and swam five every day, rain or shine. He worked out with
 the college's fencing team to maintain his coordination. And once a month he
 spent an afternoon at a local gun club's firing range.
  He'd not lost his edge, but as the CIA's general counsel, Howard Ryan, told
  him in Murphy's office three and a half years ago, he was an anachronism.
  "You're a man who has outlived his usefulness," the lawyer said. "The
  Soviet Union is no more. The bad guys have packed up and quit. Time for the
  professional administrators and negotiators to take over and straighten out
  the mess. Thanks for a job well done, but we no longer need shooters."
  Bad times, he thought, getting out of his car. He headed over the sand
  dunes to Slaughter Beach on the bay. It was a few minutes after three, the
  day cold and blustery. At the top of the last rise he stopped to watch the
  whitecaps march down the bay in regular rows. The wind was gusting to
  thirty-five knots. Spits of snow drove out of a leaden sky, and he could
  pick out the shape of a southbound container ship well out into the bay
  heading for warmer climes.
  More years ago than he wanted to remember the Company had sent him to
  Santiago to kill a general who'd been responsible for hundreds of deaths in
  and around the capital. But his orders had been changed in midstream
  without his knowing about it. After the kill he'd returned to Washington a
  pariah.
  He'd run then to Switzerland until he'd been called out of retirement for
  a brief but particularly nasty assignment. No one thanked him. There were
  no welcome-home parades, no presentations at the White House. He was paid
  and went to ground next in Paris until his call to arms had come again, as
  he knew it would. Ryan was just as wrong three and a half years ago as he
  was now. The world may have become a much safer place with the demise of
  the Soviet- Union as a
                 HIGH FLIGHT 19

 superpower, but there was still a need for a man willing to kill. A man,
 McGarvey sometimes thought of himself, without a past. Or, more accurately,
 a man driven by a past from which he was trying to escape.
  Looking back toward the highway he watched until the blue Ford Taurus
  pulled onto the beach access road, then he headed the rest of the way down
  to the water's edge. The beach was deserted, as he knew it would be, and as
  soon as he was out of sight of the parking area, he transferred his Walther
  PPK automatic from the holster at the small of his back to his jacket
  pocket.
  It was possible that someone had come from Langley to offer him another
  job. But it was just as likely that someone out of his past had finally
  come gunning for him. Lately he'd been having his old recurring nightmare
  in which Arkady Kurshin was climbing up out of a flooded tunnel. The
  Russian was impossible to kill, and he was coming for revenge.
  The wind-driven spray raised a mist from the beach that smelled faintly
  fishy-seaweed, salt, and probably some pollution. But not an unpleasant
  odor. After his parents' ranch in western Kansas McGarvey preferred almost
  any smell other than the prairie.
  He stopped a hundred yards down the beach and half turned so he could look
  out to sea while at the same time watch the dunes toward the parking area
  out of the comer of his eye. The wind was picking up, and he made mental
  note to take it into account if he had to make a crosswind shot. The
  slow-moving 7.65 mm bullet's path would be severely affected over anything
  but point-blank range.
  A man wearing a dark, thick-collared jacket and a baseball cap topped the
  rise, stopped a moment, and then headed directly toward McGarvey. He was of
  medium height, perhaps six feet, and moved with the sure-footed grace of an
  athlete. But he wore gloves, so he was no immediate threat, whoever he was.
  You couldn't fire a gun while wearing gloves.
  As he got closer, McGarvey made the judgment that the man was not from the
  Company. There was some-
   20 DAVID HAGBERG

 thing about his bearing, about the way he came straight on without looking
 left or right, that made him seem like a soldier. The man was not a cop
 or field officer. But he'd asked about McGarvey on campus this afternoon.
 Administration had sent him over to Humanities, and Evelyn had called to
 warn that a visitor was on his way.
 "Did he say what he wanted?" McGarvey asked.
 "He said that a mutual friend sent him down to see
 YOU."
 -Name?"
 "David Kennedy."
  McGarvey thought he might know it, but he couldn't dredge up the
  connection. Maybe somebody from the Company, after all, maybe not. "I'll
  probably just miss him," he told the dean's secretary. "My
  constitutional."
 "He'll show up back here."
 "Slaughter Bay."
  "Don't catch a chill," Evelyn said. She and the dean and the chairman of
  the school's board were the only three on campus who knew anything about
  MeGarvey's background. But good teachers were hard to find, and Milford
  wasn't Ivy League, so as long as his past didn't interfere he was
  accepted with open arms.
  "Mr. McGarvey?" Kennedy had to shout over the wind,
 McGarvey turned. "That's right."
  "My name is David Kennedy," the man said. His eyes were blue, and the
  expression on his face was guileless, almost little boyish.
  MeGarvey made the connection. NASA. "You're an astronaut. A shuttle
  pilot."
  "Until five years ago. Now I'm president of Guerin Airplane Company's
  Commercial Airplane Division. Portland, Oregon."
  They shook hands. Guerin was the second-largest designer and manufacturer
  of commercial aircraft in the world behind Seattle's Boeing, with every
  bit as much prestige as the older company. Nearly every airline in the
  world flew Guerin equipment. And the United
                 HIGH FLIGHT 21

 Nations Peacekeeping Armed Forces Unit was considering Guerin's F-124
 Hellfire all-weather supersonic fighter/interceptor for its primary air
 weapon. Not even Europe's Airbus Industrie, which was heavily subsidized
 with government money, could outcompete the company.
 :'What brings you to see me, Mr. Kennedy?"
 'I'd like to offer you a job.
 "Teaching your engineers about Voltaire?"
  "The chairman of our board and CEO Al Vasilanti is a personal friend of
  Roland Murphy. Your name was mentioned."
  Murphy was Director of Central Intelligence. He was a tough but fair-minded
  man who did not care for McGarvey. But unlike the Agency's general counsel,
  he understood the need for McGarvey's skills. The fact that he'd given
  McGarvey's name to the CEO of a civilian company was extraordinary.
 2ou were told about my background?"
  'Mr. Murphy said that you were a ... troubleshooter. And considering the
  trouble that we're having, the situation that we're facing, you might be
  the only man who can help us."
  McGarvey looked away. The downbound container ship was nothing more than an
  indistinct blur on the horizon. Wherever it was headed, it had direction,
  a purpose. For that he envied the ship and those who sailed her.
 "What else did the general tell you?"
  "That your methods were not orthodox, that wherever you turned up someone
  would probably get hurt. And that you would be watched, and if you broke
  any law you would be arrested and we-the company-would find ourselves in
  big trouble."
 McGarvey faced him. "Yet you came to offer me a
 job."
  "Al Vasilanti is an unorthodox man. He built Guerin from the ground up,
  mostly on guts."
 "Spare me the pep talk, Mr. Kennedy. If you know
 22 DAVID HAGBERG

 who and what I am and you want me to do something for you, then your
 company must be facing something your engineers or lawyers can't handle."
 Kennedy nodded.
  "Unless something has changed in the past few years, I think that cargo
  planes and airliners are our single largest dollar-value export."
 "By a wide margin."
  "But Washington refuses to help. No more Chryslerstyle bailouts."
  "Something like that," Kennedy said. "And it concems the Japanese. No one
  wants to upset the apple cart so soon before the President's economic
  summit next month in Tokyo."
 "Did the general mention my last assignment?"
  "Not in any specific terms," Kennedy said. "But he said it involved the
  Japanese."
  A multibillionaire Japanese industrialist who'd lost his family in the
  destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had hired a group of former East
  German Secret Service thugs to steal the fissionable material and parts
  for two nuclear devices that were to be detonated in San Francisco and
  Los Angeles. Except for McGarvey's interference, the plan would have
  succeeded. There was no love for him in Japan.
 "What do you want me to do for you?"
  Kennedy glanced back the way he'd come. "Could we go some place warmer?
  Maybe a coffee shop or something?"
  "No," McGarvey said. Here on this beach their conversation was as secure
  as it could be.
  "Then I'll get to the point. We believe that a group of Japanese
  corporations have formed a zaibatsu, which is a type of conglomerate, to
  try an unfriendly takeover of Guerin. We don't think this group has a
  government sanction, but we're not sure about that part. What we are
  reasonably certain of, however, is that if they're successful they mean
  to dismantle our company and ship it to Tokyo."
 "Why?" McGarvey said. "If they wanted an airplane
                 HIGH, FLIGHT 23

 manufacturing company they could build one. What has Guerin got that they
 want?"
  Kennedy hesitated a moment. "Our company hinges on keeping what I'm about
  to tell you secret."
 "From whom, Mr. Kennedy?"
 "Anyone ... the public."
  McGarvey said nothing, and after a second the point dawned on the former
  astronaut.
  "The Japanese wouldn't be coming after us if they didn't already know or
  guess," he said.
  "That's a reasonable assumption. But you have a business problem on your
  hands, Mr. Kennedy. What do you need me for?"
  "In 1990 one of our airplanes went down out of Chicago. It was an American
  Airlines flight. Three hundred forty-eight people were killed. No
  survivors."
 "Sabotage?"
  "We think it's a possibility. The National Transportation Safety Board
  disagrees. They said it was engine failure."
  "That was seven years ago. What's the connection between then and the
  zaibatsu you think has been formed now? Have you come up with any
  evidence?"
  "The flight manifest showed three hundred fortyseven passengers and crew.
  An extra body, parts actually-a heart, part of a skull, some tissue-were
  found in the vicinity of the cockpit. One of the pathologists the NTSB
  hired said the tissues probably came from an Oriental male. There was some
  question about DNA matching, and the Board shot it down. Said the body
  parts were from someone on the ground. A migrant farm worker probably. But
  the doctor disagreed, so his conjecture ended up as an addendum that was
  ignored."
 "Have you talked to the doctor?"
  "He was murdered three months later, and his office burned. The thieves
  were supposedly looking for drugs, but all of his paper records, as well as
  his computer memory, were destroyed."
  "Still no connection between then and now. Maybe the doctor was wrong."
 24 DAVID HAGBERG

 - "In the past six months we've had a seven hundred percent increase in
 the number of job applicants of Japanese descent. In more than one-third
 of the cases our routine background investigations found that the
 applicants were lying about some very significant facts. Like where they
 were born, what schools they attended, their work background."
  "What's your rate of faulty applications among the white population?"
 "A little less."
 "Among the Blacks or Hispanics?"
  "A little more," Kennedy conceded the point. "But during that same time
  period our work-related accident rate has skyrocketed, parts and
  subassembly theft has become big business, and one week ago one of our
  structural engineers, a man who has been with the company for thirty
  years, was killed when a forty-pound tool box fell off a scaffold and hit
  him on the head. We had three guys who said they thought one of our
  Japanese-American employees was nearby when it happened, but now they're
  not so sure they saw anything."
 "That's thin."
  "By itself, yes. But our position on the stock market has become shaky,
  and there've been a couple of probing runs against us. If another of our
  airplanes went down now, we'd take a beating on the market."
  "The Japanese would try to buy you out. But you could buy back your own
  stock. It's been done before. And from what I read Guerin has had a
  couple of very good years, You've taken customers away from Boeing and
  Airbus."
  "We don't have the money. In fact we're so heavily leveraged that we're
  having trouble meeting our payroll. Eighty thousand paychecks every two
  weeks eats up a sizable amount of cash."
 "Where did it go?"
 "Research."
 "Which is what the Japanese are really after."
 Kennedy nodded.
                 HIGH FLIGHT 25

  "Research into what, Mr. Kennedy? What is Guerin working on that's nearly
  bankrupting the company and that, according to you, a group of Japanese
  corporations wants so badly it's willing to commit mass murder for it?"
 "A new airplane."
 MeGarvey stared at the ex-astronaut.
  "We've designated it the P/C2622. P for passenger, C for cargo, and the
  2 for the twenty-first century. It's what's called 'next generation
  equipment."'
 "What's different about this one?"
  "This one is hypersonic. Los Angeles to Tokyo in ninety minutes. But it's
  nothing like the Concorde, which has been a dismal failure for a lot of
  reasons. Our airplane creates almost no air pollution because at altitude
  the engines bum hydrogen, the byproduct of which is water vapor. And
  almost no sonic boom footprint would reach the ground because
  ninety-eight percent of the pressure energy is directed upward, not down.
  There'll be a lower passenger-per-mile cost than Boeing's 747 at current
  fuel prices, but with the same payloads and the same runway
  requirements."
  "Impressive," McGarvey conceded. "But how many years will it be before
  your test flights begin?"
 "Four weeks, maybe six weeks."
  "Your prototype is already built?" McGarvey was surprised.
  "All except for the hypersonic engines. Our first test flights will run
  to near Mach one with a cowling replacing the hydrogen engine.
  Rolls-Royce promises delivery within one year." Kennedy studied McGarvey.
  "The bottom line is that this Japanese zaibatsu plans to do to the
  commercial airplane business what has been done to the automobile
  business and to the consumer electronics market. And they'll stop at
  nothing to do it. Including the murders of a lot of innocent people. If
  they somehow bring down another of our airplanes, our stock will die, but
  so will several hundred men, women, and children. Just like 1990."
 26 DAVID HAGBERG

 "What if you're wrong?"
  "We sincerely hope we are, Mr. McGarvey. That's what we want to hire you
  to find out for us."
 "And if you're right?"
  "Then we'd like you to do whatever it takes to stop them."
  "I see." McGarvey turned and started back across the beach toward the
  parking lot. Kennedy fell in behind him.
 "Will you help us?"
  McGarvey looked at him. "Why don't you sell the technology to Japan?
  Share it with them under license."
  "We thought about it. Boeing works with the Japanese. There's precedent."
 "But you can't forget 1990."
 "That's right," Kennedy said.
  McGarvey stopped. "In 1983 Hitachi Corporation offered to build a major
  engine research facility in Japan that would be shared equally by any
  American commercial airplane manufacturer who wanted to participate.
  Hitachi would put up all the money, the Americans would bring their head
  start in research. Guerin turned them down."
  "Our prerogative," Kennedy said. "Chrysler was given the same offer
  before it built its billion-dollar design and research center. But
  laccoca said no: 'Chrysler is simply not for sale to the Japanese for any
  price.' Neither was Guerin."
  Time to get out of the business for good? McGarvey wondered. He could
  understand Langley's hesitation to go along with the airplane company.
  The direction had come from the White House. Just now we were walking
  softly around the Japanese who held a significant percentage of our five
  trillion dollars plus of debt. No one wanted to upset the apple cart.
  Maybe America was for sale after all.
 "How do I contact you, Mr. Kennedy?"
 "Will you help us?"
 "I'll look into it. That's all I'm saying for the moment.
                 HIGH FLIGHT 27

 Do you have a secure number in Portland where I can reach you?"
  Kennedy pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to McGarvey.
  "We have a scrambled phone system at our Gales Creek Computer Center. As
  long as you're calling from a phone you know has not been tapped, your
  message will be secure."
  McGarvey pocketed the envelope. "I'd like you to stay in Washington for
  the next few days. Can you do that?"
    V9
 'Yes.
  "Can you arrange a secure meeting place in the city? Not your hotel.
  Maybe an apartment?"
  "Dominique Kilbourne. She has an apartment in the Watergate complex.
  She's a lobbyist for the Airplane Manufacturers and Airlines Association.
  Her brother Newton is our vice president in charge of prototype
  development and manufacture. And she's a friend. A discreet friend."
 "Are you sleeping with her?"
  Kennedy reared back, but before he could reply, McGarvey cautioned him.
  "Don't ever lie to me. My life may, at some point, depend upon knowing
  the entire truth."
  "We had an affair a few years ago. It was brief, and when it was over we
  parted friends. That's the situation now." Kennedy handed him a thick
  envelope. "This is some background' reading."
  McGarvey nodded. "I'll be talking to you." He headed toward the parking
  lot. This time Kennedy did not fall in beside him.

 CIA Deputy Director of Operations Phillip Carrara met McGarvey a few
 minutes before ten at the bar in the Four Seasons Hotel on the Georgetown
 side of Rock Creek. He was a barrel-chested man, with a square face, thick
 dark hair combed straight back, and an easy smile. As an Hispanic, he
 maintained that he had to work twice as hard as an Anglo to get any
 respect. No one in the Company took the man lightly. He was among the
 best.
 28 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Did you talk to David Kennedy?" he asked when his scotch rocks came. The
  bar was half full, but no one was paying them any attention.
  "This afternoon," McGarvey said. "I was surprised that the general
  mentioned my name."
  Carrara smiled wanly and shook his head. "It was Ryan's suggestion
  actually."
 "That bastard still has a hard-on for me?"
  "He's got a long memory. He wants to see you dumped on your ass once and
  for all. Are you going to take it?"
 "What have you heard?"
  "Guerin's in some financial trouble. It's apparently overspent on
  research for the NASA space plane project, and it's vulnerable right now.
  It wants protection."
 "Anything from Tokyo?"
  "We've picked up nothing, Kirk. If there is a zaibatsu planning nefarious
  things, it's deep."
 "Would you query Tokyo Station for me?"
 Carrara chuckled. "Not a chance in hell, compar.
  "If Guerin fails it would take a hell of a big bite out of U.S. exports."
  "Guerin is only one out of three. And I don't see Vasilanti or Kennedy
  camped out on the White House lawn. In the meantime if you'll look around
  you'll notice that this country is still in economic trouble. Japan holds
  nearly half our debt, its navy is negotiating with the Philippine
  government to buy our old base at Subic Bay-that by the way is privileged
  information-and the White House is trying to put together a package with
  teeth for the economic summit next month in Tokyo. Are you following me?"
  "Times are tough all around. But what about the Russians? Is Yemlin still
  the KGB's rezident?"
  "It's called the Foreign Intelligence Service-the SUR-these days. But
  Yemlin hung on."
  "Is the SUR still as active in Tokyo as the KGB was? They were running
  a top-grade network called Abunai, which was a hell of a lot better than
  anything we were fielding."
                 HIGH FLIGHT 29

  Carrara's complexion darkened. "What's your point, Mac?"
  "We've got a big problem between us and the Japanese, Phil. I'm not
  telling you anything new. And it's not going away. Who knows, maybe this
  Guerin thing is only the opening shot."
 "Of what?"
  McGarvey looked at his old friend. "I don't know. I really don't.
  Everything is different now. Everything has changed."
 "You can say that again."
 "Maybe a war with Japan might wake everybody up."
  "Don't even think it, Mac," Carrara said. "But what about Yemlin? You
  knew he was here in Washington all along, didn't you?"
  "If I'd wanted I could have had him anytime during the last couple of
  years."
  Carrara nodded. "If you were going to meet with him, where would it be?"
 "Is the FBI still watching him?"
 "Officially yes. In actuality it's pretty loose now."
  "Arlington National Cemetery. Tomorrow at noon at Kennedy's Tomb if he's
  clean."
 "If not?"
  "Thursday at one, and then Friday at ten. After that we'll have to try
  something else."
 "Do you think he'll help you?"
 McGarvey nodded. "He owes me."
  Carrara smiled wanly. "And God help the poor bastard if he doesn't see
  it that way."

 Arlington National Cemetery sprawls over more than four hundred acres
 across the Potomac River from the city of Washington. Established in 1864
 on the Custis and Lee estates, nearly one hundred thousand people are
 buried there, including John F. Kennedy. On the best of days the cemetery
 is a grim reminder of the only true constant in war: a lot of people die.
 McGarvey wondered if the unthinkable were starting again. This time the
 stakes would be much higher and the battles would be
 30 DAVID HAGBERG

 more fierce than fifty-five years ago, but the outcome would be the same:
 people would die needlessly. He felt as if he were surrounded by his
 nightmares.
  Viktor Pavlovich Yemlin stood in front of the flame at Kennedy's tomb,
  his hat in hand, his wispy white hair ruffling in the slight but chilly
  breeze. The sky was overcast, and it felt as if it might rain or even
  snow. The Russian wore a long, dark overcoat and a light silk scarf. In
  appearance he could have been Eduard Shevardnadze's younger brother,
  except that his shoulders were hunched, and in the old days he had been
  involved with some very bad people, which lent him a dark aura.
  He turned as McGarvey approached, an oddly distant expression on his
  face, a frightened look, as if he were seeing a ghost and he was girding
  himself for the confrontation.
 "Hello, Kirk," he said.
  "It's been a long time, Viktor Pavlovich," McGarvey said.
  First it had been Valentin Baranov who'd headed the KGB's Department 8
  of Directorate S-the Illegals Directorate-who had given the assassin
  Arkady Kurshin his charter. Next, after McGarvey had killed Baranov, came
  General Vasili Didenko, and finally Yemlin.
  Caught up in the enthusiasm of the moment, Yemlin had said. Fighting
  capitalism. Saving the Rodina. McGarvey had been allowed to read the
  transcripts of a National Security Agency satellite phone tap. Yemlin had
  been speaking with Boris Yeltsin himself, shortly after the August
  Kremlin coup in which Gorbachev had been arrested.
  There had been deaths. Hundreds. Thousands. Tens of millions if Stalin's
  killed were included. Who was not guilty? Time now to go forward. Time
  to build on the ashes of the old.
  Expedient words, McGarvey had thought at the time. But then the business,
  by its very nature, bred and nourished expediency.
 "Are you here for revenge?" Yemlin asked.
 McGarvey could hear laughter, and for a moment he
                 HIGH FLIGHT 31

 thought it was out of place here in a cemetery, but then he realized that
 he was remembering his sister as a young girl. She'd laughed often in
 those days. But afterward, after their parents died, neither of them
 laughed very much. Revenge, he asked himself. For what? There'd never been
 any hard evidence, nor did he believe the Russian was ready to offer any.
  "I've taken an assignment for Guerin Airplane Company."
  "That's what Phillip told me." The Russian motioned for them to walk, and
  they headed down a broad path away from the flame. There were very few
  other people visiting the cemetery.
  "Guerin is concerned that a consortium of powerful Japanese corporations
  may be gearing up for a raid on their stock. From what I was told they've
  probably formed a zaibatsu with a lot of financial backing."
 "Would Washington allow such a thing?"
  "I assume their NASA and military divisions would have to be split out
  of the deal. But just now no one wants to rock the boat."
  "I understand," Yemlin said. "But Guerin's position is strong."
  "The Japanese may try to sabotage Guerin's airplanes. Blow them out of
  the sky, if need be. That'd knock hell out of the company's stock value.
  A takeover would be easy."
  "They would be acquiring an essentially worthless company in that case.
  Unless there was something else they wanted."
  "There is something else, Viktor Pavlovich," McGarvey said.
 Yemlin smiled. "Can you talk about it?"
  "They've been working on the next generation of commercial airplane. Just
  about everything flying transoceanic, or even transcontinental, will
  become obsolete."
 "You're talking about the NASA plane?"
  "They're using that as a cover project, but the other has been buried.
  It's one of the reasons they hired me.
 32 DAVID HAGBERG

 They think the Japanese are desperate to buy them out for that line of
 development alone."
  "Which they would dismantle and transport back to Japan."
 "Something like that."
  Yemlin stopped. "Do you honestly believe they're desperate enough to blow
  airplanes out of the sky? To become terrorists? To kill people? Think
  about it, Kirk. Japan is your country's major trading partner. It would
  be stupid for them to do anything to jeopardize that position. It would
  be disastrous for them if they were exposed."
  "We don't believe the government is involved," MeGarvey said. "At least
  Guerin's top people hope it's
  it
 not.
 "Those are very big stakes," Yemlin said.
 "The biggest."
 "What would you have us do?"
  "If we can identify the individual companies that make up this
  consortium, and if we can get someone into a boardroom meeting, or
  possibly someone inside the Ministry of International Trade and Industry
  who could gather hard evidence that such a plan exists, Guerin's people
  could take it to the President and pressure would be brought directly on
  Tokyo."
 "I ask you again, Kirk, what would you have us do?"
 "Hand the project over to network Abunai. "
  A flicker of surprise crossed the Russian's face. "What would Guerin do
  for us in exchange? Where is the quid pro quo?"
  McGarvey had thought that out on the way in to the city. Russia was
  having its own trouble with Japan over the Kuril Islands and others north
  of Hokkaido, so whatever he offered Yemlin would have to be something
  Russia needed. Something very important, such as foreign exchange. He and
  Kennedy had discussed the situation yesterday afternoon by phone.
  "It's possible that Guerin would build and equip a subassembly factory
  outside of Moscow."
                  HIGH FLIGHT 33

 Yemlin's eyebrows rose. "For which airplane?"
 "The new one."
 "What about personnel?"
 "Some Russians that Guerin would train."
 "Would our people be involved in the engineering?"
  "I don't know, but I think something could be worked out."
  Yemlin looked back the way they had come, the flame at Kennedy's Tomb
  just visible, and McGarvey followed his gaze. The thirty-four years since
  the President's assassination had been nothing short of stunning.
 "It will take time," Yemlin said.
  "The prototype is nearly ready to fly. If something is going to happen,
  we suspect it will happen very soon."
  Another thought crossed Yemlin's mind. "Would Guerin be willing to pay
  expenses in Tokyo?"
  "Within reason," McGarvey replied. The Russians' supply of hard
  currencies, which they needed to fund foreign intelligence operations,
  was very limited, and Japan was an expensive playing field.
  Yemlin smiled again. "Ironic, isn't it? The SUR being hired as
  mercenaries -for a former CIA spy?"
 "We'll need action soon," McGarvey said.
  "My book cable will go out this afternoon," Yemlin promised. "But I am
  curious about something. If this goes through, will you come to Moscow
  to oversee the operation?"
  McGarvey shook his head. "I don't think your people would want me."
 "No," Yemlin said softly. "I suppose not."

 The Dassault SF- 17 helicopter came in fast and low over the treetops of
 the Rambouillet Forest thirty miles southeast of Paris, the pilot, Pierre
 Gisgard, frantically searching for the field where he was supposed to
 land. But visibility in blowing snow was zero at times, and the gusty
 winds hitting forty knots buffeted the machine so violently that Gisgard
 thought it was going to come apart on him. He'd warned them about the
 weather at
 34 DAVID HAGBERG

 Mortier, but when the colonel got a feather up his ass nothing would hold
 him down.
  And this was the biggest feather of all. The French secret service, known
  as the Service de Documentation ExteriOure et de Contre-Espionage, or
  SDECE, had been chasing this group of East Germans ever since the two
  Germanies had been reunited. They called themselves the Berlin Hit
  League, and for six years the group of exSecret Service thugs and
  murderers had been terrorizing Europe: robbing banks to finance their
  operations, killing for hire, and sometimes to settle old scores,
  sabotaging bridges, power stations, radio and television transmitters,
  and assassinating policemen.
  Three years ago members of this group shot a Swissair jetliner out of the
  sky over Paris with a Stinger handheld missile. Half the passengers
  aboard that flight had been French men, women, and children on holiday.
  No one in France could forget that tragedy.
  Colonel Philippe Marquand, chief of the service's Anti-Terrorism Unit,
  had been given a literal carte blanche by the government to run them into
  the ground, a task which he had undertaken with zeal. Most of them were
  either dead or in jail now, and the last remnants of the gang-three men
  and one woman-had made the mistake of coming back to France and robbing
  the bank this afternoon at Chartres.
  The local police had responded to the silent alarm not suspecting they
  would run into a hornet's nest. The first two officers on the scene were
  shot to death as they got out of their radio unit. Two other officers
  died when their radio unit took a direct hit from a LAW rocket.
  By then the firefight had moved from the downtown bank to a roadblock on
  the N 154 north of the city. A Chartres lieutenant of police recognized
  at least one of the bank robbers as a Berlin Hit League gunman by the
  name of Bruno Mueller. The former Stasi lieutenant colonel, whose
  specialties were murder and sabotage, was on France's top-ten most-wanted
  criminals list, his name flagged for immediate attention of the Action
  Service. The call had been put through to Paris as the
                 HIGH FLIGHT 35

 gun battle continued up into the Rambouillet. Less than one hour earlier
 the bank robbers had pulled up to a stone farmhouse where apparently they
 were going to make their stand.
  A strong gust of wind caught the chopper broadside, slewing it sharply
  to the left, its landing gear tangling momentarily in the tops of some
  trees before it went over on its side. Gisgard pulled the collective and
  the cyclic, hauled the stick far right, and kicked the rudder pedal hard.
  The machine shuddered to an upright attitude, every weld in its frame
  strained to the limit, and he set it down hard, chopping all power
  immediately.
  "Nice landing, Pierre," Colonel Marquand shouted from the back.
  "Yes, sir," Gisgard replied as the rear hatch was opened and Marquand and
  the ten men he'd brought down with him scrambled out into the snowstorm.
  Colonel Marquand was a short, dark, dangerouslooking man who'd once been
  described as a Sherman tank with an attitude. Squinting his jet-black
  eyes against the driving snow, he could make out the stone farmhouse at
  the end of a narrow track that emerged from the woods and ran across a
  long, narrow field. A dozen radio units and Bureau of Criminal
  Investigation vans were deployed in a semicircle in front of the house.
  He'd been assured that the entire perimeter was secure. It meant that
  there would be some lost police officers wandering around in the storm,
  fingers on the triggers of their weapons.
  "I want a scope on that house and on the woods behind it right now,
  Rend," he told his number two as they headed toward the communications
  truck parked just off the track. "Place your shooters no more than fifty
  meters from the front, left, and right."
  "What about the rear?" Captain Rend Belleau asked, as he motioned for his
  people to move out. Both he and Marquand were part Corsican, and they
  commanded a lot of respect.
 "That Chartres lieutenant has got officers back there."
 "Stationary?"
 36 DAVID HAGBERG

  "One would hope so," Marquand said. "I'll see if I can establish
  communications with them."
  "And hostages?" Belleau said grimly. "It looks like a working farm,
  hein?"
  "Just our luck," Marquand replied heavily, as they reached the comms
  truck. He banged on the rear door and hauled it open, as Belleau, dressed
  in white army camos, disappeared into the storm, a walkie-talkie to his
  lips.
  The interior of the truck was bathed in soft red light. Three young
  officers were seated to the left at a long radio console, and to the
  right a police lieutenant and a sergeant looked up from a map spread out
  on a wide table.
  "Lieutenant R6gis?" Marquand asked, climbing up into the truck, and
  pulling the door closed.
  "You from Paris?" the lieutenant asked. He was about forty, and looked
  competent.
 "Marquand, Action Service."
  "Pleased to meet you, sir," R6gis said, holding out his hand.
  Marquand ignored it, and shouldered the sergeant aside so that he could
  get a better look at the map. He pulled off his gloves. On this
  larger-scale chart he could see that the river was within twenty meters
  of the rear of the farmhouse, and that there were no locks or dams
  between here and where it joined with the much larger River Eure. From
  there it would be possible to take a boat all the way to Le Havre.
  "What are you doing to protect the people you have deployed in front of
  the house?" he asked.
  "Protect?" Rdgis asked, surprised. "I have twentythree men, all of them
  heavily armed . .
 "How many have you lost so far?"

 "Yes?"
 "Seven dead, five wounded," the lieutenant said.
  "Sergeant, I want all of those men out of their vehicles and on the
  ground. Pull any of them not dressed for the weather out of there."
                 HIGH FLIGHT 37

  "Yes, sir," the sergeant snapped, and he turned to the radio operators.
  "Now, what about your people at the rear of the farmhouse? Are they on
  this side of the river, or the other?"
  "The far side. We have fourteen back there, and they are equipped for
  this weather."
  "I'll put four of my people with them. Radio your men and tell them what
  to expect."
  The sergeant looked around. "We're momentarily out of communication with
  three of our people."
 "Why is this?"
 "We don't know yet."
  "Sergeanr, locate them as soon as possible," Marquand said.
 "Yes, sir."
 "Is the river frozen over?"
 R6gis looked surprised. "I don't know," he admitted.
 "Find out," Marquand said.
 "Yes, sir," the sergeant answered for him.
  "Do they have any hostages in the house? Did they take any from the
  bank?"
  "None from the bank, colonel, but we believe there are two civilians in
  the farmhouse. The man and the wife."
 "Is the house equipped with a telephone?"
 The lieutenant hesitated.
  Marquand pulled out his walkie-talkie and keyed it. "Ren6, phone line?"
 "Oui. It has tone."
 "Bon. Any movement in the house?"
  "A few shadows, but no clear targets. What about the rear?"
  "Looks as if there may be three friendlies without communications. We'll
  do orange on my signal.9'
 "Right," Belleau radioed tersely.
  "I want a link to that phone line. Send Henri over on the double."
 "What about the local officers?"
  "Stand by only. I didn't spot any medical units out there,"
 38 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Non, neither have I,- Belleau radioed.
 "They're on their way," Rdgis said.
  "That's good," Marquand said. "Because in a few minutes we're going to
  have some casualties."
  "Our men are dismounting now," the sergeant said. "But I'm sorry to say
  there is no luck so far in the rear."
 "What about the river?"
 "It isn't frozen, the current is too swift."
  "It's an escape route. Are any of your people within sight of the river?"
 "Yes, sir," the sergeant said.
  "If anything moves toward the river, from whatever direction, shoot to
  kill."
  "But, colonel, you understand three of i~iy men are unaccounted for back
  there," Rdgis protested.
  "Then let us hope they do not decide to go for a swim this evening."
  The sergeant turned back to the radios to issue the orders.
  "Your men are to be used for containment. If anything gets past us, it
  will be up to you to bring it down."
  "I thought we might go in with you," the lieutenant said.
  "You have lost enough brave officers. No need for more," Marquand said
  almost gently. "This is our fight now."
  The back door opened. One of Marquand's men dressed in white camos came
  in and went immediately to the radio consoles. His name tag read BOUTET.
  "The line is isolated, and I've tied it to the auxiliary here," he said,
  studying the panel. He flipped a couple of switches, and picked up one
  of the handsets. "Bon.
 "Rend," Marquand radioed.
 "In position," Belleau came back.
 "We go in in one minute."
 " oui. -
  "Inform your people," Marquand told the sergeant, and he motioned for
  Boutet to place the call. He remembered a half-dozen other moments
  similar to this one, and each time he hoped it would be the last.
                 HIGH FLIGHT 39

  "Hallo. Bonjour. This is the police, to whom am I speaking?" Boutet began.
  His job was to keep the hostage-takers talking for as long as possible,
  which would help distract them.
  Marquand was about to raise the walkie-talkie to his lips, when Boutet
  shook his head.
 "Lost him."
  Belleau came on. "There's movement! They're coming out!"
  -A11ez-y!A11ez-y!- Marquand radioed, then shoved the sergeant toward the
  door. "Out of here now!" he shouted. "Everybody!"
  He was out the door right behind the sergeant, nearly stumbling in the
  snow, Boutet on his heels. Before they got ten yards, a bright flash seemed
  to surround them, and the communications truck exploded in a million
  pieces, knocking them down like a set of ten pins.
  The bastards had targeted the truck from the moment they realized what it
  was being used for, Marquand thought, scrambling to his feet. It was a
  mistake that he should not have made.
  Another flash about thirty meters nearer to the house took a police van.
  The sound of small arms fire rattled from behind the house.
 "Two mecs down! We're going in!" Belleau radioed.
  Lieutenant Rdgis and the three radio operators were dead, so there was no
  immediate way of knowing what had happened at the rear of the house.
  Boutet was helping the sergeant who'd been hit by flying debris. There was
  nothing else to do for the moment. The action was in the farmhouse a
  hundred meters away.
 The small arms fire died off within ninety seconds.
  Belleau came back. "The farmhouse is secure. Two males and one female down
  and dead. The hostages, one male, one female, are both dead as well."
  "That leaves one unaccounted for," Marquand radioed. "Watch yourself,
  Rend."
 "Stand by."
 40 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Merde, " the sergeant swore. He was looking back at what was left of the
  communications truck.
  "We've got movement back here," Belleau radioed excitedly. "Across the
  river. All right, stand by."
 Boutet was looking up at him, his eyes narrow.
  "All right, Philippe, it's the police. They're pulling a body out of the
  river about thirty or forty meters downstream."
 "The third subject?" Marquand queried.
 "Unknown."
  "Stay put until I can establish communications with someone on that side
  of the river."
 "Will do," Belleau responded.
  Marquand had a feeling that this was going to be a very long night.

 Edward R. Reid began to think of himself as the great pacifier in 1986
 when in his financial newsletter Lamplighter he predicted the downfall of
 the Soviet Union and the rise of Japan as the next threat to the nation.
 His stated goal, and there were a lot of powerful people in and out of
 Washington who listened to him, was true peace through a beneficent
 financial domination of the world by the United States. But now at
 sixty-nine he felt as if he were no closer to his goal than he had been
 eleven years ago, and he was running out of time.
  "The tragic inevitability of war can be circumvented only if we have the
  will," he'd written in his last newsletter. "Economic conditions in the
  U.S. continue to deteriorate on many fronts, the national debt spirals
  upward at an ever-increasing pace, and the new health care system is
  pushing record numbers of small businesses into bankruptcy, elements that
  will lead either to a decline into international obscurity for America
  and Americans, or war with Japan for the same reasons we went to war with
  them fifty-six years ago."
  A war he'd missed because he was too young, he thought as he paid off his
  cabby at the 21st Street entrance to the State Department and shuffled
  across the sidewalk. He was a bulky man, with huge feet, very
                 HIGH FLIGHT 41

 large, still powerful hands, a broad, almost square head with white,
 thinning hair, a bulbous red nose, patchwork blue and red blood vessels
 high on his cheeks, and brilliantly penetrating blue eyes. A Princeton
 class of '50 man, he'd come to work for State after a three-year stint in
 the Army in West Germany. In 1961 he'd returned to Princeton for dual
 master's and doctorate degrees with honors in political science and
 economics, and in 1967 any department or agency in Washington would have
 welcomed him with open arms, but he chose State because his first love was
 international affairs, especially those of West Germany. He felt it was
 there that the fight against communism would be won or lost.
  His two disappointments in life were his wife's death in 1983 and his
  failure to reach the top spot, Secretary of State, rising only as far as
  Deputy Undersecretary for Economic Affairs.
  "Every President you've served under has told you that you're more
  valuable where you are," Margaret, his wife of twenty-eight years, told
  him when he would grumble. "You're too smart to be a politician, you old
  poop, so quit your complaining."
  He missed her, and not a day went by when he failed to wish for her
  counsel.
  It was a few minutes before one when he stepped through the metal
  detector downstairs and took the elevator up to the ninth floor. His name
  was on the list and he was expected. The call from Thomas Bruce, who held
  his old job, had come at 8:00 sharp this morning. "Secretary Carter would
  like to have a word with you sometime today. Would one o'clock be
  convenient?"
  "It would," Reid had said, knowing full well what the meeting would be
  about. They were going to jump him about his last newsletter, which was
  fine with him because it meant they were paying attention.
  Warner MacAndrew, the State Department's official spokesperson, was just
  coming out of the Secretary's reception area as Reid stepped off the
  elevator. The man was tall and thin, all planes and angles. He looked
  serious.
 42 DAVID HAGBERG

  "They're waiting for you inside, Mr. Reid," he said, stepping back and
  holding the door.
  "That serious, is it," Reid commented, entering the office.
  "I for one agree with you," MacAndrew said softly, and Reid smiled.
  He was passed directly through by an assistant who opened the inner door
  and said, "He's here, Mr. Secretary," then stepped aside.
  Secretary of State Jonathan Stearnes Carter, seated behind his desk, did
  not bother to get up. At fifty-one he was one of the youngest Secretaries
  of State in recent times, but he came highly qualified from Colgate and
  Cornell as a lawyer with experience on the U.S. delegation to the United
  Nations, various presidential commissions including law enforcement and
  administration of justice, and work as special and chief counsel on three
  different Senate subcommittees. Seated across from him were Thomas Bruce
  and Dietrich Kaltenberger, the State Department's General Counsel. They
  all looked unhappy.
  "Thank you for coming over on such short notice, Edward," Secretary
  Carter said, motioning him to take a seat.
  "My pleasure, Mr. Secretary," Reid replied. "I'm always at the service
  of my country."
  Everyone said that Carter looked something like FDR, but there was no
  well-met smile on his face today.
 "We won't keep you long. You're a busy man."
 "As you are, Mr. Secretary. What can I do for you?"
  "Simply put, we want you to stop your call to arms against Japan."
 "I beg your pardon, sir, but I'm doing no such thing."
 "We've read your latest," Kaltenberger said.
  "Then you've not read it closely enough. If you had you woul.d understand
  that I am calling for something quite different."
  "What?" Carter asked bluntly, and Reid turned back to him, enjoying this
  more than he thought he would.
                I HIGH FLIGHT 43

  "I'm sure, Mr. Secretary, that you are aware that because of the continuing
  trend toward corporate downsizing, one in eleven Americans are out of
  work."
  "What does that have to do with this?" Kaltenberger said, but Carter waved
  him off, and Reid continued.
  "Housing starts were down sharply for the fifth quarter in a row, and yet
  just before I left my house a halfhour ago, the Dow Jones had reached
  another all-time high in very heavy trading. That cannot continue, of
  course. Another Black Friday is just around the comer. But it's worse. The
  infrastructure in this country, neglected for fifty years, is falling
  apart. Superhighways with potholes, bridges unsafe at any speed, mass
  transit systems in total shambles, factories falling apart, air pollution
  in some cities across this great nation so horrible that individual county
  health departments have begun issuing gas masks for the elderly and people
  with respiratory problems. But nobody cares. A malaise has infected this
  nation. And it's time to stop it."
 "By going to war with Japan?" Kaltenberger asked.
 "By avoiding war with Japan."
 "How?"
  "It has become an unstable economic giant that needs controlling," Reid
  said. "It holds a significant percentage of our debt, which, of course, it
  could call due at any time."
 "Go on," the Secretary said, tight-lipped.
  "Now that the Russians have all but shut down their military spending, and
  ours has been sharply cut back, the Japanese ground, air, and maritime
  self-defense forces, as they're called, are the fastest growing military
  forces in the world. Within a few months they'll be occupying our old base
  at Subic Bay in the Philippinesthe first time since 1945 that their forces
  have been permanently deployed outside the home islands."
  "How in the hell did you hear about that?" Kaltenberger asked, but again
  Carter waved him off.
  "A military force, I might add, that is almost certainly nuclear capable.
  They've got the reactors, they've got the
 44 DAVID HAGBERG

 fuel reprocessing plants to make enriched plutonium, and they've got the
 second-largest space center in the world on Tanegashima Island just south of
 Kyushu, from where they have launched satellites into space."
  "That's not to say they would be stupid enough to start a war," Bruce
  argued. "Come on, Ed, you sat in my chair. You know the economic ties we
  have with Japan. This isn't the 1930s all over again."
  "Do you know how much oil Japan must import to stay alive?" Reid asked,
  answering his own question before Bruce could respond.
  "Ninety-nine-point-two percent of its needs. Its own experts agree that if
  its Middle East oil supply were to be cut by seventy percent for just six
  months three million Japanese people would die and nearly three-fourths of
  all Japanese property would be destroyed or heavily damaged."
 "Its oil supplies are secure," Carter said.
  "For how long?" Reid shot back. "Japan has to import one-hundred percent of
  its nickel, bauxite, manganese, molybdenum, and titanium. In fact the only
  natural resource Japan has is coal, and it doesn't have much of that."
  "What's your bottom line, Edward?" the Secretary asked.
  "The President must put together an economic par treaty. For every dollar
  of Japanese products we purchase, Japan must purchase one dollar of ours.
  For every ton of raw materials we guarantee to Japan, it must give us trade
  concessions."
  "Japan can't possibly agree to that," Bruce said. "It would drive it into
  bankruptcy."
  "Yes," Reid said turning to the man. "It's either them or us. So I'm
  suggesting that while we still have the chance, we demand its navy and air
  force not move out to the Philippines, and in fact be sharply cut back."
  "The President has asked me to convey to you his desire that you cease and
  desist," Carter said.
  "Cease and desist what, Mr. Secretary? Defending my country?"
                 HIGH FLIGHT 45

  "You no longer work or speak for the government," Kaltenberger said.
 - "No, I don't. So what are you worried'about? I'm just an old man who
 happens to have an opinion."
  "Which we would like you to keep to yourself," Kaltenberger blurted, as if
  he were afraid that the Secretary wouldn't go so far.
  "Let me ask you something, Dietrich," Reid said. "If the United States were
  in the same position as Japan, what would we do?"
 Nobody said a thing.
  "Let me answer for you," Reid said. "We'd fight for our survival, of
  course. Any animal when threatened does the same."
 "You're insane," the general counsel said.
  "Then so is the rest of this country," Reid replied calmly. "Because a lot
  of people agree with me."

 TWO

 lgenia's fight for independence had been as big a blot on France's honor as
 Vietnam had been on America's. But as a young man, Philippe Marquand had
 made his mark with the army on the desert, and he had been fighting one war
 or another ever since. He'd lost some, but had won most, picking up a few
 scars, mental as well as physical, along the way. Now, standing in the cold
 just beyond the rear of the stone farmhouse, he rubbed the muscles at the
 base of his spine. He'd wrenched his back when he'd been thrown forward by
 the force of the blast and had compounded the problem by spending six hours
 tromping around in the cold. It was midnight, the storm had not let up, if
 anything it was intensifying, and they'd still not found
 46 DAVID HAGBERG

 the missing East German. It was at times like these when he seriously
 wondered if he could continue, or even should go on being a gun-carrying
 cop. The SDECE wanted him to take over the entire Service 5, an admin
 istrative post that would as surely tie him to a desk in Paris as if he
 been chained and padlocked to it. But until the moment when he'd entered
 the farmhouse and saw what had been done, he'd not even considered it. The
 Germans had sent them a clear message: Frogs are subhuman. The old couple,
 whose tiny farm this was, had been stripped naked, hung from the ceiling
 rafters by their ankles, and their throats slit. They'd been bled to death
 like pigs.
  Belleau came out of the house. "The police downriver have been alerted."
  He had to raise his voice over the wind. "Dreux, Anet, Louviers, and even
  Rouen."
  The body the police had fished out of the river minutes after the
  shooting had been one of their own. The missing East German was Bruno
  Mueller, the same one Lieutenant R6gis had spotted and identified in
  Chartres.
  "He's the very best, Rend. The most cold-blooded and ruthless. He did
  that to those old people in there. And enjoyed it."
 . Marquand had been witness to the Stasi lieutenant colonel's handiwork
 on more than one occasion over the past eight years. But always the
 aftermaths. This was the nearest he'd ever come to the man. So close, he
 thought, unconsciously clenching his fists. They'd searched and
 re-searched the house and grounds, but he was gone.
  "His body will wash up somewhere downstream," Belleau said. "In this
  weather no one could survive for long in the water."
  "He may have climbed out a hundred meters from .here, walked to the
  highway, and flagged down a car or truck."
  "There are roadblocks, Philippe. He will not escape again."
 "Maybe he has found a boat," Marquand said, staring
               I       HIGH FLIGHT 47

 at the small stream. "Did someone visually identify that dead police
 officer?"
  "His name was Georges Level, and he had one bullet in his heart, two in his
  brain, and more in his lungs and back. His own people mistook him for
  Mueller."
 "The ultimate joke, hein, " Marquand said.
  "Let's go, Philippe," Belleau said gently. "There is nothing more for us to
  do here."
 "Has the helicopter been secured?"
  "Oui. There'll be no flying until tomorrow. Gisgard and Boutet will remain
  here with the machine. I have a halftrack standing by to get us to
  Chartres, where there's a train for us. It's the only way tonight, unless
  you want to stay."
  "No, we'll go," Marquand said, taking a last look at the river. He could
  almost feel Mueller's presence. Each time he'd come close to the man
  there'd been a lingering stench, as if the air was tainted. Death and
  destruction were everywhere, and wouldn't end until Mueller was dead. Not
  in jail, but dead.
  "Even if he does manage to break loose, which isn't likely, it's still all
  over for him," Belleau said. "There's nobody left. We know the whereabouts
  of most of the other ex-Stasi officers, the ones who retired and stayed
  retired. There's no help for him there."
  "Don't be so sure, Rend. A man like him has friends. People who owe him
  favors, or people who are frightened of him. If he gets away he will strike
  again, I guarantee it."

 McGarvey arrived at the Watergate apartment of Dominique Kilbourne a few
 minutes after six. The snow had finally come with the lowering afternoon
 temperatures. Rush-hour traffic had been all snarled up so he was a
 half-hour late. Kennedy would be wondering what had happened to him. But
 there was a lot he'd had to get straight in his own mind before he finally
 decided he would take this job.
 He'd driven out to Chevy Chase to his ex-wife's house,
 48 DAVID HAGBERG

 but at the last moment decided not to stop. He had nothing to say to her.
 She knew what he was doing, where he was teaching. Elizabeth, he was sure,
 gave her mother detailed reports. It was for the best, he supposed. Old
 wounds, when reopened, hurt the worst.
  Seeing Yemlin hadn't done much for his mood either. The old days had been
  brought back to him in living color. The bad along with what little good
  there'd been. It had taken every ounce of his self-control not to kill
  the Russian with his bare hands. He kept telling himself that the war was
  over. It was done.
 Yet here he was, back in the fray.
  Dominique Kilbourne, dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a UCLA
  sweatshirt, the sleeves pushed up above her elbows, answered the door.
  Something was cooking in the kitchen, and whatever it was smelled
  wonderful.
  "I hope you've made enough for dinner, because I'm going to want at least
  two helpings, and maybe more," McGarvey said.
  Her narrow but pleasant face lit up. "Kirk McGarvey?" she asked. She was
  a slightly built woman with short dark hair, deep, almost coal-black
  eyes, and a very good, if small, figure. She looked to be in her mid- to
  late thirties.
  "That's right. You must be Dominique Kilbourne. Kennedy didn't tell me
  that you were beautiful."
 She laughed. "Are you a chauvinist?"
 "In the worst way."
  "Well, at least your candor is refreshing," she said. She stepped aside.
  "David's waiting in the living room. Are you going to accept his job
  offer?"
 "Yes, I am."
 4'Why?"
  MeGarvey studied her eyes for a long moment. She was a grown-up woman
  doing a difficult job in what was possibly the most chaotic and arguably
  the most dangerous city in America. But for all of that she still had the
  look of an innocent. Self-confident, but naive.
  "It's what I do," he said. "Has Kennedy told you about me?"
                 HIGH FLIGHT 49

  "He has. But I have to admit I've never met anyone in your ... profession
  before."
  MeGarvey smiled. "I'll try to keep my contact with you to a minimum," he
  said. He brushed past her and went down a short hall that opened into a
  large wellfurnished living room.
  David Kennedy stood at the broad windows facing the Potomac River,
  looking at the falling snow and the lights of the John F. Kennedy Center
  for the Performing Arts to the south. He was dressed casually, like
  Dominique, in slacks and a pullover.
 "What have you decided?" he asked, turning.
  McGarvey spotted a bar set up on a buffet. He went to it and poured a
  brandy without ice or water. "I'll need a different contact here in
  Washington. I don't think Ms. Kilbourne will do."
  "Why is that?" she asked, perching on the arm of a long, low white couch.
  "This has the possibility of getting ugly," McGarvey said.
 "I'm a big girl."
  "A lot of people could get hurt. I wouldn't want to see someone like you
  get in the middle of a firing line."
 "People like me. You mean a woman."
 "That's right."
  She bridled. "Every major airline in this country flies Guerin equipment.
  I think I'm entitled to know if we're facing a threat."
  MeGarvey shrugged, and turned to Kennedy. "It's your call."
 "But not yours'p,
  "We're talking about industrial espionage at the very least. That's a
  felony. Guerin could be hit with a hell of a fine, and the
  co-conspirators could go to jail. Might even involve treason, considering
  who we're dealing with."
  "We went over that," Kennedy said. "We understand what we're getting
  into."
  "I don't think you do, but there's 1990 to consider. If your enemies
  brought down that airplane, and they mean to bring down another, possibly
  more than one, it
 50 DAVID HAGBERG

 means they won't hesitate to kill whoever gets in their way. Me. You, Ms.
 Kilbourne."
  "I'm a part of the industry, Mr. McGarvey, whether you like it or not,"
  Dominique said evenly. "A lot of people trust my judgment in spite of the
  fact I'm a woman."
 "Still your call," MeGarvey told Kennedy.
  The ex-astronaut hesitated for just a moment. "Unless you have some other
  objection to working with Dominique I'll have to go along with her. She
  knows your background, she knows the situation, and she has the contacts
  in the industry that you might need. I trust her completely."
 "It's not a matter of trust," McGarvey said.
 "Are you taking the job?" Kennedy asked.
  "When you came to see me you said that you understood my methods were
  unorthodox."
 "He told me he was taking the job," Dominique said.
  "I spoke with someone today who might be able to help us. But we would
  have to give him something in return."
 Kennedy's eyes were bright. "Like what?"
  "Some money, maybe a couple of hundred thousand dollars, give or take."
 "We won't get involved in bribery."
  "This would be for operational funds," McGarvey said. "But there'd be
  more. I told him that if his people helped us, Guerin might be willing
  to build a subassembly plant."
  Kennedy had a half-smile on his face. "Where?" he asked.
 "Outside Moscow."
  Kennedy's left eyebrow rose. "Okay," he said to cover his hesitation.
  "You've got my attention."
 Dominique was staring at him, her mouth open.
  "I met with a friend at the CIA and asked if the Agency could help out.
  The key is finding out who is involved with this zaibatsu, and then
  putting a man at one of their board meetings. I was turned down, as I
                 HIGH FLIGHT 51

 suspected I would be, so I went to the next best organization that watches
 Tokyo."
 "The Russians?" Dominique asked.
  "Viktor Yemlin. He's the chief of Russian intelligence operations for all
  of North America. He and I go a long way back together, and he owes me a
  favor."
  "You went to the Russians for help?" Dominique asked again.
  "Do you still want to be a part of this, Ms. Kilbourne?" McGarvey asked.
  "David, what the hell is going on?" she demanded, turning to Kennedy.
  McGarvey didn't wait for the Guerin executive to reply. "Yemlin has agreed
  to query Moscow. If they go along with us, they'll expect you to make good
  on my suggestion, or at least talk to them about it. They have a network
  already in place in Tokyo, and if they take the job we'll have some answers
  fairly fast."
  "I never thought you'd go to a foreign intelligence service. I don't know
  what to say."
  "You came to me, Mr. Kennedy, with a story that your company is on the
  line. That there've been deaths, and that there may be more. It's your
  call."
  Kennedy looked bleakly at Dominique then turned away to watch the blowing
  snow and the lights along the river. He was a former astronaut. One of the
  men with the right stuff. A straight shooter. A fair player. A man whose
  word was his bond. A simple handshake was enough.
  The trouble was, McGarvey thought, the man was coming face-to-face with the
  real world, possibly for the first time in his life. Some of it wasn't very
  nice.
 "The money will be no problem," Kennedy said.
  "You can't be serious, David," Dominique blurted. "Think about what you're
  getting yourself into. Think!"
  "I have," Kennedy said. "So has Al, so has your brother. We've thought
  about it, and we all came to the same conclusion. We need help, and we need
  it now, before anyone else gets hurt."
 52 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Maybe you're right after all, Mr. McGarvey," Dominique said. "Maybe I
  have no business being involved."
  "Then go downstairs for a drink. We'll be finished in a few minutes."
  She shook her head. "No. I'm staying. As I said before, there are a lot
  of people in the industry who trust my judgment. If there's a threat to
  them, I need to know about it."
  "What about the subassembly factory?" Kennedy asked, turning back. He
  seemed to have recovered somewhat from the shock.
  "Nothing is written in stone. But what the Russians need most is foreign
  exchange. They've got the engineers and a trained work force, and
  certainly the willingness to go to work. It might make sense for you from
  a strictly financial point. You and I talked about it."
 "Will they help us without it?" Kennedy asked.
  "I don't know. But I suspect we'll have to offer them some incentive.
  Something they want, because they're going through a very difficult time
  with the Japanese. If their spying for us in Tokyo were to be exposed
  they'd suffer for it. It would be a severe political embarrassment for
  them."
 "And us," Dominique said.
  "Yes, and us," McGarvey agreed. "Yemlin is taking my request to his
  people in Moscow. If you're still interested in my help take my
  suggestion back to your board of directors, or whoever it is who makes
  these kinds of decisions for your company. But, don't screw around, Mr.
  Kennedy."
  'Believe me, I won't screw around," Kennedy said. "I'll talk to Al
  Vasilanti tonight. What about you?"
  "My daughter may come down from New York. I'll be with her. I'll be in
  touch."
 "You're married?" Doininique asked.
 "Ex," McGarvey said.
  She looked at him oddly for a moment, then smiled wanly. "I think I can
  understand that."
                 HIGH FLIGHT 53

 Marine Lieutenant Stan Liskey should have been a naval officer because he
 knew his way around the Pacific Ocean better than he did the battlefield.
 In fact he'd never seen combat, but as a kid he'd sailed from California
 with his father and two uncles in the fourthousand-mile sleigh ride down
 to Tahiti and the fabled South Seas islands of Captain Cook. In the summer
 after his graduation from high school he single-handed a thirty-one-foot
 Pacific Seacraft cutter in the San Francisco-to-Honolulu race, coming in
 third on corrected time. He wanted to serve his country as a military
 officer, but he liked little boats, not big ones, so he joined the
 Marines. After two years at Camp Pendleton, and two more in Washington,
 D.C., he was stationed in Okinawa in the East China Sea three hundred
 miles south-southwest of the main Japanese islands, and it suited him just
 fine.
  He was a tall, husky man, with the deeply lined and etched face of the
  sailor, and the square-shouldered, short-cropped took of the Marine
  officer, but with a smile almost always at the corners of his mouth as
  if he were having a little trouble taking anything too seriously. Running
  his hand over the section of boat bottom he'd just sanded, his smile
  widened a little.
  " Smooth as a baby's ass," he muttered to himself, then switched on the
  small finishing sander and continued to work on the bottom.
  She was the Fair Winds, a twenty-two-year-old factory-finished Westsail
  cutter originally out of Port Angeles, Washington. At thirty-two feet on
  deck, she displaced more than ten tons, and by modem standards she was
  considered to be so heavy and so slow that she could barely get out of
  her own way. But she was ruggedly built, with scantlings that even the
  Finns or the Taiwan boatmakers weren't building to any longer. With the
  proper skipper she'd stand up to just about anything that any ocean on
  earth could dish out.
  She'd made her first circumnavigation from 1980 to 1986, by way of
  Hawaii, the Samoas, Australia, across
 54 DAVID HAGBERG

 the Indian Ocean to South Africa, then northwest, following the trades to
 the Caribbean, then the Panama Canal, and finally the long run out to Hawaii
 where she doubled her track, and then back home to Washington state.
  A new set of owners sailed her around the world from 1987 to 1990, this
  time up the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean, and
  then across the Atlantic to Florida.
  The last owners had trucked her to Vancouver where they'd sailed her up the
  Inside Passage to Alaska, out into the Aleutians, then down to Japan and
  finally Okinawa, where the wife put her foot down: "Me or the boat," she
  told her husband, and she won.
  Liskey bought the boat two months ago, put her up on chocks at Sporty's
  Commercial Boatyard on the south end of the island, and had painstakingly
  brought her back to like-new. Now he knew every nut and bolt, every screw,
  every foot of wiring and plumbing, and every square inch of fiberglass,
  inside and out. By this afternoon the bottom would be sanded and painted
  and she'd be back in the water. In two days the rigging would be fully
  tuned, and the sea trials finished, and on Monday his and Carol's
  thirty-day leaves began.
  Navy Lieutenant, j.g., Carol Moss popped out into the cockpit from below,
  where she'd been varnishing brightwork, and peered over the side. She was
  a plain-looking woman with short, dishwater-blonde hair, pale green eyes,
  and an athletic, almost stocky build. She had a devastating smile that
  could light up the darkest of rooms, and that could never be mistaken for
  anything other than what it was: sincere. At twenty-five she was five years
  younger than Liskey, which was, she maintained, exactly as it should be.
  She planned on marrying him, and she definitely wanted an older, wiser man,
  someone who knew more than she, and had more experience. Her father had
  brought her up that way.
  Liskey looked up at her, and she smiled. He'd been daydreaming again.
  "Caught me," he said.
                 HIGH FLIGHT 55

  She laughed out loud, the sound musical. "Keep that up and you're going
  to sand a hole right through the hull."
  "Not this one," Liskey said, thumping the side of the boat with the heel
  of his hand. "Are you done up there?"
  "All set for the cushions, which I'll pick up tomorrow. Soon as they're
  in I'll start loading the provisions. Other than that we're set up here.
  How about you?"
  "Another couple hours of sanding, and then the paint," he said. "We'll
  be in the water by this afternoon."
  Carol smiled. The day was warm. She wore shorts and a halter top. Like
  Liskey, she spent a lot of time in the sun and was well-tanned. "How
  about a cold beer? Then I'll help you."
  "Sounds like a good deal to me," Liskey said, and Carol ducked below.
  He put the sander down and shaded his eyes against the sun so that he
  could see past the breakwater to the East China Sea. They would have
  thirty days together, island hopping all the way to the Japanese main
  islands. Isolated anchorages when they wanted them; charming little
  fishing villages if they wanted that sort of thing; and even bigger
  cities once they reached Kyushu if that was their desire. Besides the
  sailing, though, Liskey wanted to be with Carol. It would be a test, he
  figured, to see if they were compatible with each other. Thirty days
  alone on a small boat would see to that. The prospect of it excited and
  frightened him at the same time. He did not want to lose her, but he
  didn't want to give up sailing either.

 At 0800 sharp, Foreign Intelligence Service Colonel Mikhail Amosovich
 Lyalin was shown into the office of the head of First Chief Directorate
 General Leonty Dmitrevich Polunin, and although he wore civilian clothes
 as most SUR officers did these days, he approached the vast desk, brought
 his heels together, and saluted smartly.
 56 DAVID HAGBERG

  He'd been called upstairs because of the overnight from Washington.
  Yemlin's highly unusual request had caught them off guard. There'd not
  been a hint of anything like it. Thank Christ he happened to be here when
  it came in. At least he'd had a few hours to prepare himself. As chief
  of the First Department, which ran U.S. and Canadian operations, he was
  Yemlin's boss and it was expected of him.
  On the surface Yemlin's message was intriguing because of the many
  possibilities raised, yet disturbing because of the way the Washington
  rezident had been approached and the information the Americans had about
  SUR operations in Tokyo. The Siberian Far East had plenty of problems
  without a Japanese complication. But a high-tech airplane factory in
  Moscow was ~omething to think about. Lyalin had been doing nothing but
  for the past five hours.
  General Polunin was a bear of a Russian, with a thick, square face, bushy
  black eyebrows, and the biggest ears Lyalin had ever seen on a human
  being. The saying went that what the man couldn't hear hadn't been spoken
  yet. He'd wanted to get into politics, but in 1991 Boris Yeltsin had
  promoted him to chief of the First Directorate, which was responsible for
  the former KGB's foreign operations, promised him the entire SUR within
  five years, and made him swear a personal oath of allegiance. The five
  years were up soon, but it didn't look as if the general would be getting
  his promotion. This latest development from Washington, however, Lyalin
  thought, might help.
 "Good morning, General," Lyalin said.
  "Have a seat," General Polunin said, returning the salute. "Yegorov will
  be here in a few minutes. Enough time for your briefing?" Colonel Yegorov
  was chief of the Directorate's Seventh Department, which oversaw
  operations in Japan and the region.
  "Yes, sir," Lyalin said, again thanking Christ that he'd personally
  checked the overnights. "The book cable has been verified as authentic."
                 HIGH FLIGHT 57

 "I hope that was done before it was sent to me."
  "It was, General. I want to assure you that this isn't some hoax or
  disinformation plot."
  The general's eyes never left Lyalin's. "What about Yemlin?, Is the man
  to be trusted? He hasn't gone insane?"
  "He's to be trusted, and I think he's as sane as any of us. His two
  concerns outlined in the message were Kirk McGarvey's veracity and the
  man's knowledge of our Tokyo operations. Network Abunai is our major
  asset in the region."
 "The name McGarvey is familiar. Why?"
  "Because of the trouble we've suffered at his hand," Lyalin said. He too
  had heard the name, but he'd been flabbergasted when he'd pulled up the
  American's file. If he'd been one of General Baranov's team in the old
  days, he would have made damn sure that McGarvey was killed. As it was,
  he found it nearly impossible to fathom that Viktor Yemlin had come
  face-to-face with the man and lived to tell about it.
  He passed McGarvey's thick file across the big desk. "It would be easier
  for you to took through his dossier."
 "CIAT'
  "A former field officer, an assassin actually. But he was fired from the
  Agency some years ago. Since then he's done contract work for them on an
  irregular basis."
  General Polunin opened the file to several photographs of McGarvey.
  Immediate recognition dawned in his eyes. He looked up. "He killed
  Baranov, and Kurshin, and the others."
  Lyalin nodded. "Evidently Guerin Airplane Company has hired him to
  straighten out this problem with the Japanese. Fascinating."
 "To say the least."
 "We stand to gain a great deal from this."
 "Yes, or lose a lot. Is the offer legitimate?"
  "Yemlin seems to think so. But I'll need approval before I can tell him
  to proceed."
 The general thought about it for several long seconds.
 58 DAVID HAGBERG

 "I'll talk to Yegorov first, and then I will take it upstairs. We'll see,
 Mikhail Amosovich. We'll see."

 It would be light soon, and the farmhouse had been quiet for a full two
 hours. Bruno Mueller lay hidden beneath the rock wool insulation in the
 attic, his face pressed against the rough ceiling boards above the living
 room. At just under five-feet-nine, he was an unremarkablelooking man with
 a bland complexion, hazel eyes that sometimes watered, sand-colored hair
 that was thinning in back, slope shoulders, a slight paunch, and a face that
 was forgettable. He'd been the perfect spy, able to blend into any scene in
 Europe or America. He was also a complete sociopath; human life meant
 absolutely nothing to him.
  After the cops and the Action Service Schwein had finally cleared out, the
  helicopter pilot and the other one, called Henri, had stoked the fire on
  the grate and had dozed off, the pilot in a big chair and the other on the
  couch. Mueller could see them through a crack. Stupid little men, afraid to
  go into the bedroom and sleep in a perfectly good bed even though the
  bodies of the farm couple had been removed and most of the blood cleaned
  up. But the pilot had to be very good to have gotten down here from Paris
  in the storm. Mueller had heard them talking about it. The pilot had balls,
  and his presence was a stroke of luck.
  But even though he figured he would get out of this fix, like he'd gotten
  out of every other one since his childhood, he knew that there was little
  or nothing left for him. There were very few places where he would be
  welcomed. Libya, Iran, perhaps Lebanon, if he wanted, which he didn't. Nor
  were there any masters left worth serving, or any causes still viable
  enough to fight for. The religious fanaticism of the Shiites or the
  Hezbollah were not for him. The superpower struggle was over and his side
  had lost, as he'd secretly feared it might from the moment he'd seen
  America with his own eyes.
 Born in Leipzig in 1952, he'd been a child of the Cold
                 HIGH FLIGHT 59

 War, the Berlin Wall nothing more than the fence along any frontier
 between two nations. His childhood was troubled, his father an alcoholic,
 and his mother a petty thief and sometime informant to the East German
 Secret Police, the Stasi. When Bruno was seventeen, lagging in school,
 always in trouble, he killed a homosexual one night after receiving what
 he said was the worst blow job of his life, and the Stasi recruited him
 out ofjail where he was awaiting trial. He was their kind of man: young,
 therefore trainable; common looking, therefore the perfect chameleon; and
 a killer of queers, therefore pragmatic.
  The Stasi owned him, and over a four-year period spared no expense in his
  training, both physical and mental. And he responded. He was intelligent,
  and he was pragmatic enough to know a good thing when he saw it. He was
  taught hand-to-hand combat, along with mathematics, physics, chemistry,
  psychology, philosophy, religion, and a host of other subjects. He
  learned about codes and ciphers, about weapons and weapons systems from
  handguns to short-range missiles. He learned English and French in
  total-immersion courses, so that by the end of his four years he could
  speak well enough to be identified as a citizen, possibly second
  generation, but of very good breeding and excellent schooling.
  Ultimately the Stasi wanted to place Mueller inside the CIA, a plan that
  even the Service's Russian advisers thought was too ambitious for their
  East German friends until Mueller received some additional training at
  the KGB's School One outside of Moscow.
  Over eighteen months Mueller learned tradecraft from the pros, from men
  and women who'd actually been there and returned to teach it, and from
  the master strategists who knew the inner workings of every intelligence
  agency in the world. Again no expense was spared on Mueller's training,
  because the Russians also thought he had great potential.
 The final plan was as simple as it was time-consuming.
 60 DAVID HAGBERG

 There was no way for Mueller to be placed directly into the CIA-he would
 never be able to pass as an American-nor was it believed he would survive
 the intense vetting he would get if he applied off the street. First his
 reputation had to be built.
  A job as a reporter with the Frankfurt am Main newspaper was arranged for
  him in 1976, and one year later he applied to and was accepted for
  employment by the West German Secret Service, the Bundesnachrichten-
  dienst, or BND. A family (all dead) had been manufactured for him in
  Stuttgart; schooling records at Heidelberg (Don't remember him, but this
  is a big school after all); and even military service with the army
  (Mueller? Certainly, a damned fine soldier) all stood up to the BND's
  background check. In that period background investigations of new
  recruits were supervised by Major Karl Schey, who'd been working for the
  Stasi for eight years.
  Mueller fit in well in West Germany, catching infiltrators from the East
  (a task at which he received help from his Stasi masters), but it was a
  full ten years before he went to work as a liaison officer to the British
  Secret Intelligence Service ... one step closer to the Americans.
  But they had waited too long. It was 1988 by the time he was ready to go
  to Washington, and the beginning of 1989 by the time he got there, and
  the Wall was coming down, the entire Soviet sphere of influence
  unraveling.
  He remembered his short six months of shuffling papers on the Russian
  desk at Langley with confusion. So much was happening at such a frenetic
  pace that it was impossible to keep up with it all. One memory, however,
  stood out clearly in his life, and that was his first sight from the air
  of New York City. He was awestruck. Nothing he'd been taught by his
  masters, nor anything he'd learned on his own, had prepared him for that
  sight and the sudden inner vision that the Soviets and certainly the East
  Germans would lose.
 Mueller rose up from between the rough-hewn ceiling
                 HIGH FLIGHT 61

 joists and shook the insulation off his back, careful to make no noise.
 He wanted to rip off his clothes and scratch himself all over. The
 irritating rock wool fibers had worked their way into his pores, and he
 was in agony. Instead, he concentrated on his automatic pistol, an old
 Walther 9mm P-38, checking its action by feel to make sure it wouldn't jam
 up because of the insulation dust.
  Control, his masters had preached. His was superb. Each minute of the ten
  hours he'd lain up here, motionless, barely daring to breathe, listening
  to the sounds of the police and Action Service below and the storm
  outside, he'd waited for just this moment. If there were no longer any
  masters to be served, he'd decided, there was always revenge.
  He worked his way, joist by joist, silently to the rear of the attic
  where the trapdoor to the pantry behind the kitchen was still open. The
  cops had crawled up here. There'd been two of them, but they hadn't been
  very thorough in their search. They'd been put off by the rock wool.
  Nothing moved below. Mueller dropped down into the pantry, landing in a
  crouch, as if he were a cat, and went immediately through the kitchen to
  the door into the living room.
  Neither the pilot nor the other one, named Henri, had stirred. Everything
  was as Mueller had seen it from above except for a small line of dust
  that had filtered down from the ceiling onto the stone floor in front of
  the couch. Mueller stared at it. Once again he'd been lucky that neither
  man had awoken and spotted it.
  Keeping his eye on the two sleeping men, he crossed the narrow living
  room to the window and looked outside. The storm had subsided a little.
  From here he could make out the vague form of the helicopter across the
  field in the lee of the woods. The sky was beginning to grow light in the
  east. But there was no one else out there.
 Turning away from the window he crept back to the
 62 DAVID HAGBERG

 couch and looked down at the sleeping man. His name was Henri Boutet, a
 sergeant in the SDECE. He looked like a boy, not a government-sponsored
 bully.
  Mueller placed the muzzle of his pistol a half-inch from Boutet's temple
  and, looking over toward the pilot, fired.
  Gisgard reared up from a deep sleep and clawed for his gun beneath his
  camos as he jumped unsteadily to his feet.
 "Arretez!" Mueller shouted, bringing his gun up.
  For a moment it seemed as if Gisgard would ignore the command, but coming
  fully awake and realizing what was happening, he stepped back, his hands
  moving away from his tunic.
  "Ah, bon, - Mueller said. "Your friend here is dead. Do you understand
  this?"
 Gisgard nodded hesitantly.
  "Good. Now if you do not wish to join him, you will do something for me."
 "What?" Gisgard asked.
 "Fly me out of here in your helicopter, of course."

 THREE

 The Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force patrol submarine SS588 Samisho ran
 submerged at one hundred fifty feet in the Tatar Strait fifty miles off the
 Siberian coast. It was in a run-and-drift mode, an American naval tactic in
 which a submarine would run at ten or fifteen knots for a half-hour, then
 shut down and drift for a half-hour. It gave the sonar people practice, and
 if there were any surface ships looking for it, the maneuver sometimes
 flushed them out, forcing them to make a mistake, revealing their position
 and interest.
                 HIGH FLIGHT 63

  These waters between Sakhalin Island and the Siberian mainland had been a
  subject of bitter dispute since the First World War when the newly emergent
  Soviet Union claimed the island and all the waters of the strait for
  itself. Sakhalin was historically and geologically a part of Japan, a part
  of the chain of islands-Kyushu, Honshu, Hokkaido, and Karafuto (Sakhalin,
  as the Russians renamed it)-even though the Russians may have been the
  first official visitors to the barren place in the mid- I 600s. Since 1945
  the Soviet Navy, and now the Russian Federal Navy, constantly patrolled the
  region. There'd been incidents in which ship-to-ship and air-toship weapons
  launches had occurred, but the Japanese had always backed down.
  Let them know we're there, but avoid direct confrontation at all costs.
  Samisho's orders were explicit, yet she carried a full complement of GRX-2
  (B) torpedoes and three highly modified Sub-Harpoon antiship missiles.
  It was 0700 when Lieutenant Commander Seiji Kiyoda dismounted from the
  compact exercise machine, his well-muscled body glistening with sweat. At
  five-feetthree he was short even by Japanese standards, but he looked
  dangerous, his eyes dark and narrow, his face cruel except when he smiled.
  He drew some cold water in the tiny stainless-steel sink in his cramped
  quarters abaft the control center and splashed it on his face. At
  thirty-eight his body and his mind were as hard as the NS-90 high-tensile
  steel of which his boat was constructed. Every day he did a strenuous
  physical workout that at home port at Yokosuka was directed by his sensei.
  Every day he studied the writings of Yukio Mishima, the man of steel, and
  of Bushido, the warrior's code, for which he had another sensei at home.
  Iron will and a rigid discipline tempered with an appreciation of art and
  beauty, for beauty's sake alone. It was the old way. The best way. The only
  way for Japan now that her enemies were beginning to gather.
  Chi-jin-yu, wisdom, benevolence, and courage. They would need all of that
  in the coming days, Kiyoda thought while sponging the sweat off his body.
  He was up
 64 DAVID HAGBERG

 to it, and he knew that his crew was. He could only hope for the rest of
 his countrymen, and especially for the Diet in Tokyo.
  Dressed in a crisply starched uniform he crossed the corridor to the
  wardroom where a steward handed him a cup of cha, then went into the
  combined control room and attack center.
  At two li~undred fifty feet in length with a surfaced displacement of
  2,200 tons, the Samisho was not a small boat. Built to the 0+2+ (1)
  Yuushio-class standards at Kawasaki's shipyards in Kobe, she'd begun
  service in 1992, and last year she'd been brought back to the yards for
  a retrofit. Now she was state of the art, an engineering and electronics
  marvel even by U.S. naval standards. She was a diesel boat, but she was
  fast, capable of a top speed submerged of more than twenty-five knots and
  a published diving depth in excess of one thousand feet. Her electronic
  detection systems and countermeasures by Hitachi were better than
  anything currently in use by any navy in the world, and her new Fuji
  electric motors and tunnel drive were as quiet as any nuclear submarine's
  propulsion system, and much simpler to operate. The Samisho could be
  safely operated, even on war footing, with fifty men and ten
  officers-less than half the crew needed to run the Los Angeles-class
  boats, and one-fourth the crew needed for a sub-hunting surface vessel.
  His executive officer, Lieutenant Ikuo Minori, was on duty in the attack
  center with the weapons control officer, Lieutenant Shuichiyorakasaki,
  and four enlisted men.
  "Good morning, gentlemen," Kiyoda said, ducking through the hatch.
  "Kan-cho on the conn," Minori announced crisply. Captain on the conn.
  "Good morning, sir, You slept well?"
 "Very well, thank you, Ikuo.
  Minori was one of the most intelligent men Kiyoda knew. He'd been number
  one at his prep school in
                  HIGH FLIGHT 65

 Oshima, number one in engineering at Tokyo University, and number one in
 his class at the Maritime Academy. It was rumored that he would get first
 crack at the nuclear submarine, the keel of which was being laid in secret
 at Kobe, when it was finished in 1998. In the meantime he refused other
 commands, preferring to remain aboard the Samisho, as did the other
 officers and men, all of whom Kiyoda had hand picked, and all of whom
 shared his belief in Bushido and Mishima. They'd formed their own Shield
 Society.
  "Having a combination like that makes one almost wish for a war to test
  them," Admiral Higashi, commander of submarine forces, had said to his
  wife, not daring to say such a thing to anyone else. But he knew he
  wasn't alone in the opinion.
  Kiyoda took his command position starboard of the periscope well -and
  keyed the intercom. "Sonar, conn, what are you showing on the surface?"
  A chartlet in color of their area of operation on his CRT showed the
  boat's course, speed, depth, and position. Currently they were running
  almost due north at twelve knots. The operations clock showed they were
  eighteen minutes into this mode.
  "Our immediate area is clear, Kan-cho-dono. But we're' picking up a faint
  target about sixty thousand meters out."
 "What does it look like?"
  "Hard to say for certain, sir, but I'm guessing it's a Russian frigate.
  Probably a Krivak class."
  "Course and speed?" Kiyoda asked. He recognized .the sonarman's voice.
  It was Tsutomu Nakayama, probably the best in the MSDF. At twenty-five
  he still had the ears, but he also had experience.
  "he's inbound. I'd say twenty knots, maybe a little less."
  "Keep a sharp watch, Tsutomu. We're going up to take a look. If he
  changes course or speed let me know immediately."
  I'Yo-so-ro, Kan-cho. " Will do, Captain.
 66 DAVID HAGBERG

 "What's the weather?"
  "I'm picking up surface noises. Four to five meter waves."
  Kiyoda released the switch. "Bring the boat to periscope depth."
  "Hai, Kan-cho, bringing the boat to periscope depth," Minori replied.
  "Reduce speed to five knots, and come left to threefour-zero degrees."
  The winds and seas at this time of year came mostly out of the north with
  a slight westerly component. By turning the boat into the general direc-
  tion of the wind, a much safer attitude in which to surface than abeam
  the seas, they would be ready to come up fast if need be. It could save
  time and lives in an emergency.
  "Very well, reducing speed to five knots, coming torikaji to new course
  three-four-zero. Yo-so-ro. "
  The problem, as Kiyoda saw it, was that Japan would lose her initiative
  unless she had control of the sea in the region of the home islands, as
  well as the sea lanes to and from her vital Middle East oil supplies, and
  down to the Philippines, East Indies, and Australia, where most of the
  rest of her natural resources came from. Japan was a manufacturing
  nation. Her factories produced or died. Any disaster involving her raw
  materials, no matter how slight, any delay, no matter how brief, would
  be catastrophic.
  For the moment, however, Japan faced two major threats: the first from
  America, which to this point was being handled diplomatically, and the
  second from Russia, which was still so beset with internal problems that
  it was becoming increasingly like a wounded animal -dangerous and
  unpredictable. The U.S. could shut off Japan's supply lines anytime it
  chose, but the Russian navy, its ponderous presence always looming just
  off shore, threatened the actual physical security of the home islands.
  It was, to Kiyoda's way of thinking, intolerable.
  He keyed the intercom. "ECMs, conn, we're on the way up. I want you to
  scan for any emissions from that
                 HIGH FLIGHT 67

 bogie to our north." ECMs were Electronic Counter Measures, a submarine's
 electronic defense system.
  "Hai, Kan-cho," Lieutenant Masaaki Kawara, their ELINT- Electronic
  Intelligence-officer said. "Shall I go active, let him know we're here?"
 "Negative," Kiyoda said. "Just keep your ears open,"
 "Hai. "
  Among the mast-mounted sensors that could be raised above the surface
  when the boat was brought to periscope depth was the ZPS-8 surveillance
  radar antenna. If they illuminated the Russian frigate, their own radar
  signal would give them away. Instead, they would use a series of
  directional antennae and a pair of omnidirectional arrays, which would
  pick up and pinpoint the source of any electronic emissions within fifty
  nautical miles or more, depending how high out of the water they could
  be raised.
  The new speed and course data showed up on Kiyoda's command screen, and
  he watched as the depth figures counted backward, a pictorial
  representation of the boat showing a five-degrees-up bubble. Minori was
  taking it slow. He was not only intelligent, he was cautious when need
  be. Submarines were nearly blind on the way up because of the turbulence
  and noises caused by blowing her ballast tanks.
  "Leveling off at two-zero meters;" Minori reported when they reached
  periscope depth.
  The status panel above the periscope well showed all three ELINT masts
  coming up.
  "The boat is steady and level on course and depth," Minori said. "My
  board is green."
 "Very well," Kiyoda said. His intercom buzzed.
  "Conn, ECMs. That bogie is talking to someone in our direction,"
  Lieutenant Kawara reported.
  Kiyoda sat forward. "Have we been detected?" He put his tea aside.
  "lie, " negative, the ECMs officer replied. There was a slim chance that
  the Russian frigate's search radar would pick out the ELINT masts from
  the surface clutter and recognize them for what they were.
 68 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Sonar, conn, what are you showing?"
  "Nothing else on my screen, Kan-cho, " Nakayama said. "Stand by."
  Kiyoda figured he was about to find what he had come looking for.
  "Prepare for emergency dive," he ordered.
  Minori didn't miss a beat. "Prepare for emergency dive, yo-so-ro, " he
  said.
  "Conn, sonar. That bogie is definitely a Krivak class. She's turned
  directly toward us and is making turns for full speed."
  Was it a trap? It was as if the Russian bastards had been waiting for
  them. But it was what he'd come for.
 "Estimated time to intercept?" Kiyoda asked.
  "Fifty-four minutes, Kan-cho, " Lieutenant Takasaki replied instantly,
  anticipating the request.
  It meant that the Russian sub hunter would be in dangerous range soon.
  But if it wasn't a trap, if the Russians hadn't somehow known that the
  Samisho would be here, then it meant she'd been detected at some point
  earlier, possibly as she passed through the Soya Strait between Hokkaido
  and Sakhalin. It was suspected that the Russians had placed submarine
  detectors on the seabed there.
 Minori was watching him.
  Kiyoda keyed his intercom. "ECMs, conn. Give me one sweep overhead to
  thirty miles."
  "Hai, " Lieutenant Kawara. said. A moment later he was back, excited.
  "It's a Helix, three miles out and inbound, very fast."
  "Bring your masts in," Kiyoda said calmly, and he looked up at Minori.
  "Emergency dive. Make your depth two-zero-zero meters."
  "Very well," Minori replied, his voice and manner as calm as his
  captain's. "Blow all tanks, flank speed forward, down full deflection.
  Make your depth twozero-zero meters."
  "Yo-so-ro." The computer-assisted helmsman/planesman repeated the order.
 "Sound battle stations," Kiyoda ordered.
                 HIGH FLIGHT 69

  Minori hit the battle stations alarm, and a Klaxon horn sounded
  throughout the boat.
  "Load torpedo tubes one and two. Make ready Harpoon one."
  This time Minori's left eyebrow went up slightly, but he repeated the
  orders, and one by one each of the boat's battle stations reported
  readiness.
  "Torpedoes one and two ready," the torpedoman forward said.
 "Harpoon one, ready in tube three."
  "Give me a continuous firing solution on the ... intruder," Kiyoda told
  his weapons control officer.
  "Passing four-zero meters," the dive officer said, but before Minori
  could reply, the intercom buzzed.
  "Conn, ECMs. The helicopter has just dropped a dipping buoy."
  "Belay that depth," Kiyoda told Minori. "Make it five-zero meters." A
  dipping buoy was a sonar unit that enabled the Russian Ka-27 Helix
  helicopter launched from the frigate to get a fairly accurate fix on
  their depth and position.
 "Yo-so-ro, five-zero meters," Minori replied.
  "ECMs, conn, put out a decoy," Kiyoda ordered. "Sonar, conn, give me a
  course, speed, and range to the target."
  "Zero-one-zero degrees relative, speed of closure fiveone knots, range
  just under twenty-four nautical miles."
  Kiyoda instantly did the sums and subtractions in his head. "Come right
  ten degrees to course three-five-zero."
  "Hai, coming omo-kaji, ten degrees to three-fivezero," Minori said. It
  put them bow on to the Russian frigate.
  "Weapons, give me a final firing solution on the Harpoon," Kiyoda said.
  The GRX-2(B) torpedoes had an effective range of fifteen miles, but the
  Sub-Harpoon could be used to sixty nautical miles.
  "Kan-cho, is this a drill?" Lieutenant Takasaki asked, Like Minori, he
  was one of the bright ones out of the Maritime Self Defense Force
  Academy,'and Kiyoda had handpicked him. The man's loyalty was absolute.
 70 DAVID HAGBERG

  Rectitude and justice, Kiyoda had learned, were the principles that it
  was time to die when it was right to die, and to strike when it was right
  to strike. His men and officers all understood that. Mishima had
  understood it, just as the old man, Sokichi Kamiya, understood it
  perfectly. Before this patrol Kiyoda had gone to see the man in the
  mountains outside of Tokyo. They'd sat in the garden listening to, the
  gurgling water and the gentle music of the windchime that hung in a
  gnarled old tree.
  "Remember that revenge is justified only on behalf of one's superiors and
  benefactors," Kamiya-san had told him. "Revenge may never be used to
  correct the wrongs done to yourself, your wife, or your children."
  "This is not a drill," Kiyoda said. "Give me a firing solution and open
  torpedo door three."
  "Hai, the solution is coming up," the weapons control officer replied.
  Kiyoda hesitated, The sounds made by the opening torpedo-tube door would
  be picked up by the chopper's sonobuoy, and understood for what they
  were.
  I Wan-cho, sonar, we've got a high-speed screw incoming," Nakayama said
  excitedly. "I think the Helix dropped a torpedo on us."
  "ECMs, conn, get it off our tail," Kiyoda ordered, keeping his voice
  calm. Everything was happening as he'd planned it. The Russians were easy
  to manipulate, especially now. "Come left thirty degrees to new course
  three-two-zero, and ring for emergency stop."
  There was no way they could outrun -the torpedo, so their only recourse
  was to make it think they had by turning and slowing down while releasing
  a stream of bubblemakers that would drift straight ahead at the old speed
  long enough for the torpedo to home in on the false target.
  "Give me the new solution," Kiyoda said. Minori glanced over him and a
  slight smile creased the corners of his mouth. He understood.
  "The solution7is on my board," Lieutenant Takasaki reported crisply. He
  too was excited.
                 HIGH FLIGHT 71

 "Conn, Kan-cho, the torp took the bait!"
  "Hai, " Kiyoda said. "Watch for the second one." The Helix carried two
  torpedoes. "Match bearings and shoot tube three."
  Takasaki hesitated a fraction of a second, then uncaged the firl ng
  switch and flipped it. "Missile away," he called out.
 "Time to impact?"
  "I'm estimating forty-eight seconds after surface ignition," Takasaki
  said.
  The Sub-Harpoon was blown out of the torpedo tube and was carried to the
  surface in a buoyant canister that was jettisoned when the missile came
  to launch position. At that point its rocket motors fired, and it
  accelerated toward its target at just under Mach one, its terminal radar
  active until lock-on. It was simple, and very effective. In this version,
  the warhead consisted of seven hundred fifty pounds of high explosives
  jacketed in a high-carbon-steel case designed to penetrate well within
  the bowels of a ship before it blew.
  Takasaki was watching the launch clock. "Ignition now," he called out.
 "Sonar, conn, what's our bogie doing?"
 "Same course and speed, Kan-cho.
 "Watch for the torp .
  "Here it comes, here it comes, but it's farther away this time," the
  sonarman radioed. "Right on our starboard bow."
  "Come right ten degrees to three-three-zero," Kiyoda said. "Target number
  one on that torpedo and launch when ready."
  It was a tricky maneuver. Minori had the boat turning practically in its
  own length, and even before the turn was completed Takasaki launched
  their torpedo from tube one.
 "Eight seconds to impact," he called out.
  "Come left one-five-zero degrees to new course oneeight-zero, emergency
  dive to two-five-zero meters."
 "Hai, coming left one-five-zero degrees to one-eight- 72 DAVID HAGBERG

 zero, emergency dive to two-five-zero meters," Minori repeated, and the boat
 heeled over to port, nose down as it accelerated.
 A tremendous explosion hammered the hull.
  " We got it," the sonarman reported unnecelgsarily, and Kiyoda laughed. It
  had begun.
  " Give me a damage report," Minori was shouting into the intercom.
  Takasaki was looking at the captain. "Shouldn't we wait to see what damage
  we've done to that frigate?"
 "Time to impact?" Kiyoda asked.
 Takasaki checked his board. "Nine seconds."
  11 1 trust your shooting, Shuichiyo. Besides, I don't want that Helix crew
  picking up our sail number."
 "They'll know," Minori said.
 "But they fired the first shot," Kiyoda said.

 The snow had tapered off in the late morning hours, and by early afternoon
 most of Washington, D.C., was back to normal. By 6:30, when Carrara was able
 to leave his office, the parking lot had been plowed, although the forecast
 was for more of the white stuff overnight.
  He'd done a lot of thinking about what McGarvey had told him, but he wasn't
  in the position to do his old friend much good, although it was his
  understanding that the meeting with Yemlin had gone off without a hitch.
  He'd gotten that call from a Yemlin aide at home last night.
  Deputy Director Lawrence Danielle wasn't saying much, and nothing had come
  down from the seventh floor. But as he told Mac, it wasn't likely that the
  DCI or the White House would be interested in helping out. It was a
  private-sector problem, and official policy was to leave it at that. After
  the President's economic summit in Tokyo the situation might be different,
  but they'd have to wait and see.
  His car phone buzzed just as he was pulling out of his parking slot. He
  stopped and picked it up.
 "Yes?"
 "Mr. Danielle wanted to catch you before you got too
                 HIGH FLIGHT .73

 far," the DDCI's secretary said. "He would like you in his office as soon as
 possible."
  "I'm still in the parking lot," Carrara said, pulling back into his slot.
  "Be right up."
  Danielle was waiting for him in his conference room, a dozen large
  photographs spread out on the table. With him was the Agency's senior photo
  analyst, Nathan Conley, a short, slightly built man who'd come to them from
  the Defense Intelligence Agency after the University of Minnesota. Carrara
  had worked with him before.
  "I don't know if this is coincidence or not, Phil, coming on the heels of
  Kirk McGarvey's visit, but it sure as hell is going to get the DCI's
  attention," Danielle said. He was an older man, stoop shouldered, with
  thinning white hair and a pale, almost translucent face.
 "What have we got?" Carrara asked.
  "These shots were taken by our KH-14 recon satellite less than an hour
  ago," Conley said. "Over the Tatar Strait, between the Siberian mainland
  and Sakhalin Island. We got lucky with the weather."
  Carrara studied a few of the photographs, but it was hard to make out
  anything for sure, although in one sequence it seemed as if he was seeing
  a burning ship.
  "At 2215 Zulu, a Russian Federal Navy Krivak-class frigate was attacked and
  sunk by what appears to be a Sub-Harpoon launch," Conley said. "We're still
  checking, but we think the Russian ship was the Menshinsky, which sailed
  from Vladivostok six days ago."
  "We did this?" Carrara asked, hardly believing what he was being told.
  "No, sir," Conley said. "We have no assets in the region at the moment.
  Which leaves only the Japanese."
  Carrara looked up. Danielle's mood was impossible to gauge, except that he
  didn't seem happy. Mac would be called back, and Carrara was getting the
  feeling that his old friend could be right about the Japanese. It was a
  sobering thought.

 It was midnight before Carrara could get away. There'd been no word from the
 Russians about the incident, but
 74 DAVID HAGBERG

 Navy Intelligence reported that six surface vessels were converging on the
 location, and SOSUS-Sound Surveillance -monitors in the region had picked
 up the signatures of three Russian submarines, one of them a boomer-an
 Oscar-class cruise missile boat-with more than enough firepower to start
 and finish a war.
  There would be nothing from Europe for another few hours, nor had Japan
  made any comment, although CIA's Tokyo Station reported a lot of activity
  at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
  CIA Director Roland Murphy, the General, had briefed the President at
  10:00 P.m. and was expected back at the White House at nine in the
  morning for an update. In the meantime the Agency was on emergency
  footing. There was no telling how the Russians would respond, or how the
  incident was going to affect the upcoming economic summit meeting in
  Tokyo.
  "What the hell are the damn fools thinking about?" the DCI had asked at
  one point.
  "Maybe it's an isolated incident," Deputy Director of Intelligence Tommy
  Doyle suggested. "Hell, General, it might have been nothing more than a
  sub-driver with an itchy finger. The fever is running high over there
  just now."
  "I don't buy that for one minute, and neither will the President. They
  pick their sub skippers just as carefully as we do. For my money it was
  a directed action. And if the bastards wanted to stir up a hornet's nest,
  they sure did it."
  The one stroke of good fortune was that the news media hadn't gotten the
  story yet, although Tokyo Station's latest cable warned that the
  international press corps was beginning to stir, and downstairs the
  Public Affairs night-duty officer had received two calls from the
  Washington Post wanting to know what was going on in Tokyo. The media
  couldn't be kept in the dark for long, but all the White House wanted
  were a few hours to figure it out before they had to start making policy
  and answering questions.
 Before he left, Carrara went upstairs to Danielle's
                 HIGH FLIGHT 75

 office. The DCI, like nearly everyone else, was dug in for the night. "I'm
 going home for a couple of hours, boss."
 Danielle looked up. "What about the Europeans?"
  "I'll be back before they start opening up. Dan can start on the early
  stuff if anything comes in. I need a shower, a shave, and a clean shirt."
  Danielle stared at him thoughtfully. "We need to call McGarvey on this one.
  He's hit too close to home. Where the hell is he getting his information?"
 "He's still got friends in the business."
 "Too many friends," Danielle said.
 "Yes, sir," Carrara nodded.

 Carrara pulled off the parkway a couple of miles south of Agency
 headquarters and telephoned McGarvey's hotel from a gas station pay phone.
 "We have to talk."
 "Where are you?" McGarvey asked.
  "I'm on the parkway. I'll be there in fifteen minutes." He hung up, his
  palms cold and wet. He was committing treason for friendship. McGarvey was
  owed, he told himself. Nonetheless, the headhunters, and ultimately Murphy,
  would have his balls nailed to the wall if and when he was tumbled.
  Activities prosecutable under the National Secrets Act.
  All the way downriver and across the Key Bridge the same refrain played
  itself in his head. A betrayal of a basic position of trust. The most
  heinous of crimes against his country.
  It had begun to snow lightly by the time Carrara pulled into the Four
  Seasons Hotel parking lot. McGarvey was waiting, and as soon as he got in
  Carrara headed for the darkest comer he could find and parked.
 "Did you get word from Yemlin?" McGarvey asked.
  "Not yet," Carrara replied. "But everything has changed. I just came from
  Langley, and I have to get back as soon as possible."
 "What is it, Phil?"
  "Six hours ago a Russian Navy frigate was sunk in the Tatar Strait by a
  sub-sea missile that was probably launched from a Japanese submarine. We've
  been listen-
   76 DAVID KAGBERG

 ing to radio chatter all night. No survivors. Not one man out of a crew
 of two hundred plus. In the meantime, nobody is officially saying a thing.
 We're waiting for the Europeans to come on line in the next couple of
 hours, and at nine the DCI briefs the President. But the Russians are
 pumping one shitload of resources into the region. No one knows what the
 hell they're getting ready for, but it doesn't look good. The Japanese may
 be going after Sakhalin Island finally, and the Russians are responding."
 "It's not that," McGarvey said.
  "You're going to get called on this one, Mac," Carrara said. "They're
  going to want to know where you're getting your information."
  "I read the goddamned newspapers, Phil," McGarvey said sharply. "But the
  Japanese aren't after Sakhalin."
  "They're showing that they're able and willing to protect their home
  waters. We've gone all through that."
  "Maybe," McGarvey said. "Maybe it's something else. Are we taking sides
  yet?"
 "It's too soon for that."
 "Was the attack unprovoked?"
 "Unknown."
  McGarvey looked away for a second. "What do you think?"
  "We'll probably end up jumping all over the Japanese. Demand they
  apologize, demand they make reparations. Tokyo will deny any prior
  knowledge. They'll say it was a sub-driver who went berserk."
  "Maybe they'll be telling the truth," McGarvey said. "How do I contact
  Yemlin?"
  Carrara's breath caught in his throat, although he'd suspected McGarvey
  would ask that. "If Murphy thinks you're involved he'll come gunning for
  you. Won't be much I'll be able to do. Fact is, I'll probably fall with
 YOU."
 "This is important," McGarvey said.
 "That it is, Mac."
 "I'll keep you in the loop."
 "Yeah, do that," Carrara said. "It's a blind number,
                 HIGH FLIGHT 77

 untraceable. No one will answer the phone, but when the connection is made,
 give them your name and your message and hang up. If Yemlin wants to see
 you, he will."

 Arlington Cemetery opened at 8:00 A.M., and fifteen minutes later Yemlin,
 wearing the same dark overcoat as before, came down the broad path past
 Kennedy's grave. Even from a distance, McGarvey could see that the Russian
 was troubled.
  "I'm assuming you've heard the latest," Yemlin said as McGarvey fell in
  beside him. "The situation is very disturbing."
 "Is Moscow willing to help us?"
  "Yes," the SUR officer said. "But everything has changed. You can
  understand that my superiors want to talk with you. They have many
  questions."
  "All right," McGarvey said. "But it'll have to be very soon, Viktor
  Pavlovich. With what has just happened, your superiors must understand the
  urgency of our request."
  "There is a 2:20 flight from Dulles this afternoon. It will put us in
  Moscow by late morning."
 McGarvey stopped short. "I'm not going to Moscow."
 "It's the only way," the Russian said.
  "An airplane factory worth a billion dollars is plenty of leverage. I'll
  meet them in Paris."
  "They won't go along with that. Maybe before, but not now."
 "Then the deal's off."
  "I don't believe you. Think of this from our viewpoint. We're under the
  gun, and it's possible that you can help us more, for the moment, with the
  truth than with an airplane factory."
 "I'll give you the truth."
  "We have to be certain," Yemlin insisted. "In Paris that may be impossible.
  But in Moscow we believe you will tell the truth. It's up to you. We will
  not kidnap
 YOU."
 It was up to him, McGarvey thought. But he didn't
 78 DAVID HAGBERG

 know if he could face Moscow. Not yet. The price he'd have to pay was
 still too high, the dangers too great. Facing Yemlin was bad enough,
 but facing the others, facing his own past, could prove to be more than
 he could handle.

 FOUR

 Riding in a cab downtown from his hotel in Georgetown, McGarvey was struck
 by how beautiful Washington had become under a fresh blanket of snow, but
 he felt like a stranger here. Despite the extraordinary happenings of the
 past few days, he was still on the outside looking in. He was a civilian.
 If he got himself backed into a comer he would be on his own. There'd be
 no cavalry to the rescue.
  After his meeting with Carrara he'd tried the Gales Creek telephone
  number Kennedy had given him, but the woman who answered could only tell
  him that Kennedy was en route back to Washington, D.C., and that she
  would get a message to him as soon as possible.
  Against his better judgment he went to Dominique Kilbourne's Watergate
  apartment. He figured that if he called her first she would hold him off
  until morning. But he didn't have the time. He was developing an odd,
  between-the-shoulders feeling that something disastrous was on the verge
  of happening. Kennedy had come to him too late in the situation. Forces
  beyond anyone's control were beginning to gather, to have a life of their
  own.
  It took a long time before Dominique answered the door and awoke
  sufficiently to understand who it was and let him in. She wore a thick
  terry-cloth bathrobe, and without makeup she looked younger, Midwestern
  scrubbed.
                 HIGH FLIGHT 79

  "You're not exactly a pleasant surprise, Mr. McGarvey," she said. Her voice
  was soft, and rounded by sleep.
 "Something's come up. I need to talk to Kennedy."
 "You'd better come in."
 "Is he coming here?" McGarvey asked.
  Her eyes widened momentarily, and her nostrils flared. "No, she said
  sharply. "What made you think he would be?"
 "He told me that you'd been lovers."
  "I see," she said evenly. "That's past tense. He's not here now." She
  turned and padded into the apartment.
  McGarvey followed her into the kitchen where she put on the tea kettle.
  "Nothing for me."
 "The cognac is in the same place in the living room."
 "I was told Kennedy was on his way to Washington."
  "He'll be touching down at eight, and after he checks in at the Hyatt
  Regency, he'll either come to my office, or meet with Tom Hailey at
  American. I imagine his afternoon will be busy too."
  "I want you to meet him at the airport and set up a lunch for me at his
  hotel."
  "Do you have a cigarette?" she asked. "I quit three years ago, but now
  seems to be a good time to start again."
  McGarvey gave her a cigarette and held the match. "Get the message to him,
  Ms. Kilbourne."
  "Dominique," she said, and inhaled. "I'd call him now, but that would be
  too public for what you've got to tell him, I think. So I'll do as you ask,
  and meet his flight."
 "Good," McGarvey said, and he turned to go.
  "In the meantime I've learned something about you since you were here last,
  and now I want to know more."
  He turned back. It was always the same. "You're like a very bright flame,"
  Kathleen had told him when he'd gotten back from Europe the last time.
  "Women are like moths around you. I don't understand it. Even your own
  daughter, who should know better, is blind." It was true, but he didn't
  know why.
 80 DAVID HAGBERG

 "What have you learned about me?" he asked.
  "Get your brandy," she said. "You were a spy for the CIA, and you still
  do work for them sometimes. Freelance."
  "You don't have to be a part of this. Tell Kennedy that you're quitting.
  He can come up with another Washington contact for me."
  Her eyes were bright, and she was frightened, but she was trying hard to
  hide it. "You were an assassin."
  McGarvey was surprised that she knew what she did, but Kennedy had
  explained that Guerin's CEO had an in at Langley. It was disturbing
  though that the general would allow his chief counsel to give out such
  information. Or even hint at it.
 "Our government does not hire assassins," he said.
 "It's what you do."
  "My job is saving lives," McGarvey said gently. "That's all I ever did."
  "The Cold War is over, Mr. McGarvey. There's no more threat of nuclear
  war. The Pentagon's budget has been cut, and it'll be cut even more. But
  that's not good enough for you, because you enjoy it. I can see it in
  your eyes. You fucking love it!"
  "Get out while you can, Ms. Kilbourne ... Dominique," he said. "Forget
  you ever heard my name."
 "I want to know why."
  When Moses had challenged God for being too harsh, God had told him, "I
  am what I am." And He had left it at that. People were not gods, they
  were expected to change, to go with the flow, to accept the new and
  discard the old. But as a child he had his own set of demons that he'd
  never managed to exorcise. His parents were dead, the Wall was down, the
  Soviet Union no longer existed, but he still had his demons, stronger now
  in some ways than before. Probably because of the fertile ground they'd
  had to grow in since Kansas.
  It was her last question-why? -that had sent him away. He had no answer.
 The cabby dropped him off at the Hyatt Regency
                 HIGH FLIGHT 81

 Washington on D Street and New Jersey Avenue. He went inside to the atrium
 restaurant where David Kennedy was waiting for him. Like Dominique, the
 former astronaut lived in a different world than McGarvey did. What cop,
 after a few years on the force dealing on a daily basis with the dregs of
 society, could look at the world through anything but a jaundiced eye? Spies
 were the same; they saw conspiracies and dangers lurking everywhere. And
 most of the good ones he knew at Langley, and elsewhere, wore their cynicism
 like a badge of honor because it didn't come naturally; they'd earned it.
  "Have you ordered yet?" he asked, reaching Kennedy's table.
  Kennedy looked up. "I was waiting for you," he said, and they shook hands.
  "Dominique is shook up."
  "I know," McGarvey said, sitting down. "My CIA friend stopped by last
  night."
  "I talked to Al Vasilanti, and he said the CIA was hinting that what we
  were doing might not sit so well on the Hill."
  McGarvey wished he could have been there. According to Dominique, Vasilanti
  wasn't a man to be pushed around. Guerin's annual budget, as the company's
  CEO liked to point out, was larger than the budgets of ninety percent of
  all the countries in the world. "Should give us diplomatic status."
 "What'd he tell them?"
  Kennedy smiled, though it was clear he was troubled. "Told them to go to
  hell. He's behind you one hundred percent, but he told ine to tell you to
  watch your ass. If you get in over your head there might not be anything we
  can do for you."
 "What else did he tell you?"
  "Told me to trust my instincts or get out of the business. And since I'm
  not going to fire you, I'm going to take you at your word. You said that
  the least we could face would be charges of industrial espionage, and at
  the most treason. You've got to admit, Mac, that's pretty heavy going."
 82 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Cold feet?"
  "Goddamned right I've got cold feet, but you're the expert. You tell me."
  Their waiter came. Kennedy ordered a tossed salad and a cup of tea.
  McGarvey ordered a brandy neat, no water, no ice.
  "You must have had a bad night," Kennedy said when the waiter was gone.
  "I've had worse," McGarvey replied. "Did Vasilanti say who he spoke with
  at the Agency, and when?"
  "Lawrence Danielle, evidently just after you'd met with Phil Carrara."
  The DCI Roland Murphy would have called Vasilanti if Danielle had brought
  the problem across the hall to him. But it was the DCFs style to insulate
  his boss. This time it would work to their advantage.
  "I met with Viktor Yemlin again this morning. He's invited me to go to
  Moscow with him. We leave from Dulles in a few hours."
  "Jesus," Kennedy said softly. He looked across the dining room as if he
  expected someone was listening to them. "You'll have to stall him. We'll
  need at least twenty-four hours to put together a negotiating team. We'll
  fly over on our own equipment, of course."
 "They want me, David. Alone."
 Kennedy looked at him. "Why?"
  "Because of what happened yesterday afternoon, and because they want to
  make sure that I'll tell them the truth."
 "What are you talking about?"
  "A Japanese submarine attacked and sank a Russian naval vessel in the
  Tatar Strait . .'. in waters the Russians are claiming as their own."
  Kennedy was stunned. "There's been nothing in the news."
  "There won't be, at least for the next day or two," McGarvey said. "Phil
  Carrara told me last night, and Yemlin confirmed it this morning.
  There're going to be a lot of people wanting to know why we picked just
  now to ask for help spying on the Japanese."
                  HIGH FLIGHT 83

 "What do we tell them?"
 "The truth."
  "The CIA didn't buy it, what makes you think the Russians w' ll?" Kennedy
  asked. "You can't be serious about going alone to Moscow. If something
  happened there wouldn't be a damned thing we could do for you. And I don't
  think the CIA would lift a finger either."
  "I know," McGarvey said. He'd gone over this with himself a dozen times in
  the last few hours. "But we asked for their help, and now they're willing
  to talk about it. So what do we do?"
  "Christ, what a mess," Kennedy said looking away again.
  "It's become a different world out there, David. One I don't think anyone
  really understands yet. Our only choice is to deal with it as best we can."
 "What if you're wrong?"
  "Then I'm wrong, and we go from there," McGarvey said, his gut in a knot.
  "But if I'm right, and if we don't even try to stop them, a lot of innocent
  people could get hurt."
 "Yeah," Kennedy said softly.
 "It's a bitch, but it was us who made it this way."

 Yemlin was waiting for him in a VIP lounge at Dulles when he showed up at
 2:00 P.m. An Aeroflot Ilyushin 11-86 was parked at the gate, connected to
 the boarding area by a jetway. The aircraft looked old, and shabby, its
 paint job faded and peeling. Once the largest airline in the world, the
 Russian carrier was in desperate straits.
  "I was about to give up hope," Yemlin said. "I didn't think you were
  coming."
  "This is important to my company, Viktor Pavlovich. I've met with my boss
  about the details of our offer."
  Yemlin peered at him for a long beat, as if he were trying to decide what
  to make of what he was hearing. Something had changed since this morning.
  The Russian no longer seemed apologetic as before. Evidently he'd gotten
  further instructions from Moscow. "They'll want to talk to you about that."
 84 DAVID HAGBERG

  "I've got nothing to hide," McGarvey said. "I came to you for help,
  remember?"

 Taking his place beside Yemlin as the only passengers in first class, it
 felt like Russia already to McGarvey-even before the jumbo jet left the
 U.S. The interior of the aircraft was just as threadbare and chipped as
 the exterior had suggested, and as all of Russia was. McGarvey remembered
 the first time he'd come into Moscow with his chief of station. It was his
 first assignment. He'd had the thought that the city needed a coat of
 paint. A major spring cleaning that all the babushkas out sweeping the
 roads with straw brooms couldn't accomplish. The country needed
 refurbishing, remodeling, updating. Just as this aircraft did. Aeroflot
 might be having its troubles at home, but in the Western world it wouldn't
 last five minutes with shabby, outdated equipment like this. From a
 practical standpoint he had to wonder if the jetliner would make it across
 the Atlantic. It'd be a hell of a note, he thought wryly, to die this way.
  Yemlin had a word with the crew, and even before they pulled away from
  the gate first class was closed off from the rest of the plane, and a
  good-looking young woman offered them drinks. By the time they were
  airborne McGarvey was on his second cognac, neat, no water, no ice, but
  he was still tied up in knots. He was going back, going back and back,
  down and down, as if he were falling into a bottomless pit with darkness
  all around him.
  Her name was Tania Fedorovna Sorokin, and she worked as a technical
  translator and adviser for the government, rendering into Russian
  sensitive Western technical documents that she would explain in lay terms
  to the politicians. She was good at her job, but from the beginning she'd
  never trusted Brezhnev. "The man is mad for power, and he'll lead the
  country to nuclear holocaust before he'll step aside."
  So far as she knew, or allowed herself to know, McGarvey was a dissident
  American scientist. An intel-
                    HIGH FLIGHT 85

 lectual who wanted to end war once and for all by freely sharing nuclear
 information with anyone who wanted it. If there are no secrets there will
 be no wars.
  There were a half-dozen of them, McGarvey told her, but in order for
  their struggle to have any chance of success they needed hard information
  about the Brezhnev government, and the extent of Brezhnev's grasp of
  Western technical secrets. At that time a great deal of effort was being
  spent on the Strategic Defense Initiative, both in the West and in the
  Soviet Union, and information was power.
  Tania had agreed to spy for them. "But don't let me down," she'd told
  McGarvey. "Whoever you really work for.,,
  They had become lovers, and McGarvey remembered that he liked lying with
  her in the hours just before dawn. He would awaken and watch her sleep;
  watch her chest rise and fall; watch her lips moving sometimes as if she
  were dreaming; how a few drops of sweat would form on the bridge of her
  nose, as if she were troubled; how when the morning light finally came
  the sun would illuminate the peach fuzz at the small of her back. She was
  a sun person and would come awake then, smiling when she saw him watching
  her. And they would make love, sometimes slowly with a gentle
  deliberation and sensitivity for each other's feelings, and at other
  times passionately, almost cruelly, wanting only to satisfy their own
  needs. It was never bad with them; sometimes better than other times, but
  never bad.
  At home in the United States he'd been married to his first wife for four
  years. They'd met at Kansas State, and when he'd gone to work for the CIA
  he'd dragged her around the world. But it wasn't her life, and their
  fighting became just as passionate as their lovernaking had been. She
  began to smoke, mostly to irritate him, and to drink, to drown her little
  voices, and so he had divorced her.
  No matter what she'd wanted, or thought she'd wanted by her actions,
  divorce had not been it. Some-
   86 DAVID HAGBERG

 how she'd secretly hoped that she could change him. Take away the hex that
 his parents had somehow put on him. But that was impossible. By the time
 she'd finally realized that it was too late, it already was. In that she and
 his second wife, Kathleen, were kindred spirits.
  McGarvey went to Moscow alone, where he developed the network and fell in
  love with Tania. For that,year he felt whole, the only thing missing from
  his life besides children (his first wife, Audrey, had not wanted them) was
  his parents who'd died a few years earlier. He'd wanted to show his dad
  what he was doing, how he was taking the fight to the Soviet Union, and how
  they were winning.
  Walter Porterfield was his control officer. Since McGarvey was living on
  the economy, they'd set up a series of letter drops, two escape routes, and
  three faceto-face meeting points. The drops were serviced on a weekly
  basis, and sometimes more often because early on Thnia and the others who
  worked in various branches of the Kremlin were supplying him with gold seam
  product, which was the old term for first rate intelligence information.
  Once a month, he and Porterfield met faceto-face, if for nothing other than
  moral support; it was lonely in the field, and it was nice to speak English
  from time to time.
  During their last meeting, Porterfield had informed him that Audrey was
  sick, possibly very sick, and that the Company would pull him out for an
  emergency leave so that he could go back to the States. "It's up to you,"
  Porterfield had said.
  "She's my ex, Walt. Which means I don't go running when she calls."
  McGarvey remembered that decision as clearly as if he were making it at
  this moment. "It's probably alcohol poisoning. She'll go to a detox clinic,
  get clean for a month or so, then get out and start it all over again.
  Should I go back for that?"
  Porterfield had given him an odd look. "Maybe you should get out of Moscow
  anyway. You know, take a little vacation. You look like shit."
                 HIGH FLIGHT 87

  McGarvey chuckled. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, but you've seen
  the stuff coming out of here."
  "It's nothing short of fabulous, Mac. Everybody at home is shitting
  purple peach seeds. Vanhorne would make you President if he could find
  a way of pulling it off."
 "Don't ask me to leave just now."
  Porterfield had shaken his head. "You'll have to get out sooner or
  later."
 "Right, but not now."
  By then Tania had become something special, and she was failing in love
  with him. It was a common occurrence, he'd been taught at the CIA's
  training school. The mark, under the tremendous pressure of betraying his
  or her country, will transform that emotional energy into love for the
  agent runner. It's a life jacket for them, so be careful you don't damage
  that feeling, because they might grab at another straw-perhaps even their
  own authorities-to save themselves.
  But he was vulnerable too. Rubbed raw by four years of a marriage, half
  of which had been spent in utter hell. The irony of it, he remembered
  thinking at the time, was that he still loved his ex-wife. He just
  couldn't live with her. So he had told Tania things, had made promises
  to her that he should not have made, and she believed him. Then Yemlin,
  had arrested them, interrogated them, testified dispassionately at their
  trials, and had visited them once in Volodga. In the end they were all
  dead; most of them at the hospital, some of them on the way out, Tania
  in the snow just short of the Finnish border ... and at home, Audrey.
  Yemlin looked up. "Tomorrow will be a very long day. Perhaps you should
  try to get some sleep, Kirk."

 After the Second World War the American Office of Strategic Services,
 which was the forerunner of the CIA, set up a new West German secret
 intelligence service with headquarters outside Munich. Named the Bundes-
 nachrichtendienst, or Federal Intelligence Service, the
 88 DAVID HAGBERG

 BND was started by former Nazi intelligence officers who had been
 politically correct enough to have fought communist Russia and not the
 U.S. and its Western allies. Headed by Reinhard Gehlen, Hitler's chief
 communist hunter, the service grew to become one of the most effective
 intelligence agencies in the world. But, like all such organizations on
 both sides of the Iron Curtain, the BND had been penetrated, and not all
 the penetration agents had been discovered. Among them was Karl Schey,
 who'd been in charge of vetting new recruits, and who from the very
 beginning had been an agent for the Stasi. He'd retired at the rank of
 brigadier general several years ago and had been among the fortunate
 deep-cover Stasi agents whose files had been destroyed before the Wall
 came down and the two Germanies were reunited. Mueller had a hand in that,
 and the general was aware of it. From time to time he had been of some
 help to the Berlin Hit League with inside information. The general still
 maintained powerful connections with the BND, Interpol, and all the major
 intelligence services across Europe, as well as Great Britain and the U.S.
  Mueller stood in the cold darkness just within the tall stone walls of
  the general's six-acre compound south of the city, on the road to
  Garmisch-Partenkirchen, waiting for the last of the guests to leave in
  their Mercedes 560SELs, Jaguar V-12s, and Maserati sedans. Of all
  evenings, Schey had picked this one to entertain. But then it was a
  common occurrence. The general had always managed to surround himself
  with powerful and influential people,. as if they were insurance against
  his being caught.
  At least it had stopped snowing. Mueller shifted his weight and grunted
  as a sharp pain stitched his left side. He'd cracked a couple of ribs
  when the helicopter had come down hard in a field a few kilometers from
  the German border, twenty kilometers from Karlsruhe and the A8 Munich
  Autobahn. Wind and blowing snow had made it nearly impossible for the
  pilot to control the machine, and they were lucky to have gotten down
  alive.
                 HIGH FLIGHT 89

  "I don't think one in ten thousand pilots could have done as well,"
  Mueller told the Frenchman.
  He raised his pistol and shot the pilot in the forehead at point-blank
  range.
  Getting across the unguarded border in any weather would have been
  child's play, even in daylight, but because of the snowstorm he was
  certain that no one had seen him, and in all likelihood the downed
  chopper would not be discovered for several hours, perhaps not even until
  the next morning.
  He'd hitched a ride into Karlsruhe with a hospital linen salesman from
  Amsterdam, where he'd taken a Europabus to Stuttgart and from there the
  train to Munich, using most of his remaining German currency. At the
  airport he found a Volkswagen Jetta in the longterm parking lot with one
  back door unlocked, forced the steering lock, pried the ignition switch
  out of its slot, and hot-wired it.
  In a shoulder bag he carried something in excess of 200,OOOF that they'd
  realized from the bank robbery (there hadn't been enough time to count
  it exactly), three legitimate West German passports, and a half-dozen
  credit cards, also still good so far as he knew. But before he went
  farther he had to know for sure if his documents would hold up, he had
  to find out where the manhunt for him was concentrated, and he had to
  exchange the francs for another currency, all of which the general could
  help him with.
  General Schey was in his mid-sixties and lived alone except for a
  housekeeper/cook and her husband who worked as a groundskeeper,
  chauffeur, and occasional butler. They lived in a separate wing of the
  sprawling two-story orange brick house, and when the general's guests
  were gone they would be occupied in cleaning up.
  It was well after midnight when the last automobile pulled out and headed
  down the long driveway, and the front lights were extinguished. Mueller,
  very stiff and cold, circled through the woods to the rear of the house,
  keeping to the deeper shadows along the edge of the sixcar garage that
  faced a parking area. So far as he knew
 90 DAVID HAGBERG

 there were no outside guards or alarm systems. The general didn't believe in
 them. But the house itself was probably wired against intruders.
  Light spilled from a large window onto a back porch and small trash
  Dumpster. Mueller could see it was the kitchen. An older woman, wearing a
  long white apron that was stained, was saying something to a much younger,
  good-looking woman who wore the black-andwhite uniforin of a maid. The
  older woman did not seem happy. A moment later a gray-haired man wearing a
  butler's uniform, his tie loose, came into the kitchen, took off his jacket
  and hung it over the back of a chair. Suddenly he got angry and shouted
  something at the young woman, who flipped her head, turned, and stalked out
  of the kitchen. The man said something else, then took a bottle of what
  looked like liquor from a cabinet, poured two drinks, and he and the older
  woman sat at the table and drank together, the bottle between them.
  Mueller darted across the parking area, mounted the four steps to the
  porch, and flattened against the wall beside the back door, listening and
  waiting for an alarm to be sounded or for someone to come. When nothing
  happened, he tried the door. It was unlocked. He let himself into the back
  corridor. To the right, a door was partially open into a large pantry and
  storage area. Light came from under the kitchen door at the other side of
  the pantry. Straight ahead was a third door, which Mueller figured opened
  onto a main corridor that probably led to the stair hall at the front of
  the house. To his immediate left was a narrow staircase that led up. It
  would be used by the servants, but there would be a connecting hall to the
  general's second-floor living quarters. He took the stairs, careful to make
  as little noise as possible.
  At the top was a bathroom and two small bedrooms, beyond which was a much
  larger suite of rooms including a separate bathroom. Mueller didn't know
  about the young woman, but one of the smaller bedrooms looked as if it had
  been occupied by a teenager. Clothing hung in the closet, on the backs of
  chairs, and over the
                 HIGH FLIGHT 91

 bedposts; a robe and some other clothing hung on the back of the door, and
 several photographs of an old, smiling woman had been taped to a mirror
 above the dresser. A vanity table was filled with makeup and brushes.
  Straight ahead a door opened into the second-floor corridor directly
  across from the stairs. Mueller was in time to see the general and the
  young woman enter a room to the left and shut the door.
  So, Mueller thought grinning, the general was a human after all. In the
  BND he'd had the reputation of being "Iron Karl," the man without a
  weakness, the man who never smiled.
  Waiting a moment to make sure no one else was coming upstairs, Mueller
  slipped into the corridor, hurried to the left, and let himself into the
  bedroom next to the general's. He laid his shoulder bag aside, took off
  his coat, and pressed his ear against the wall. He could hear vague,
  indistinct voices, but not well enough to make out what they were saying.
  Mueller had been taking chances, and surviving, all of his life. He had
  to have the general's help, and he had to have it now, tonight, before
  the Action Service, and probably Interpol, tightened their net, making
  escape impossible.
  He took out his pistol, checked the load and the safety catch, then went
  to the general's door and knocked softly. If he had to murder the entire
  house staff, he would. Their deaths would be of no consequence so long
  as he could get safely out of Europe.
 "What is it?" the general called.
  Mueller knocked softly again, glancing over his shoulder to make certain
  that the old man or woman from downstairs weren't coming up.
  "Was ist?" the general demanded irritably and opened the door. His eyes
  widened slightly when he saw who it was.
  Beyond the general, Mueller caught a glimpse of the young woman, the top
  of her dress unbuttoned, going into the bathroom.
 92 DAVID HAGBERG

  "I'm in the next room," Mueller whispered, looking into the general's
  eyes for any sign that the man would betray him. There was nothing but
  impatience.
  "I was expecting you," General Schey said. "Go back in there and I'll
  join you in a couple of hours."
  Mueller reached out and took the general's scrawny arm by the biceps.
  "Get rid of her now."
 "No."
 "I'll kill them all, you included."
  "I have no doubt that you mean it," the general said, undaunted, "in
  which case you'd be captured or dead within twenty-four hours. Interpol
  is already looking for you. The French found the helicopter at the
  border. They know you're in Germany."
  The normally inefficient French had evidently taken umbrage with him for
  what he'd done and were moving much faster than normal.
  "You'll be leaving before dawn, and you'll be out of Europe within twelve
  hours. It's all been arranged."
  "But where?" Muellei asked, surprised despite himself.
  "America. I have a friend in Washington who has need of your services.
  I talked to him a few hours ago. He's getting everything ready. Now get
  out of sight until I can come for you."
  Mueller stepped back, the gun hanging loosely at his side. He was going
  back to America.

 The Aeroflot Ilyushin touched down at Moscow's Sheremeteyvo Airport a few
 minutes before eleven in the morning, local. Surface air temperature was
 minus twenty degrees Fahrenheit, and as they taxied to the terminal
 McGarvey could see smoke rising straight up from chimneys, which meant
 there was no wind to make it feel colder. A black Zil was waiting for them
 when they parked, and a tall angular man in civilian clothes got out from
 the back seat. -
  The other passengers were held in their seats until McGarvey and Yemlin
  donned their coats, got their bags
                 HIGH FLIGHT 93

 from the overhead, and went down the boarding steps to the apron.
  "The man waiting for us by the car is my boss, Colonel Amosovich Lyalin,"
  Yemlin said at McGarvey's side. "He's a good man, Kirk, but you will have
  to play straight with him if you want our help."
  "If he's the highest-ranking authority I'm going to be allowed to speak to,
  we might as well turn around and go back to Washington," McGarvey answered.
 "Not the highest, just the first."
  They hurried across the apron to Colonel Lyalin, and Yemlin made the
  introductions.
  "I can't say that it's good to be here, Colonel," McGarvey said, shaking
  the man's hand. "I thought I would start with General Polunin."
  Lyalin's left eyebrow rose. "You and I have some things to clear up first."
  McGarvey stepped closer and switched to Russian. "We're talking about a one
  billion dollar airplane factory, plus a long-term relationship that will
  generate a lot of American dollars for your economy. Lean on me, and you'll
  fuck the entire deal, Colonel."
  Lyalin showed no reaction. It was bitterly cold, but he made no move to
  invite them into the warmth of the car. "How did you find out about the
  Japanese attack?" he asked.
 "I'm not at liberty to say."
  "This is important to us, Kirk," Yemlin said. "No matter what we do, the
  international repercussions could be damaging."
  It was a rare admission on the part of a Russian, even these days, and it
  told McGarvey just how worried they were about the Japanese.
  "It was an old friend, but I can't say anything beyond that, except that
  I'm here representing Guerin Airplane Company, not my government."
  "You want us to spy on the Japanese for your company, Mr. McGarvey," Lyalin
  said patiently. "Coincident with your request, the Japanese sank one of our
  navy
 94 DAVID HAGBERG

 ships. All hands were lost. That's two hundred twenty men and officers ...
 boys, many of them. You can understand why we are so ... anxious to find
 out what you know."
  "That's why I'm here. To tell you what we know and what we suspect and
  ask for your help to find out more, in exchange for a long-term financial
  investment."
  "Perhaps you have come to the wrong people, Mr. McGarvey," Lyalin said
  after a long measure.
  "If it's any consolation, Colonel, I don't think the attacks on our
  company, or the attack on your ship, were directed by the Japanese
  government. I think private interests are at work here."
 "You claim not to speak for your government?"
 "That's right," McGarvey said.
 "Do they know that you are here?"
  "By now, yes, assuming that the FBI still keeps track of who comes and
  goes aboard your aircraft."
  Lyalin glanced at Yemlin, then nodded. "Let's not keep the general
  waiting."
  The interior of the limousine was overheated, and wedged between Lyalin
  and Yemlin, McGarvey was sweating heavily by the time they had cleared
  the airport gate and were speeding toward the city at nearly one hundred
  miles per hour. There were only two speeds in all of Russia: very slow
  for ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the people, or very fast for the
  elite or the frightened.
  The birch forests at the side of the road passed in a blur, the landscape
  gradually opening to farm fields, fallow for the winter, and factories
  broken down and closed because of the economy.
  In 1972 the KGB constructed its new headquarters building off the
  circumferential highway, Outer Ring Road, that circled Moscow. Copied
  almost line for line after the CIA's headquarters at Langley, the
  seven-story structure housed the KGB's, now the SUR's, First Chief
  Directorate, which was responsible for all foreign operations. It was
  from here that the spies, the agent provoc-
                   HIGH FLIGHT 95

 ateurs, the assassins, and the terrorists trained and funded by the Soviet
 Union had been directed. And still were, McGarvey had no doubt. The spy
 business had not ended with the Cold War and the breakup of the old Soviet
 Union, it had merely changed. New masters perhaps, but the targets were
 essentially the same as they'd always been. The world, after all, was a
 finite place with only so many nations, armies, and intelligence agencies.
  Armed guards at the gate passed them through without checking their
  credentials, and Colonel Lyalin led them to the seventh floor, which was
  the carbon of the seventh floor at Langley except that like the air-plane
  this place was in desperate need of paint and repairs. The way everyone
  acted and talked, however, McGarvey didn't think any of them saw the
  shabbiness. It was taken for granted.
  The colonel left them in an anteroom with a tall, large man who was
  armed, by the look of the bulge under his suit coat. His eyes never left
  them until Lyalin came back two minutes later and ushered them into a
  nicely furnished office.
  General Leonty Dmitrevich Polunin, an even larger man, with thick black
  eyebrows and huge ears, came from behind a massive desk, his face a study
  in intrigue and mystery. McGarvey found himself thanking whatever gods
  there were that this one wasn't the director of the entire SUR, or worse,
  the President of the country. General Polunin, from what McGarvey knew
  of the man, had been Yeltsin's choice to head the Komitet, but something
  had gone wrong, and this was as far as he was going to rise in the
  hierarchy. He wore a well-cut dark gray suit and tie, with no medals or
  other adornment, yet it was obvious by his bearing that he had a military
  background and would be accustomed to being obeyed without question. The
  thought of Polunin facing off with Lawrence Danielle or Phil Carrara was
  ludicrous. The Russian would have their asses on a platter in nothing
  flat.
 96 DAVID HAGBERG

 "General, this is Kirk McGarvey," Lyalin said.
  "You're certainly something of a surprise, Mr. McGarvey," the general
  said.
  McGarvey shook his hand, the general's grip firm but not crushing. "This
  isn't a pleasure trip."
  "Nobody suspected that you would think so, not even after all these
  years." Polunin motioned them to a sofa and chairs across the room.
  "Coffee or tea?"
 "Not for me," McGarvey said.
  "You are presenting yourself as a man of business this time, very well."
  "Within forty-eight hours a team of Guerin engineers, designers, and
  financial planners could be here to work with whoever will be assigned
  to the project, General," McGarvey said.
  "I'm not a Baranov or a Didenko, but I have read your file. The complete
  file, including Kansas."
  "My father loved his country, and he fought for what he believed."
  McGarvey looked directly into the general's eyes. "He died for his
  beliefs."
 "We didn't kill him."
  A hand clutched at McGarvey's heart. "That was a long time ago."
  "Then why are you here, Mr. McGarvey? Didn't your experiences at Volodga
  teach you anything?"
 "I don't work for the CIA."
 "No?"
  "If I did, I wouldn't be here making such an offer, General."
  "Was it Phillip Carrara who told you about the Japanese attack?"
  "No, but he made the initial contact with Viktor Pavlovich."
 "Why?" Polunin shot back, his eyes narrowed.
  "Perhaps because he's just as concerned about the Japanese as we are."
 "We?"
 "Guerin Airplane Company."
  "Are you saying that it's not a view shared by Mr. Danielle or General
  Murphy?"
                 HIGH FLIGHT 97

  "I haven't spoken to the Director about it, but Mr. Danielle apparently
  does not share our concern. At least he didn't on the day before the
  submarine attack."
 "Has he changed his mind?"
 "I don't know, General, but it's certainly possible."
  "Then who was it told you about the attack, Mr. McGarvey?" Polunin
  demanded. "We won't go any further until that mystery is cleared up."
  It suddenly occurred to McGarvey that General Polunin and the others were
  frightened. The entire country had its collective back to the wall, and the
  attitudes of these three men reflected it.
  "An airplane factory in what used to be East Germany would be welcomed," he
  said. "I think the BND might be persuaded to go along with us. I have a few
  friends in Munich."
  The general flared. "We didn't bring you here to bargain with you like
  Jews."
  "Nor did I come here to be threatened," McGarvey said, stiffening. "This
  country is no longer the superpower it once was, but the SUR has something
  that may be of commercial use to the company I represent. If you help us,
  we'll help you."
  Polunin exchanged glances with Yemlin, then nodded. "Something can be
  worked out. It will be up to the negotiating team."
  McGarvey sat back, surprised by the suddenness of Polunin's flip-flop in
  position. "I'll send word to Portland."
 "The Director wishes to speak with you."
 "All right," McGarvey said cautiously.
  Polunin smiled wanly. "I think our relationship this time will be mutually
  advantageous, Mr. McGarvey. Don't you agree?"

 For a secret to be kept in Washington more than twentyfour hours a miracle
 had to happen. But it had been more than thirty-six hours since the incident
 in the Tatar Strait, and by a stroke of good fortune the media was still in
 the dark, although there'd been a few rumblings
 98 DAVID HAGBERG

 in the Washington Post about strained relations between Japan and Russia.
 There'd also been quite a few queries to the White House about what was
 going on in Tokyo, which the President's press secretary, Michael Harding,
 had stonewalled. It would not last, of course. Sooner or later someone would
 leak the story, and once the floodgates were open nothing would stop the
 flow.
  General Roland Murphy (retired) had been director of the Central
  Intelligence Agency for nine years, his appointment coming on the heels of
  the 1988 presidential election. In the old days the usual morning
  intelligence briefing was conducted by Agency officers for the National
  Security Adviser to the President. Now Murphy briefed the new President
  himself every weekday morning at nine sharp. Only on weekends were the
  summaries presented to the President's staff. Murphy liked the new
  arrangement because he felt it gave him much better control of the
  situation. If there were any nuances to be passed along to the President,
  they would be his, not those of his subordinates.
  It was a few minutes before 9:00 A.M. when the general's chauffeured
  limousine pulled up at the White House's west portico and his bodyguard Ken
  Chapin followed him inside. Murphy was a heavyset man, with thick shoulders
  and surprisingly long and delicate fingers. His were the hands of a
  pianist. He spent as much time outdoors as he possibly could, sailing his
  forty-twofoot sloop on Chesapeake Bay or hunting wild boar in eastern
  Tennessee, so his square face was lined and tanned in fine contrast to his
  thick white hair. He'd been called "Bulldog" commanding a regiment in
  Vietnam with the same iron fist he'd brought to the joint chiefs and to
  Langley, but he also played classical piano and was quite good.
  They were passed directly up to the second floor where the President's
  appointments secretary, Steve Nichols, was just coming out of the Oval
  Office. Chapin went down the corridor to one of the waiting rooms used by
  the Secret Service.
                 HIGH FLIGHT 99

  "Good morning, General," Nichols said. "Go right in, he's expecting you."
  Murphy nodded curtly and entered the President's study, no longer as
  surprised as he'd been the first time here at how small the room was. On
  television it looked so much bigger, more regal, more powerful. But the
  design woven into the dark blue carpet was the presidential seal, and
  coming here never ceased to impress him. The line of presidential
  succession went back more than two hundred years. The Soviet Union had only
  lasted seventy-
  The President was seated in his padded rocking chair next to his National
  Security Adviser, Harold Secor, on the couch. The two men were a study in
  contrasts. The President was tall and lanky- "Lincolnesque, " the media
  called him-while Secor, a former professor of history and political science
  at Harvard, looked exactly like a professor of history: tweed jacket with
  leather patches at the elbows, thin pinched face and sallow complexion,
  wire-rimmed glasses, and a pipe-smoker's overbite and stained forefinger.
  Both men were brilliant. "Among the most intellectual men to hold court in
  the White House since Woodrow Wilson's administration," the Post
  maintained. Murphy agreed wholeheartedly, although in the first year of the
  President's second term, the public did not. The U.S. economy was still a
  mess, and everyone blamed the President, which wasn't fair considering the
  Congress he had to work with.
  "Good morning, Roland," the President said, looking up. "Good news or bad?"
  "Good morning, Mr. President. I'd say neutral for the moment," Murphy
  replied. He extracted a leatherbound folder from his briefcase and handed
  it over, then placed the briefcase on the floor beside the chair across
  from the President and Secor.
  "That's something at least," the National Security Adviser said. "The
  Russians are still mum, but Tokyo has finally come out with a statement."
 "What are they saying?" the DC1 asked with interest.
 100 DAVID HAGBERG

 No matter what happened the Japanese government was the key player in this
 instance. Current thinking was that they would have to be appeased, even if
 the costs were large.
  "They regret the incident and they're studying it," the President said,
  opening the intelligence report. "Get yourself some coffee while I take a
  look at this."
  Murphy poured a cup from the service on a cart beside the President's desk
  and came back and sat down. The intelligence report ran to around ten
  thousand words, but the President was a speed reader and would skim through
  it in three or four minutes. In the meantime, Secor handed over the message
  they'd received from Tokyo through our embassy.
  Beyond the usual diplomatic verbiage, the essence of the message was
  contained in one paragraph.

 The government of Japan deeply regrets the recent incident in the Tatar
 Strait off the island of Karafuto
 allegedly involving a vessel of Japanese Maritime Self
 Defense Force and one of the Russian Federal Navy in
 which there may have been a loss of lives and proper-
 ty. Every effort is being made to quickly and fully
 investigate the matter to determine culpability.

 "I wonder if they used that name for Sakhalin Island in their reply to
 Moscow," Murphy said.
  Secor shrugged. "We don't even know if they've exchanged messages, official
  or otherwise. But I don't think the Russians are about to give up the
  island."
 "They'd be better off offering it for sale."
  Secor's eyebrows rose. "Would the Japanese consider such a proposal?"
  "I don't know, Harold, but with the assets the Russians have brought to
  bear in those waters in the last twenty-four hours it's a safe bet the
  Japanese won't take the island by force." Murphy handed back the message.
  "Or carry the dispute over those waters any further. "
                HIGH FLIGHT 101

  The President closed the leather-bound folder. "That's the way I read
  this, Roland. The Japanese are simply disputing Russia's claim that all
  the waters of the Tatar Strait belong to them, even past the twelve-mile
  limit from the mainland and the island. Still leaves a lot of open water
  in between."
  "Apparently the Russians fired first. An underwater explosion of a type
  consistent with a helicopterdelivered torpedo came before the missile
  hit."
  "Moscow is going to claim that they were provoked into shooting because
  a Japanese submarine was operating in their waters," the President said.
  "But the Japanese are going to protest that they were within
  international waters. They were outside the twelve-mile limit, weren't
  they?"
  "Yes, they were," Murphy said. "But we don't think Tokyo will go that
  route. So far as we can determine, no orders have ever been issued to
  test those waters. In fact standing orders are for the MSDF to stay the
  hell away from the strait, and to avoid any kind of confrontation at all
  costs."
  "What are you talking about, General?" Secor asked. "Are you suggesting
  a renegade submarine skipper?"
  "Some of my people are thinking along that line. But they pick their
  sub-drivers just as carefully as we do ours. It's possible that a fleet
  commander, or even the C-in-C of submarine operations, gave the order.
  Tokyo would be insulated."
  The President was troubled, and it showed on his face. "What would they
  have to gain?"
  "I don't know for sure, Mr. President, but I'd say prestige. And they'd
  be setting a precedent to justify an expansion out of their home waters."
 "You're talking about Subic Bay?"
  "Yes. The Japanese may be coming to the conclusion that we no longer have
  their best interests at heart. Witness what happened in the strait. We
  weren't there, so they had to defend themselves. Could be endemic, so
  they've got to begin looking out for themselves."
 102 DAVID HAGBERG

  "We've picked up nothing like that," the President said, glancing at his
  National Security Adviser. Secor shook his head.
  " At this point, Mr. President, it's only speculation. But we're working on
  it. That submarine driver will probably be fired and a very carefully
  worded apology will be sent to Moscow."
 :'Reparations?" Secor asked.
  'Not likely. Tokyo will claim that although its submarine was poking its
  nose where it shouldn't have, its intentions were friendly. The Russian
  navy fired the first shot, and in the heat of the moment the submarine
  driver defended himself."
  14 So we continue to support the Japanese, while slapping the Russians on
  the wrist. Is that what you're suggesting?" the President asked.
 'For now, until we get more information."
  'At the moment there are no Japanese navy ships in the strait?" ~
 "Not so far as we can determine."
 "What about the submarine?"
  "Presumably on its way home, we think to Yokosuka. We'll know for sure in
  a few days at the outside."
  ' 'Keep on top of this one, Roland," the President said, his gaze
  penetrating. "We're in a very delicate position between Tokyo and Moscow,
  and I don't want to be caught short. Anything that has any bearing on this
  subject, I want to hear about it pronto."
 "Yes, sir," Murphy said.

 FIVE

     orninique Kilbourne was dead tired. Parking her Corvette in the
     Watergate ramp, all she WMILCU to do was get upstairs, have a glass
     of
                HIGH FLIGHT 103

 white wine, take a long hot soak in her tub, and crawl into bed. Since
 McGarvey had left her apartment yesterday morning, she'd been on the go,
 which in one respect was all right. It kept her from thinking about him.
 She'd not gotten much steep since his visit. Alone in bed at night she
 kept coming back to him, to the expression on his face, to the way he held
 himself. To the look in his eyes. She had tried to find him, but it was
 as if Washington had swallowed him. David was suddenly unavailable to her,
 and her brother was too busy at Gales Creek to talk.
  Starting at noon yesterday when HR95831 had been proposed by William
  Hyde, the junior Congressman from Utah, her office had been swamped by
  every airline she represented, and seemingly by every journalist and
  television or radio reporter in town, and hundreds from across the
  country.
  The bill proposed that a ten dollar per passenger surcharge be levied on
  all domestic flights, and twenty dollars on all international flights.
  The money was to be put into an airports and airways superfund to upgrade
  U.S. airports and help privatize the air-traffic control system. The
  bugaboo in the bill, and the one point that the Congressman and his
  supporters were the most adamant about, was that the tax was not to be
  charged back to the customer. The airlines would have to absorb this cost
  themselves out of their profits. But a capper to the proposal was that
  part of the superfund would be used to "police" the airlines, to make
  sure the surcharges weren't passed along to the passenger through hidden
  costs.
  American Airlines's Tom Hailey had put it most succinctly, if
  indelicately. "What the hell is the dumb sonofabitcla trying to do,
  bankrupt us all?"
  There wasn't enough money in the industry to pay the extra tax. Fuel
  prices were going up again while the number of passengers was going down.
  All but a few of the nation's rn~jor airlines were hanging on by the skin
  of their teeth. Since 1979, the year after the government decided to end
  its regulation of the airlines and the
 104 DAVID HAGBERG

 airfares charged, more than half the carriers had gone out of business. Even
 the mighty Pan Am had fallen by the wayside. This bill, and the companion
 bill the Congressman was already talking about, which would add a surcharge
 to the cargo shipped by airlines, would kill at least two of the majors and
 several of the others.
  "That's the minimum damage that would be done," she'd explained to the
  Congressman in person this afternoon.
  "Maybe that wouldn't be so terrible after all, Ms. Kilbourne." Congressman
  Hyde smiled. "Maybe it's for the best that we pare away the dead wood in
  this country. Look at what the Japanese have done with themselves in the
  past fifty years. My God, those people started from scratch."
  "With a great deal of financial and technical help from us " Dominique
  said, hardly believing what she was hearing.
  "Certainly. Look at what we did to them in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The
  innocent lives lost. Women and children, the old and infirm. Lord, it must
  have been horrible. A blot on our national conscience. We owed them
  something."
  Dominique wanted to ask him if that's what his constituents wanted, but he
  held her off.
  "We're not talking about the Japanese now. Admittedly we're having our
  difficulties with them, which if the President doesn't mishandle it will
  get straightened out. What we're talking about here is the airline industry
  in this country. They cried for deregulation in the seventies. Keep the
  government off our backs, they shouted. So, we stepped away. Have at it
  boys, we told them. And look what happened."
  The Congressman glanced at his aide, Pat Staley, who'd been trying to get
  a peek up Dominique's skirt since she'd sat down, and smiled.
  "I think the first smart thing they ever did was to hire a pretty
  spokesperson," Staley said, grinning broadly. "No offense, and don't you
  dare take what I'm trying to
                HIGH FLIGHT 105

 say as some sort of sexist remark, but you do have our attention."
  11 That's what this country is all about, I think," the Congressman said.
  "Dialogue. Give and take."
  It was hard to keep her temper in check. "Perhaps you don't fully
  appreciate the ultimate effect this bill would have," Dominique said. She
  wanted to slap the smarmy smile off the aide's face.
 "I've talked with the experts," Hyde said.
  Dominique handed him a report. "When you have the chance take a look at
  this. Your bill will shut down the weaker airlines. And maybe you have a
  point, maybe in some ways that might be for the best."
 The Congressman and his aide looked surprised.
  " But, when an airline goes under two things happen. First, a lot of
  equipment gets auctioned at a bankruptcy sale."
  "A good deal for the stronger, better-managed airlines," Staley suggested.
  " And secondly, because of the glut of used airplanes and spare parts on
  the market, and because there's one less airline to purchase new equipment,
  it drives our aircraft manufacturers one step closer to bankruptcy."
  Dominique sat forward. "You are aware, I'm sure, Congressman, that there
  are only three major manufacturers of commercial aircraft left in this
  country. These three account for our single largest export in terms of
  dollars. If any one of them were to go out of business, for whatever
  reason, it would devastate our precarious balance of trade position, and it
  would throw at least sixty thousand aircraft employees out of work. Two
  hundred thousand others would no longer be needed to run the grocery stores
  or the department stores where the aircraft workers shop. Truck drivers
  would be idled, contractors, real estate agents, bankers." Dominique
  smiled. "But I think you have the picture by now, Congressman."
  " Who do you represent, the airlines or the manufacturers?"
 106 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Both, because they've become inseparable. Hurt one and the other
  suffers."
  "My experts don't agree," the Congressman said with less certainty than
  before.
  "Maybe they're wrong," Dominique said. "Maybe after you've read my report
  we can get together for dinner."
 The Congressman brightened. "I'd like that."
  "Fine. I'll have a word with David Kennedy. Perhaps we could make a
  foursome with your wife. At your convenience,
 Congressman Hyde's face fell. "Sure," he mumbled.
  The man was a toad, Dominique thought while riding up in the elevator
  from the garage. But the disturbing thing was the support he was getting.
  Some powerful members of the House were apparently behind him. And she
  was getting hints that the White House might be behind the bill. If that
  were the case, the situation would be even less understandable to her
  than it was. Presidents were known to have their own hidden agendas, but
  this was stupid.
  Getting off the elevator, she slipped out of her shoes and padded down
  the thickly carpeted corridor to her apartment. She let herself in and
  flipped the switch for the hall light, but nothing happened.
  "Shit," she said, flipping the switch again. It was just a minor
  irritation, but she didn't need it tonight.
  Leaving the door open so that she could see her way into the apartment
  she dropped her purse and shoes by the hall table and went to a lamp in
  the living room.
  Something dark rushed at her from the shadows, knocking her aside before
  she could react, and then it was down the hall, moving swiftly like a
  jungle animal in the night.
 "Hey," she shouted.
  Something very hard slammed into her back, spinning her around. It was
  a person, dressed in black from head to toe, some sort of a skier's mask
  covering his or her features. Instinctively she reached out to stop
  herself from falling and grabbed a handful of the mask. It came
                HIGH FLIGHT 107

 off, and then she caught the edge of the coffee table with the backs of
 her legs and sat down hard on the floor, but not before she got a good
 look at the man's face ... it was a man, she suddenly was certain, and for
 a second he stood there, unmoving, looking at her.
  He reached down and gently, it seemed, touched the side of her neck. She
  felt as if she were falling into a very deep and pitch-black hole.

 McGarvey was put up at the monumental Rossiya Hotel on Razin Street just
 off Red Square with no further word when he would be meeting with
 Aleksandr Karyagin, the new director of the Russian Federal Intelligence
 Service. But he'd been assured that he would be leaving on the 10:00 A.M.
 flight to Washington.
  It was 4:30 in the morning, and unable to sleep he stared out of his
  eleventh-floor window at the fantastical domes of St. Basil's and the red
  brick walls of the Kremlin, a shiver rising up his spine.
  Everything was different, and yet nothing had changed. The free market
  economy had taken hold, more or less, but there was still nothing
  affordable to buy in the stores. The KGB's name had been changed to the
  SUR, and it no longer acted as a thought police, yet the person on the
  street could still spot an intelligence officer a block away and steer
  clear. Emigration was no longer tightly controlled, and yet passing the
  U.S. Embassy in the back seat of General Polunin's limousine, McGarvey
  had seen long lines of people waiting to #et inside where they could
  apply for visas, while uniformed militia officers watched and took notes
  and photographs.
  Everything here was run-down. Carsi roads, buildings in the entire
  country had gone to hell since he'd last been here. Moscow had always
  been a seedy old city, but now it was worse. The place was coming apart
  at the seams, helped by the Russian Mafia and a growing murder rate, yet
  somehow McGarvey found that he wasn't glad of it. His parents would weep
  if they could see what was happening.
 Another change that had taken place was the reopen- 108 DAVID HAGBERG

 ing of the churches and the young people flocking to them. Not so
 surprising, because through most of Russia's history its people had been
 deeply religious. A seventy-year atheism imposed by the communists paled to
 insignificance when compared to six centuries of Orthodox Catholicism.
  Besides the language, McGarvey had been taught Russian history, which was
  his father's first love. In 13 10, Moscow became the See-the seat of
  authorityfor the Russian Orthodox Church. In 1367, the first stones of the
  first Kremlin were laid, and in 1448, going directly against the Council of
  Florence, which had finally united the western and eastern branches of the
  Catholic Church, the Church of Moscow became independent. Dates on dates,
  he remembered them all, remembered having them drummed into his head.
  "Without knowing where we've been how will we know where we should go ...
  where we must go?" his father would ask him.
  The building of the new Kremlin- 1496 to 1497. War with Sweden- 1502. Ivan
  the Terrible, the first Russian czar- 1553 to 1584. The Romanovs begin in
  1613 with peace between Sweden and Russia. The Pauls, the Catherines, the
  Alexanders and Nicholases. War and revolution. The Cheka, the White Army,
  the Red Guards. The Stalin years and the purges and pogroms and collec-
  tivizations. Khrushchev and Brezhnev and Molotov and Andropov ... and on
  and on to Gorbachev and Yeltsin and finally this.
  All the prayers and all the sacraments were for nothing, the thought passed
  through McGarvey's mind, because throughout all their history Russians
  generally had less regard and less reverence for human life than even
  Hitler had. The sweep of Russian history was a vast panorama of death.
  Mind-numbing numbers of men and women and children, peasants and officers,
  kulaks and bankers, by the millions, even tens of millions, had been led
  off to the slaughter.
 Had his father understood this? He must have.
                HIGH FLIGHT 109

  This was a land that stretched across eleven time zones. Nearly half the
  earth's circumference. Oil and coal and lead and zinc, uranium and gold
  and platinum and diamonds. Timber stands that stretched for a thousand
  miles or more. Mighty rivers, at least three major mountain ranges, and
  coastlines that ranged from the Arctic Ocean to the Black and Caspian
  seas and from the Pacific to the Baltic. But it was as if a terrible dark
  cloud covered the entire nation or that some horrible genetic defect had
  somehow infected the entire people, turning them into a nation of
  murderers and victims.
  McGarvey turned away from the window. In the dim light from outside he
  could see his reflection in the mirror above the dresser as a vaguely
  dark outline, and he could see himself as he might look in twenty or
  thirty years, the age his father had been at his death. But he could not
  make out the expression on his face, only that it was incomplete. That
  he was incomplete, for some reason. He was here on the first leg of a
  mission that he himself didn't fully understand, and that he should never
  have suggested. He was no longer in the business. Hadn't that been
  settled in his head after Volodga? Maybe Howard Ryan was right. Maybe he
  did not belong.
  After he'd returned from the Soviet Union he'd tried to look up his first
  wife with the thought at the back of his head that they might get
  together. But she was dead. It had been breast cancer, her dying painful
  and lonely. She had called for him. But that's when he had begun to run.
  Maybe he didn't belong anywhere, he thought grimly. At some point in his
  life he'd probably had the chance to take a different road, despite how
  he'd been raised. But he had not. And this was the result.
  A truck lumbered by on the street, its exhaust white in the extreme cold.
  No matter how much trouble Russia continued to have it wouldn't shrivel
  up and die, or disappear off the face of the earth. Germany and Japan
  were totally devastated by 1945. Now, a half-century
 110 DAVID HAGBERG

 later, they were among the most powerful nations on earth. But they'd had
 help, and a lot of it. The question was, who would help the Russians?
 America or Japan?
  Someone knocked at his door. "It's time to go." It was Yemlin.
  McGarvey let him in. "How'd you know I was awake?"
  Yemlin shrugged. "You know." He glanced up at the ceiling light fixture.
  The room was bugged. Possibly they'd even watched him with a hidden camera.
  It didn't matter.
 "Where are we going?"
  "To see the director, but from there we'll go directly to the airport, so
  bring your suitcase."
 "This early?" McGarvey asked, putting on his tie.
  "The Lubyanka is very open these days," the Russian said, smiling wryly.
  "Western journalists are there practically every day, but not until 8:30 in
  the morning."
 "He should move his office."
  "No." Yemlin shook his head. "Now please let's go, Kirk. General Polunin is
  waiting for us."
  The temperature had dropped to thirty-eight below zero. The cold took
  McGarvey's breath away. Inside General Polunin's limousine it was roaring
  hot. It was a wonder that everyone over here didn't get pneumonia every
  winter because of the huge contrasts between outside and inside
  temperatures. His father explained that Russians kept their homes warm
  simply because they could. The warmer the better. As a nation they
  remembered going cold and hungry many times during their history. It was
  the same reason a sign of prosperity among Russian men was a pot belly. It
  meant the man was wealthy enough and well-connected enough to buy the
  necessary calories.
  "I'm sorry that you didn't sleep well, Mr. McGarvey," the general said. The
  drive over to Dzerzhinsky Square was only a half-dozen blocks, and at this
  hour of the morning there was almost no traffic.
  "The effects of jet lag," McGarvey answered. "I'll sleep on the way home."
                HIGH FLIGHT 111

  "We'll make sure to get you out to the airport in plenty of time. In the
  meanwhile Mr. Karyagin is most interested in meeting you. He thinks, as
  I do, that your being here might kill two birds with one stone. That is,
  if you will cooperate."
 "I won't spy on my country," McGarvey shot back.
 "But you will have us spy on Japan for you."
  "Not spy, just share your product, general. You're already spying."
  "That's all we expect of you. For you to share your influence in
  Washington."
 "Is that what Mr. Karyagin is going to ask me?"
  "I don't know. I'm not the director. But your request has been discussed
  at the highest levels." General Polunin looked directly into McGarvey's
  eyes. "We take you very seriously, Mr. McGarvey. Please extend to us the
  same consideration."
  "Believe me, General, I do," McGarvey said. "I wouldn't be here
  otherwise."
  The black statue of Feliks Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Cheka, which
  was the forerunner of the KGB and the SUR, that had stood in the
  courtyard of the KGB's Lubyanka headquarters, was gone, torn down in 1991
  when the Soviet Union had collapsed. Even its granite base was gone now.
  Aleksandr Semenovich Karyagin was a short, wellgroomed dapper man in his
  late fifties. His hair was gray, and he wore a Western-cut suit so that
  he looked more like an American politician than the head of the Russian
  Foreign Intelligence Service.
  "Good morning, Mr. McGarvey," he said. "I thought you might want
  breakfast before you left for the airport.,~
  They met in the small ninth-floor dining room. An American-style
  breakfast of bacon and ham and sausages, eggs, toast, and fried potatoes
  was laid out. General Polunin came up with McGarvey, but Yemlin remained
  downstairs.
 "Good morning, Mr. Karyagin. It's kind of you."
 Because of a heart murmur, Karyagin had not served
 112 DAVID HAGBERG

 in the military. Instead he had thrown himself into politics, first in
 Leningrad and later in Moscow, doing whatever was asked of him without
 question or complaint. Unlike many of his counterparts, however, he was
 intelligent and inventive and soon came to the attention of Boris Yeltsin.
 They had risen together. The man was generally well liked and respected
 in the Western intelligence community because of his professionalism.
  "I understand that you still maintain ties with the CIA."
  "I have a couple of friends who work for the Company. I don't see them
  very often, but now and then we get together for a couple of drinks. The
  breakfast looks good. I'm hungry."
  There were four small tables each with a crisp white tablecloth and
  silver service in the tastefully appointed room. They served themselves
  from a buffet along one wall and sat at one of the tables by a large
  window that looked out across the city.
  "When you get back to Washington ask your friends for some information,"
  Karyagin said.
  "I told General Polunin that I will not spy on my country for you,"
  McGarvey said.
  "I'm not asking you to become a traitor, merely to ask for some help."
 "With what?"
  "How will the United States react when the public finally learns what
  happened in the Tatar Strait?"
  "We'll probably read about it in the New York Times or Washington Post
  in the next few days," McGarvey said. "But frankly I don't think the
  average American will give a damn. You've been our enemy since 1945, and
  there's no love just now for the Japanese. So I imagine that most
  Americans will vicw that attack as nothing more than a minor squabble."
  "But Japan has vast economic ties with the United States."
  Well put, McGarvey thought, though stranglehold might have been a more
  accurate choice of words. "It doesn't matter."
                HIGH FLIGHT 113

  "By reaction, I meant the White House's reaction. How will your President
  respond?"
  "I don't know, Mr. Karyagin," McGarvey said. "And even if I still worked
  for the CIA, I wouldn't know that. Only a few of the President's closest
  advisers would be privy to such information. And if I could get to them,
  which I cannot, I wouldn't do it."
  "The crux of the matter is what would your country do if we retaliated in
  some way for the attack against us in our home waters?"
 "Is that what you're planning to do?"
 "It's a distinct possibility, Mr. McGarvey."
  "As you say, Japan has vast economic ties with my country. They are our
  allies."
  Karyagin stared at McGarvey without altering his expression, yet it was
  clear that the comment had hit home. The Russians were in a dicey
  situation. If they did something overtly to disturb the Americans, what aid
  and support they were getting from Washington and from companies like
  Guerin would dry up. On the other hand, if they let the Japanese incursion
  into waters they claimed were Russian go unchallenged, and the destruction
  of their naval vessel go unrevenged, it would happen again and again until
  their eastern border was no longer secure. The situation was intolerable.
  "If Cuba attacked and sank one of your Navy or Coast Guard ships off the
  Florida coast, the White House would react."
  "It most certainly would," McGarvey said. "But if it had happened ten years
  ago when Cuba was still your ally, would you have risked war to help them
  out?"
 "I don't know."
  "Neither do I, Mr. Karyagin. But I do know that we have satellites keeping
  a close watch on what's going on. Whatever you do we'll know about it. But
  how my President will react I cannot predict. In fact, your people probably
  have a better reading on it than I do. Yemlin runs Washington with a sharp
  eye."
 "General Murphy is very close to the President."
 McGarvey allowed himself to smile. "As I said, I'm
 114 DAVID HAGBERG

 not privy to the President's advisers, not even the general."
 "But you're concerned about the Japanese."
  "Wary. We think a zaibatsu may have been formed to ruin Guerin Airplane
  Company."
  "in order to acquire the technological developments that the company has
  made on this new airliner?"
  "That's right. My government refuses to help us because it would show
  favoritism of one industry over another and would involve the government
  directly in industry."
  "Foolish of them," Karyagin said. "We don't have such constraints."
  Or a lot of other things, the thought occurred to McGarvey. "We believe
  that this Japanese group will do anything to reach its goal."
 "Including murder?"
 "Yes, including murder."
  Karyagin glanced at General Polunin, a bleak look suddenly in his eyes.
  "We've heard nothing about this from our Tokyo operation?"
 "That is correct, Mr. Director," Polunin said.
  Karyagin turned back to McGarvey. "What will happen to our deal if we
  don't find out what you need to know?"
  "It would be a moot point in that case," McGarvey said, "because Guerin
  would no longer be an American company."
  "By coming here and speaking with us, you could be construed as a
  traitor."
  "I represent a manufacturing company that wishes to make an offer to
  build a commercial aircraft assembly plant here, equip it, and train its
  personnel. Of course, before any such agreement could be finalized we
  would need the export licenses. But the legal people say that will
  present no serious problem. Will you help us?"
  "Yes, of course we will," Karyagin said, as if there'd never been a doubt
  in anyone's mind. "But you too must understand that if the situation
  between us and the
                HIGH FLIGHT 115

 Japanese government deteriorates, working with your company could become a
 moot point for us."
 "I understand."

 It had taken nearly forty-eight hours before Bruno Mueller was finally out
 of Europe. The automobile he had stolen from the Munich Airport had been
 returned in the morning by one of the general's staff, who that night drove
 Mueller across the border into Austria.
  In Vienna, Mueller was handed over to another associate of the general,
  who'd driven him to Budapest, where the next afternoon, with new papers
  identifying him as Karl Steiner, a businessman from Stuttgart, he was able
  to board a Czechoslovak Airlines 747 direct to Washington's Dulles
  International Airport.
  Customs and immigration passed him through after only a couple of very
  routine questions, and the Yellow cab with the roof number 659 was waiting
  for him as he'd been instructed. By midnight he was knocking at the door of
  a very large and very old farmhouse a few kilometers west of the airport,
  the cab's taillights disappearing in the darkness down the long driveway.
  America, he thought. One week ago he would never have believed it possible.
  There was, however, no doubt in his mind that he was a fugitive, and that
  whatever opportunity the general had arranged for him was his last chance.
  A bulky old man with a thick nose and white hair, wearing a moth-eaten
  sweater and brown corduroy trousers, answered the door. "You're Mueller?"
  he asked, the words slurred.
  "That's right," Mueller replied in English. "The General sent me."
  The old man let him in, then closed and locked the door. "Did you have any
  trouble getting here?"
  Mueller shook his head. To the right the stair hall opened into a
  comfortably furnished living room. A fire was on the grate. To the left was
  a dining room, beyond which an open door led into the kitchen. A short
 116 DAVID HAGSERG

 corridor led to the back of the house. The place smelled pleasantly of
 wood smoke and pipe tobacco.
 "Your room is upstairs, first on the right. Put your
 things away, and ' then come back down. I want to talk to
 you before I leave."
  Mueller looked closer at the old man, especially his eyes, which were
  watery, and his complexion, which was mottled red. The man was a heavy
  drinker and was drunk now, or nearly drunk, he decided. Not so good, but
  the general never made mistakes.
 "You're going away?"
 "Into the city. My home is in Georgetown."
 "What about this place?" Mueller asked.
  "I own this house as well, but very few people know about it. I use it
  from time to time for ... various things."
  Mueller cocked an ear to listen, but the only sounds in the house were
  the crackling of the fire on the grate. "Is there anyone else here?"
  "Not yet," the old man said. "But someone else will be coming to help
  you."
 "With what?" Mueller asked.
  "In due time, Colonel." The old man motioned toward the stairs. "Put your
  things away. I'll fix you a drink."
 "What do I call you?"
  The old man studied him for a second before he answered. "Edward R.
  Reid," he said. "Your general and I go back a long way together to when
  he first worked for the BND."
  Mueller's eyes narrowed in surprise. "Do you know what I am?"
  "You're an assassin who the West Germans would like to eliminate."
 "West Germans?"
 "Germans," Reid corrected himself.
 "Knowing this, you have work for me?"
 Reid nodded.
  "Do you understand the consequences if you are discovered and arrested?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 117

  "I'm an old man, colonel," Reid said. "And I don't frighten easily."
  "I'm not an old man, and I do frighten easily, so you will be very careful
  for my sake. When I am cornered I fight back. If I am betrayed, I kill my
  betrayers. And if this is to be the time and place of my death, then I will
  take a great many with me. Police, soldiers, civilians ...
 YOU."
  "Put your things away," Reid said after a moment. "I believe that you will
  work out just fine."

 "It was too easy," McGarvey said.
  "Turn your back on it," Yemlin replied as their limousine was passed
  through the east gate at Sheremeteyvo Airport. "We have the resources and
  we're experts at the game. You'll be sucked in until all your choices but
  one will be gone."
 "Is that what Karyagin means to do?"
  "He's a desperate man, Kirk. You're going to have to understand how it
  really is with us here. General Polunin is snapping at his heels from
  below, just waiting for him to make a mistake. While Yeltsin and that crowd
  in the Kremlin are pressuring him from above for answers he simply cannot
  give them. And you know what happens in this country when you can't give
  your masters the answers they want to hear."
  MeGarvey looked away for a moment. A light breeze had sprung up that made
  for some fantastic wind-chill numbers. Yemlin had always been a pragmatist.
  Even during the interrogations and his later visits to the hospital at
  Volodga, he'd spoken only of practical matters. "What will your families do
  now? Can we get word to them? Are you reasonably comfortable? Are you
  certain that nothing can be offered you in exchange for further
  information?" Maybe it was still the same now.
 "Why are you telling me this, Viktor?"
  "I always thought you were a good man. A little ahead of your time but
  basically decent. You proved that by taking poor Tania as far as you did.
  Baranov was no friend of the Rodina. Let's say I want you to come into
 118 DAVID HAGBERG

 this operation with your eyes open. If it fails it could be disastrous for
 your company, and you personally."
 "You could be fired for telling me this."
  Yemlin had to smile. "I already have been. I'm no longer Washington
  rezident. -
 "You're not flying back with me this morning?"
  "No, Kirk. But I will be returning to Washington soon."
 "To do what?" McGarvey asked him.
  "To act as your handler, of course," Yemlin said. "My boss thinks that
  you and I have a special relationship. Sometimes this sort of a bond
  develops between the interrogator and his subject. It was me who you
  first approached for help."
 "You were the logical choice."
 "Maybe. 11
  "Maybe I'll kill you when I get the chance. I have the motive."
 "Then they will have been proved wrong."
 "Perhaps I'll use you."
  "By all means," Yemlin said. "There's nothing a great Russian loves more
  than intrigue. You know all about it."
  "Again, why tell me this?" McGarvey asked, although he already knew the
  answer.
  "Because you're no good to us unless your eyes are wide open. We're
  talking about international industrial espionage. Your company is hiring
  a Russian federal agency to work for it, in violation certainly of many
  of your laws, and even some of our own. The quid pro quo remains
  information in trade for information."
 "In addition to the assembly factory."
  "As you say, Kirk, without information for both sides, the factory
  becomes a moot point."
  The limousine took them directly to the ramp where the same airliner that
  had brought them from Washington was being readied for the return flight.
  The other passengers were still in the terminal waiting for the first
  boarding call.
                HIGH FLIGHT 119

  "Get some sleep, Kirk. I'll see you in a couple of days."
  McGarvey got his single overnight bag and got out of the car. Before he
  walked across to the waiting aircraft he turned back.
  "Perhaps I will kill you before this is all over, Viktor Pavlovich."
  Yemlin shrugged, but it was clear that the remark bothered him. "We'll
  see."

 Five belts went off in the operations room of the U.S. Navy Seventh
 Fleet's Intelligence Unit at Yokosuka, Japan, indicating a FLASH-priority
 message was incoming on the ready circuit from the Pentagon.

 Z072315ZJAN

 TOP SECRET

 FM: CINCPACCOM

 TO: CINC 7TH FLEET

 SUBJECT: READINESS STATUS

I.7TH FLEET NORTHERN OPERATIONS TO INCLUDE GUAM BUT NOT XX RPT NOT XX
 INDIAN OCEAN DETACHMENT ARE ORDERED TO DEFCON 4.

 2.                                THIS IS NOT XX RPT NOT XX A
 COMMANDWIDE UPGRADE,

3.EVIDENCE CONCENTRATED RUSSIAN NAVAL FORCES IN TATAR STRAIT VICINITY
 47-42-31N XXX 140-32-OOE.

4.REQUEST ID AND PRESENT WHEREABOUTS OF JAPANESE MSDF SUBMARINE
 RESPONSIBLE FOR ATTACK OF 04-01-97.

5.USE OF ALL APPLICABLE LOCAL RESOURCES AUTHORIZED, BUT UNDER NO
 CIRCUMSTANCES MUST MSDF BECOME AWARE OF YOUR INVESTIGATION.

 Chief Signalman Joseph Woodmark, Jr., tore the message off the printer
 and hand-carried it back to the duty
 120 DAVID HAGBERG

 officer's cubicle. They'd been expecting something like this to come, and
 the search for the MSDF submarine had already begun. So far as the traffic
 Woodmark had seen coming through operations indicated, the brass was
 looking for the Samisho, which had left Yokosuka ten days ago. But no one
 had expected the upgraded defense condition. DEFCON 5 was normal, and
 DEFCON i meant war. Four was nothing more than a preliminary precaution,
 but it was on the way up.
  Lieutenant, j.g. Jan Mills took the dispatch, logged it in the Top Secret
  control book, and shook his head. "Somebody's smoking something in D.C.,"
  he said, picking up the phone and punching in the fleet commander's
  office. "First they're late asking us to look around, and then they up
  the ante a notch."
  Last night he'd watched a video tape of the Pearl Harbor movie Tora!
  Tora! Tora! and now he felt unsettled.

 six

 Facing northeast toward the Columbia River and southwest across the city,
 Guerin Airplane Company's staff headquarters was housed in a sprawling
 glass and aluminum-framed four-story building at Portland International
 Airport. Nearly five thousand executives and engineers worked there. Along
 with the seventy-five thousand welders and riveters, tool and die makers,
 machinists and designers, electronics experts and metallurgists, chemists,
 mathematicians, and a host of other specialists in various facilities
 around the city and up at Forest Grove and Gales Creek, Guerin was by far
 Portland's largest employer. And, like Boeing in Seattle, the gigantic
 aircraft company dominated nearly
                HIGH FLIGHT 121

 every aspect of the city, from its taxes to its Mondaythrough-Friday
 traffic made worse this morning because of a rare snowstorm that had begun
 overnight. Three lanes of cars and vans streamed through the main gates
 into the parking lot, which was being plowed and sanded even as the day
 shift was showing up.
  Like most upper-level Guerin executives, Kennedy had a limousine and
  driver at his disposal. The presidents of almost every other division
  made use of the privilege, claiming it gave them much needed time to and
  from work to review paperwork. But often he drove his own car. It gave
  him the time to clear his head. To get ready for the day and to come down
  after a long one.
  This morning, however, he found it difficult to think about anything
  other than the Japanese, and Chairman of the Board Al Vasilanti's
  intransigence when it came to them. It had caused them trouble before,
  but they'd always managed to sidestep the issue or dig themselves out of
  whatever hole they'd been placed in.
  During the final design stages of the P522's fly-by-wire system in the
  mid-eighties, Mitsubishi had come up with a new design application for
  its CPU that made the computer-to-sensor interface one hundred times as
  fast and as accurate at half the cost, as the American designed and built
  application.
  The logical step, of course, would have been to subcontract the system
  to the Japanese. But Vasilanti had been adamantly against working with
  them, and he'd convinced the board of directors to go along with him,
  promising that American Micro Devices was on the verge of a better
  design.
  AMD had come up with a system that was at least as good as Mitsubishi's.
  Whether by luck or by inside information, Vasilanti came out smelling
  like a rose.
  This time there was no miracle looming six months down the road, unless
  McGarvey was successful, or unless Congress passed an act protecting them
  from a Japanese takeover-something he did not think Washington was ready
  to do considering the fact that the
 122 DAVID HAGBERG

 United States had become the world's largest debtor nation and Japan had
 become one of the largest purchasers of that debt.
  As one U.S. Senator had told him off the record last year, "We're
  beholden to the little bastards." It was a double-edged sword.
  Parking the four-wheel-drive Range Rover in his slot in the heated
  executive garage, Kennedy took the elevator up to the fourth floor.
  Traffic on Interstate 205 had been snarled up because of the weather, and
  as a result he was late. He'd telephoned his secretary to have
  Vasilanti's meeting pushed back to nine, which had been approved, but
  she'd warned him that his phone was ringing off the hook. The usual spate
  of Monday morning problems. But there was one call from Washington that
  he would have to deal with personally. "I don't recommend you use the car
  phone."
  Anyone could monitor cellular telephone conversations, and it was assumed
  by Guerin and every other high-tech company that such eavesdropping was
  common. But if the call was from McGarvey, back from Moscow, it might
  mean trouble.
  It was 8:30 A.M. when he stepped off the elevator, crossed the broad,
  thickly carpeted corridor, and entered his suite of offices down the hall
  from the boardroom. His secretary, Nancy Nebel, was just putting down the
  phone.
  "Let's get started," he said, going directly into his office.
  "Am I glad to see you," she said, jumping up. She snatched a stack of
  mail, a couple of thick file folders, and a steno pad from her desk and
  followed him inside.
  His office was large and well-appointed, with expansive windows that
  looked toward the airport terminal and the two main runways. From his
  desk Kennedy could see jetliners, many of them Guerin's, departing for
  and arriving from all over the world. Sometimes he felt a great sense of
  pride and acnievement. But at other times, like this morning, he felt a
  sense of impending disaster.
 "Mr. Vasilanti wants you in his office at nine sharp,
                HIGH FLIGHT 123

 which gives you a half-hour," Nancy said, pouring Kennedy a cup of coffee
 as he hung up his overcoat in the closet. She was fifty-something and
 plain looking but pleasant.
 "Is Gary back from Rome?"
  "He got in last night." Gary Topper was Guerin's vice president in charge
  of sales. "Mr. Vasilanti's already talked to him along with Mr. Socrates
  and Mr. Soderstrom."
  George Socrates was vice president in charge of new airplane design, and
  Jeffery Soderstrom was Guerin's chief financial officer. The old man had
  called all the heavy guns. This morning's meeting was going to be a
  council of war.
  Kennedy hung his suit coat on the back of his chair, then took the cup
  of coffee from his secretary and sat down. She laid out a couple of legal
  pads and several sharpened pencils for him, along with a typed copy of
  his tentative schedule for the day, week, and month.
  She set the stack of mail to his left. "Nothing that won't wait until
  this afternoon. Two queries from Washington. One from the FAA wanting a
  clarification on our suggested modification of the 422 rudder sensor AD
  that was issued in March." An AD, Airworthiness Directive, was an order
  from the Federal Aviation Administration requiring that a fix or
  modification be made to an airplane.
  "And the second from Congressman Benton's office requesting our current
  thinking on inertial guidance systems for airliners." Benton was the new
  chairman of the House Subcommittee on Aviation and was interested,
  because of the tremendous savings for the government, in what Aviation
  Week & Space Technology was calling the "next generation" of aids to
  navigation.
  Airliners found their way around the world using a combination of
  high-frequency radio beacons, radio locating networks, and a series of
  satellites in geostationary orbits that provided precise location
  information. But such systems, especially the satellites, were expensive
  to maintain.
 124 DAVID HAGBERG

  Using an inertial guidance system similar to ones installed in U.S.
  submarines, an airliner's exact location could be entered into the
  navigational device on the date the set was installed. At that point the
  aircraft "knew" exactly where in the world it was located. Thereafter,
  anytime the aircraft was moved, up-down, left-right, forward-backward,
  even by a few feet, the movements were sensed and the airplane's true
  position was computed by the system.
 "Engineering can handle that," Kennedy said.
  "Mr. Taich bounced it back here. Said our research was too sensitive to
  share with Washington at this time."
  Kennedy had to smile. Fred Taich, vice president in charge of
  engineering, was one of the true "squirrels" in the business and had
  probably made a reply along the lines of "Fuck the bastards!" But Nancy
  had cleaned it up for him.
  "Send a letter to Benton's office advising them we're putting together
  a comprehensive study package that we'll forward soon."
  "A letter to that effect is in the pile for your signature," Nancy said.
  "Nothing else in the mail is pressing. But I've put together two files
  you should look at before you see Mr. Vasilanti. The first involves the
  Japanese. I pulled what we had on their commercial aircraft and engine
  research, and Dominique's office faxed us everything they had."
  "Can we get anything from the State Department updating who we might be
  dealing with?"
 "Should be here within the hour."
  Nancy had been his secretary from the day he'd started with Guerin. The
  third-floor junior executives called her "Attila the Hun." But it was a
  term of respect, not derision.
 "What about this other file?" Kennedy asked.
  "The project," Nancy said. "Mr. Vasilanti asked me to see that you
  brought it along."
  He flipped the file open to the artist's rendering of the P/C2622. It
  looked sleek and fast.
                HIGH FLIGHT 125

  "He's scheduled a news conference at noon sharp at Gales Creek."
  Kennedy understood what the old man had in mind to counter the expected
  move against them by the Japanese and to prod Washington into standing
  up for them. NASA had used the same technique when the shuttle was in its
  developmental stages and Congress was dragging its heels over funding.
  A mockup of the space plane was shown to the public, and it made a big
  hit. Practically every television station, newspaper, wire service, and
  magazine in the world had covered the event. Congress quickly changed its
  mind.
  The P/C2622, minus its supersonic engine, was almost ready for its first
  test flight at subsonic speeds. He and Vasilanti had discussed the
  strategy of letting the media in on the event but had rejected it for
  being overly sporty at a time when they could ill afford such a gamble.
  If the test failed Guerin would suffer. Now, however, things were
  different.
 "What else?"
  "Mr. MeGarvey called from Washington and said it was urgent that you call
  him the moment you got in."
  "Get him on the phone," Kennedy said, his chest tight. God only knew what
  had happened in Moscow.
  Nancy left the office, closing the door softly behind her, and Kennedy
  swiveled in his chair so he could look out toward the airport. Snowplows
  and sanders were busy clearing the active runway. For the moment Portland
  International was open.
  Another thought intruded. The Japanese weren't his only problem. His
  marriage was in trouble too. Last night he and Chance had fought bitterly
  again. Something had gone terribly wrong with their relationship in the
  last year or so. In part, he thought, because of the long hours he worked
  and the frequent absences when he had to be in Washington or Paris or
  London. But, like a man who wants to get off a roller coaster, he was
  helpless until it stopped. Until the P/C2622 was flying.
  The telephone rang. He turned back and picked it up. "Mac?"
 126 DAVID HAGBERG

 "There's no answer at his hotel room," Nancy said.
 "Did you try Dominique's?"
  "No answer there either, but I left a message at both places."
  "All right, Nancy, call me if you get through to him, and buzz me when
  Mr. Vasilanti is ready."
 "You have about twenty minutes."
  Kennedy hung up, drew the first Japanese file to him and opened it to the
  first page: Japan-A Manufacturing Nation Without Natural Resources.

 McGarvey had picked up a tail the moment he'd passed through passport
 control and customs at Dulles Airport. They were probably FBI, one dressed
 as a customs agent and the other as a terminal cop. Both of them wore
 uniforms, but both carried handguns in shoulder holsters beneath their
 jackets, something uniformed officers never did.
  Outside, there'd been three pairs: one in a dark blue Ford van and a
  second in an electric-green Chevrolet Cavalier, alternating front and
  back of the Yellow cab McGarvey had taken into the city. He had the cabby
  slow down twice, and both times the two pairs slowed up. - The third set
  materialized in an older brown Mercedes at the Hyatt Regency where
  McGarvey checked in under his own name. The driver stayed with the car,
  while the other agent pretended to carry on a conversation with someone
  on a house phone. And when McGarvey boarded the elevator to his floor,
  the man put down the phone and approached the registration desk.
  If they wanted to charge him with something, the FBI would have picked
  him up by now. Which meant that to this point they were merely curious
  about his movements. Waiting for him to make the next move, such as
  meeting with his Russian control officer. If they caught him at that, he
  would definitely be picked up.
  McGarvey did not bother going to his room. Instead, he took the service
  elevator down to the laundry and left
                HIGH FLIGHT 127

 the hotel by a back exit. He walked a couple of blocks to D Street and
 Third, got,a cab to the Howard Johnson Downtown Motor Lodge across
 Virginia Avenue from the Watergate, and checked in.
  Standing at his fifth-floor window, he looked across the avenue as he
  waited for his Portland call to go through. He thought about Dominique
  Kilbourne. She was attracted to him because he was a dangerous man.
  Race-car drivers experienced the same thing. There was a type of woman
  who made a career out of having affairs with men in deadly occupations.
  But excess baggage was the bane of the field officer. The weak link that
  had brought down more than one good operative. A lover was an Achilles'
  heel. He could write the book on that story.
  He got Kennedy's secretary on the line. "McGarvey. Let me talk to David
  Kennedy."
  "He's right here, Mr. McGarvey," Nancy said, and a moment later Kennedy
  came on.
 "You weren't supposed to call this number."
 "All the principals know who I'm working for."
  Kennedy was silent for a beat. "When did you get back?"
 "This morning," McGarvey said. "They agreed."
 "The whole package? Both sides?"
  "Everything. They're expecting our first team in the next few days."
  "This is happening pretty fast," Kennedy said, cautiously. "What about
  their part?"
  "They'll provide the site, the materials, and the construction crews,
  supervised by your people. They'll provide all the technical help they
  can."
 "When can we start exchanging information?"
  "Soon," McGarvey said. It was possible that Guerin's phones were tapped.
  There was no use taking unnecessary risks.
  "No ... trouble?" Kennedy asked. "No snags, or lastminute demands on
  their part?"
 "None," McGarvey said.
 128 DAVID HAGBERG

  "You should come out here. Al Vasilanti wants to meet you, and there are
  a number of things you should know about us."
 "I'll be free tomorrow."
  "Good. In the meantime Al has called a press conference at Gales Creek.
  I think he's going to unveil the new airplane."
  "That's not such a good idea, David," McGarvey said. "It could push the
  opposition into making a move now."
  "I think that's what he wants," Kennedy replied. It sounded as if he
  wasn't very happy about the decision. "He's up for the fight, and I think
  he wants to get it over with."
  "I can understand that, but try to stall him if you can. Tell him that
  we'll be better equipped to put up a fight after we get some hard
  intelligence." -
  "He's called a council of war in his office for about two minutes from
  now. I'll do what I can."
 "See you tomorrow," McGarvey said.

 They met in the old man's office. The walls were adorned with paintings
 of some of the most famous commercial aircraft in the history of aviation,
 among them Ford's corrugated-skin Tin Goose, Douglas's DC-3, Boeing's 707
 and 747, and Guerin's 422 and 522-two of the biggest-selling airplanes
 ever.
  At seventy-seven, Alfred Vasilanti had been witness to a lot of aviation
  history, jumping into the industry with both feet after graduation from
  Harvard in 194 1. Two years later he bullied his draft board into
  granting him an exemption because he was working in a critical industry.
  Not because he wanted to avoid the war, but because, as he put it, "I
  knew damned well I could do more to beat the Nazis and the Japs by
  designing and building good airplanes than by shooting at the bastards."
  He'd always played it close to the hip, and as a result his staff
  meetings were lively affairs.
  The aircraft business bred contentious men, and a few women, who held
  strong opinions and were willing to go to the mat for them. Odd ducks.
  Eccentric geniuses-
                  HIGH FLIGHT 129

 "squirrels." These were the people Vasilanti surrounded himself with. As a
 result, the company was successful. There wasn't a national airline in any
 country, except Russia, that didn't fly Guerin equipment. Airplanes, he
 liked to point out, that except for their Rolls-Royce engines were
 one-hundred percent American designed and manufactured.
  Kennedy was the last to arrive. The old man motioned him to his place next
  to George Socrates, vice president of design. The second generation
  Greek-American had designed and built his own two-seater rag-wing monoplane
  in his father's Kansas garage in 1946. He was only thirteen years old, and
  legally still too young to get his solo license, but he learned to fly at
  the town's grass-strip airport. He never became a great pilot, but he main-
  tained that in order to design them you sure as hell better know how to fly
  them. He quit high school at the age of fifteen and enrolled at Kansas
  State University, breezing through the aeronautical engineering program in
  two years, after which he went to work for Cessna Aircraft Company as the
  youngest engineer on staff, or on the staff of any other airplane company
  so far as anyone knew. Since then he'd worked for every major airplane
  company in the U.S. designing or helping to design everything from sea
  planes to helicopters, and from sport aerobatic biplanes to Guerin's 322,
  422, 522, and finally the P/C2622-the culmination of his life's work. He
  was the most respected man in the industry and could walk into any airplane
  design facility in the world and get a job, no questions asked, for
  practically any amount of money he wanted.
  On Socrates's right was Newton Kilbourne, Dominique's older brother and
  vice president in charge of new product development and prototype
  manufacturing. He'd come to the aircraft industry from Detroit, where he'd
  started on the Ford plant's assembly line out of high school. Within the
  first month, realizing that being nothing more than a "wrench" wasn't good
  enough for him, he went to night school, finishing in six years with
  degrees in mechanical engineering, electrical engineer-
   130 DAVID HAGBERG

 ing, and business administration. When Vasilanti hired him eight years ago
 Kilbourne was vice president in charge of manufacturing the Taurus
 automobile. His transition to airplanes was simple. One day he was building
 cars, and the next he was building jetliners.
  Next to Kilbourne was Gary Topper. Topper, vice president in charge of
  sales, was an industry "squirrel," but his high jinks were tolerated
  because he sold airplanes. A former Air Force jet jockey, he'd worked for
  American, Pan Am, and Northwest before coming to Guerin four years ago at
  the age of thirty-seven. He'd been hired as a test pilot, but at a
  commercial air show in Buenos Aires he'd come in over the grandstands doing
  400 knots in a Guerin 522 . . . upside-down, something even Socrates said
  was impossible for a commercial jetliner that size. Everyone was so
  impressed (some of them angry, but all of them impressed) that they placed
  their orders for the airliner with the pilot who could pull off such a
  stunt.
  Beside him was his exact opposite, Jeff Soderstrom, Guerin's chief
  financial officer. A former Citibank vice president in charge of
  international commercial loans, he was accustomed to dealing with figures
  in the billions. But he was an arch conservative from a solid family, and
  Guerin's oftentimes precarious financial position drove him up the wall. It
  was the reason Vasilanti had hired the man. "We need someone to keep our
  feet on the ground."
  "We have a lot of work to do this morning, so let's get to it," Vasilanti
  said when Kennedy was seated. "I've scheduled a media briefing for noon at
  Gales Creek. We're going to show them the 2622. And we'll let them climb
  aboard and take as many pictures as they want."
  "So that's what this is all about," Kilbourne groaned. For the past two
  weeks the rush had been on to hang the aircraft's subsonic engines and the
  temporary cowling approximating the aerodynamic shape of the single
  hydrogen-burning hypersonic engine not yet ready from Rolls-Royce. "You
  ought to have your head examined."
 "Save it until you hear everything," Vasilanti growled.
                HIGH FLIGHT 131

 "David, give us the background on the Japanese problem ... the entire
 background, including Kirk McGarvey's recommendations and actions. Is he
 back?"
 "He's in Washington. He said it's a go."
 "Back from where?" Soderstrom asked.
  Kennedy looked at him, still not sure that this was the right thing to
  do. But he understood the old man's thinking and it was hard to fault it.
  "Moscow."
  "You're still thinking about putting a wing assembly plant in Russia
  after everything I've shown you?" the CFO asked. "When they collapse-not
  if, but whenwe'll be out a billion dollars we can't afford to toss away."
  "We can't afford not to do it," Vasilanti said sharply. "Go ahead,
  David."
  "I'll go over the details later, but simply put we think there may be a
  grain of truth to the rumors we've heard about a Japanese move to buy us
  out for our HSCT research." The acronym stood for High Speed Civil
  Transport, the next generation of commercial aircraft.
  "We know that," Soderstrom said. "We're keeping a close watch on the
  market."
  "We also think that they mean to do whatever it takes to drive our price
  per share to a favorable level by destroying the public's confidence in
  our equipment."
  "Come off it, David.. Don't you think this Japanese paranoia has gone far
  enough?"
  "I don't know, Jeff. But the question remains that the American Airlines
  O'Hare crash in '90 might have something to do with the Japanese."
  "Doesn't it seem coincidental to you that our troubles began after
  M~Garvey was hired?" Soderstrom asked. "He may be, as you say, a bright
  and conscientious man, but considering his background, mightn't he be
  seeing boogeymen?"
  Kennedy glanced at Vasilanti who sat impassively for the moment. It's
  your show, you deal with it.
  "That was my first reaction," Kennedy said. "But I don't think we can
  safely dismiss the possibility that he's right. Not any longer."
 132 DAVID HAGBERG

  Kilbourne sat forward. "What is it, David? What's happened?"
  There was no truly innocent person, Kennedy thought. Any company this
  large was bound to have a few skeletons in its corporate closet. But they
  were about to get a tough lesson in hardball politics this morning.
  " This meeting is strictly off the record. If what I'm about to share
  with you gets out, we could all end up in a hell of a lot of trouble."
 "Then why tell us?" Soderstrom asked sharply.
  , 'Because we're going to have to make a decision whether or not to
  continue with something I think we need to save this company."
 No one voiced an objection, not even Soderstrom.
  "Kirk MeGarvey learned from his sources in Washington that a Japanese
  submarine attacked and sank a Russian naval vessel in the Tatar Strait
  just north of Hokkaido."
 :'Jesus Christ," Kilbourne said softly.
  'There's been nothing in the news," Soderstrom objected.
  11 Not yet," Kennedy said. "But the story was confirmed by the Russians."
  " I don't believe this," the financial officer protested, but Vasilanti
  cut him off.
 :'Go ahead, David."
  'This happened a couple of days ago, but I waited for McGarvey to get
  back from Moscow to say anything, because I didn't have a clue what it
  meant, and I was hoping he would have something new."
 Toes he?"
  'We won't know until he gets out here tomorrow. Under the circumstances
  we didn't think discussing this on the telephone was very wise."
  " All this may be well and good, but what does it have to do with us?"
  Topper asked. He was of medium height and thin. "Aren't we in the
  business of making and selling airplanes?"
  "Yes," Kennedy said, answering him. "A business that a Japanese group may
  want to destroy."
                HIGH FLIGHT 133

  "We don't know that for a fact," Soderstrom cautioned.
  "No. Which is why McGarvey went to Moscow to offer the Russians the wing
  panel factory in exchange for information. He's asked the Russian Secret
  Service to spy on the Japanese for us. They've agreed."
  "Jesus Christ," Kilbourne repeated himself, but Soderstrom and the others
  were struck dumb.
  "What effect the Japanese attack is going to have on our deal, or on
  relations between our country and theirs remains to be seen, but for the
  moment we need the information to stay alive."
  Vasilanti grinned wryly and shook his head. "The fat is in the fire now."
  "We're talking about treason," Kilbourne said. He was a burly man whose
  shirt sleeves were usually rolled up to the elbows.
  "I disagree, Newt," Kennedy said. "We're not spying on the U.S., nor are
  we giving the Russians anything we shouldn't be giving them. We'll get
  the proper export licenses from Washington to share our wing-section
  technology."
  "I wondered why Howard wasn't in on this meeting," Soderstrom said a
  little peevishly. Howard Siegel was Guerin's general counsel. "You can't
  sit there and tell us that we haven't already broken the law just by
  approaching the intelligence agency of a foreign government. And spying
  on Japan? Hell, they're our allies! At the very least we could be hit
  with industrial espionage."
  "What do you suggest?" Kennedy asked, McGarvey's warning coming back to
  him.
  "I don't know. But it sure as hell doesn't include hiring the Russians
  to spy for us."
 "What if it meant the survival of this company, JeffT'
  "If Washington padlocks our door because we've broken the law, there
  won't be any company."
  "What if more of our airplanes are brought down?" Kennedy asked. "Have
  you thought about the people who were killed, who might be killed?"
 "There's no hard evidence to that fact, David. The
 134 DAVID HAGBERG

 NTSB found nothing. Even if it was true that the Japanese sabotaged that
 plane, there's nothing we can do about it. If another one goes down,
 however, and we can prove a Japanese group was behind it, then we'd have
 a leg to stand on."
  "In the meantime more people would be dead, and we'd probably be ruined,"
  Kennedy said. He and McGarvey had hashed over this same argument days
  ago, and this time around it still sounded unreal.
 "Then so be it, but for now our hands are tied."
  "No," Vasilanti said. "We'll not stand by idly if there's even the
  slightest chance that people might get hurt flying our equipment. The
  company be damned, we're talking about human lives here,"
  "You can have my resignation," Soderstrom. said, but Vasilanti slammed
  his open palm on the desk top.
  "I don't want your goddamned resignation. You're a fine executive, Jeff.
  But you're a bean counter, not an airplane man. This isn't strictly about
  money now."
  Soderstrom shrugged. "You asked for my opinion, and I gave it. I think
  this course of action is wrong. But you can override me."
  "Which I'm going to do this time," Vasilanti said gently.
  His older brother had died on the Bataan death march in the Philippines,
  and he'd never lost his hatred of the Japanese. It affected his dealings
  with them as a businessman. But this time Kennedy didn't think the old
  man's hatred was his entire motivation.
  "There is one point that we'd better think about this morning, and that's
  the press conference," Kennedy said. "Might not be such a good idea."
 "Why?" Vasilanti asked.
  "If it's true that we've been targeted by the Japanese because of the
  2622, going public with it might goad them into some kind of action
  before we're ready for it."
  "You mean before we've gotten any hard intelligence from the Russians,"
  the CEO said.
 "Exactly."
                HIGH FLIGHT 135

  "We wouldn't be so dependent on Moscow, in that case," Vasilanti said
  bluntly. "And the fight would be out in the open. I'm going to override
  you too, David. We're not going to sit around waiting for them to make
  some move against us. We're going to take the fight to them."
  "How?" Socrates asked. He was short, beefy, and very dark, but his voice
  was soft.
  "By showing them what Americans are capable of doing."
  "And daring them to do something about it," Soderstrom said, half under
  his breath, but everyone ignored him.

 By a few minutes before noon, when the Guerin helicopter touched down at
 Test Facility One outside Gales Creek, the snow had tapered off. A lot of
 media people had made the twenty-five-mile trip from Portland to the huge
 center. Anything Guerin did was big news in the region. And the unveiling
 of a new airplane, even though it was incomplete, was the biggest news.
 It translated into more jobs for a sagging economy.
  The governor and other VIPs would be invited to a separate, and more
  elaborate, unveiling ceremony in a few weeks after the jetliner passed
  her first FAA trials. Today's event was strictly for publicity.
  Test One was a sprawling complex of hangars, concrete bunkers, and
  assembly halls, some that enclosed dozens of acres in which prototype
  commercial jetliners were assembled, and one very wide fifteen-thousand-
  foot runway that ran northwest-southeast along a narrow valley between
  the mountains. The test pilots hated the place because of the numerous
  unpredictable wind shears and rapidly accelerating downdrafts and the
  frequent bouts of very bad weather. But, as one old hand wryly observed,
  "Guerin Airplane Company's test pilots are the best in the world. They
  have to be in order to survive Gales Creek."
  Saul Edwards, Facility One's operations manager, and Larry Weaver, the
  P/C2622's chief readiness mechanic,
 136 DAVID HAGBERG

 met the chopper in the lee of the prototype hangar and escorted Vasilanti
 and the other Portland brass inside. The television crews were getting set
 up, but they were kept at a distance from the airliner by a rope barrier
 and a half-dozen uniformed security people.
  "Just a moment," Vasilanti said, stopping just inside the door.
  The sight of a new airplane that had never flown before, state of the art
  so far as its designers and manufacturer could make it, was cause for awe
  and pride in any airline executive's breast. But this time they'd made
  more than a few strides, and they knew it. They had pushed the envelope
  over the horizon. It was unthinkable to allow Japan, or any other
  country, to take what they had accomplished here. Boeing's tour de force
  of the sixties and seventies, the humpbacked whale 747, had consisted of
  four-and-a-half million separate parts. The P/C2622 had nearly eleven
  million. When Vasilanti had first seen Socrates's engineering proposals,
  he'd borrowed a line from one of the 747's production managers. "We'll
  call this one the Savior," he said, "because every time I see it, I'm
  going to say, 'Jesus Christ."'
 "It's a big sonofabitch, all right," Edwards agreed.
 "That it is," Vasilanti said.
  With a fuselage length of four hundred twenty-one feet, it was nearly one
  hundred feet longer than Boeing's 747, and with a gross takeoff weight
  of one million pounds it was a third heavier. It could carry up to five
  hundred passengers and cargo, cruise above 200,000 feet at speeds in
  excess of Mach five, and yet take off and land on the same runways as the
  747 and make less noise doing it. Nor would it become another Concorde
  SST that was so expensive to operate that governments had to subsidize
  its operations. The P/C2622 would be a paying aircraft, because it was
  designed to be so.
  A muslin shroud completely covered the gigantic airplane. Even so, the
  twin-tailed, delta-winged configuration was clearly recognizable, as was
  the fact that this
                HIGH FLIGHT 137

 was no ordinary flying machine. This was something special, and everyone
 in the hangar understood it.
  "Let's show it to them," Vasilanti said. He headed across the hangar
  floor, Kennedy and the others trailing behind him.

 It was a few minutes after noon in West Hollywood. Edward R. Reid paid off
 his cabby at Wilshire and LaBrea and walked the last four blocks to a
 small diner on a side street off the main avenue. He wore brown corduroy
 trousers and an old green sweater under a poplin jacket. He did not stand
 out, which was what he wanted. In fifty years of making money (his current
 net worth was around $27 million) he'd become a pragmatist. He would do
 anything to increase his fortune. It was an aspect of him, a private
 aspect, that very few people knew or would understand. Even his wife had
 never suspected this side of him. Early in his career he'd learned that
 everyone had three choices: They could be poor, they could be middle
 class, or they could be rich. He'd made his choice and never looked back.
  The first time he passed the diner he glanced in the windows at the
  half-dozen people eating lunch. None of them seemed suspicious, but he
  kept walking to the end of the block where he crossed to the opposite
  side of the street and started back.
  He'd begun making his contacts while still in the Army in West Germany
  when he'd come across a cache of Nazi-vintage German Lugers wrapped in
  cosmoline. He'd been sent up to Kaiserlautern to evaluate an old German
  supply depot outside the city for possible use by the staff judge
  advocate's office to which he was attached. The fifteen hundred pistols
  had been stashed in a section of sub-basement. The week before he'd been
  in Munich having dinner hosted by a German army legal unit, to which a
  few representatives from the nearby BND headquarters had also been
  invited. During the evening he'd spoken at length with Karl Schey, a
  young Secret Service lieutenant, who'd struck him as being an
 138 DAVID HAGBERG

 eminently sensible man. Schey hated what the Nazis had been and what the
 communists were, but knew enough to suggest that a profit could be made
 by the man willing to capitalize on the aftermath.
  The evening Reid discovered the pistols he'd telephoned Schey in Munich,
  told him what he was sitting on, and asked for help selling the cache.
  Schey agreed immediately, and within twenty-four hours the guns were
  gone, sold for one hundred dollars each. The next day a package
  containing $75,000 in cash was delivered to Reid's Heidelberg apartment
  by a cab driver.
  Reid kept up his contact with Schey and others whom the German introduced
  him to, and they made mutual profit. Sometimes he would send items of
  interest, including intelligence, to Schey, and sometimes it worked the
  other way. But always there was money to be made.
  A few months ago, he'd gone to Germany to take another took at the German
  stock market, and while he was there he'd driven to Munich where he and
  Schey had dinner together. It was like old times. They talked about a
  wide range of subjects, mostly dealing with the Cold War, now dead, the
  situation in what once had been the Soviet Union, now chaotic beyond
  belief, and about the rising threat to the west from Japan, very real.
  "Are you planning something, my old friend?" Schey had asked.
  "I think there's profit to be made, just like in the old days." Reid
  looked over the rim of his brandy snifter.
  "It would appear that they want to buy your country in revenge for
  Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese do not suffer their humiliation
  well."
  "No," Reid answered thoughtfully. "Perhaps with the right people
  something might be done," he mused. "Someone willing and able to carry
  out, shall we say, delicate operations."
  "Someone who afterward you could disassociate yourself from."
 "Exactly," Reid said, and Schey smiled.
 "I think I might be able to help. But if he becomes
                HIGH FLIGHT 139

 available you would have to team him up with an American group. It would
 seem more logical to the authorities if your ... delicate operation were to
 be carried out by a Mafia family from Chicago or New York."
  "Too difficult to control," Reid said. "But I have someone in mind."
 Schey nodded sagely. "Where do you see the profit?"
 "On the stock market."
 "You have a plan after all."
  "It occurred to me as we talked," Reid said. "There have been rumors that
  we might be able to put to good use. We would buy stocks at depressed
  prices and resell when they returned to normal levels."
 "If they do."
  "Oh, they will," Reid had assured his old friend. "I'll see to it."
  Two older women entered the diner. Reid crossed the street in the middle of
  the block and went in after them, taking a booth in the back. He ordered
  coffee. A minute later a tall, skinny man who looked to be in his mid- to
  late thirties, with longish hair and an immense moustache under a beak of
  a nose, came in, walked directly back to Reid's booth, and sat down. He
  wore cowboy boots, faded blue jeans, and a Northwestern sweatshirt under a
  jean jacket. His eyes looked crazy and there were flecks of spit at the
  comers of his mouth.
  His name was Glen Zerkel, and he was probably as crazy as a bedbug, but he
  was good at what he did, which was destroying things, sometimes with people
  still in or on them, he didn't much care one way or the other. He'd once
  headed a small group of terrorists who called themselves Earth Stewards.
  Their avowed purpose was to save the world and its resources from rape by
  greedy capitalists so that there'd be something left for future
  generations. They did this by fraying the cable on a ski lift in Idaho
  during a busy Thanksgiving weekend. When the lift was carrying a full load,
  the weakened cable broke, dumping the gondolas seventy-five feet to the
  ground, killing seven people, and severely injuring fifty-
   140 DAVID HAGBERG

 two others. The ski resort, which was "ruining" the pristine mountain
 environment, went bankrupt, was purchased by a group of courageous investors
 for ten cents on the dollar, and reopened. They were not bothered again.
  Or by tampering with the engines, and in one case the tail rotor, of the
  helicopters used for Grand Canyon tours. Three of the machines went down in
  the same day, killing the pilots and all the passengers and ruining the
  tour operator's business. No one had figured who'd profited by that act,
  but the canyon, if littered, had been "saved" for the future.
  Reid had used Earth Stewards when he wanted a new molybdenum mine shut
  down. A series of mysterious explosions and accidents did.the trick in
  three months flat, after which one of Reid's blind subsidiaries profited
  well.
  "It's really good to see you again, Mr. R.," Zerkel said. It was the only
  name he called Reid, although early on he'd done his homework and he knew
  who he was dealing with. He was crazy, not stupid.
 "How have you been?"
  The younger man shrugged. "Bored out of my fucking skull. Not much has been
  happening lately."
 "You've been keeping a low profile?"
  Zerkel started to laugh, but something in Reid's expression stopped him. He
  nodded instead. "There's no real heat for the moment, though from what I
  hear the feds are still poking around Coeur d'Alene."
  Reid studied the man for a moment or two. He'd thought long and hard about
  coming out here and making contact again. There were risks. So far as he
  knew the FBI still had no line on Zerkel, but his source could be mistaken.
  If the bureau was on to the terrorist they might have followed him here to
  see who he was contacting. It would make for headlines.
  But if Zerkel had been made, the bureau would have arrested him by now. Or
  shot him dead. "Mad dogs," he'd told someone once, "should never be given
  a second chance."
                HIGH FLIGHT 141

  "I have a project for you," Reid said. "This one is big.,,
  "What do you want me to do?" Zerkel asked, his eyes bright.
  "We'll discuss that later. I want you in Washington tonight. Is there any
  reason you can't leave L.A.?"
  "Money," Zerkel said. "But maybe I don't want to go anywhere until I know
  what's coming down."
  Nobody in the diner was paying them any attention. The waitress brought
  Zerkel a cup of coffee and refilled Reid's cup. When she was gone Reid
  handed the younger man fifteen well-circulated one hundred dollar bills.
  "I want you at Dulles no later than midnight. A Yellow cab with the roof
  number 659 will pick you up and bring you out to a place I have in the
  country."
  "What if I don't like what I hear? I'm bored, not suicidal."
  "You can get out, no hard feelings. Nothing lost. But you'll like this
  deal, I guarantee it."
  Zerkel didn't have to think very long. "No later than'~ midnight," he
  said.
  "Good," Reid said, rising. "And for God's sake get your hair cut, shave off
  that moustache, and put on some decent clothes."

 It was after six by the time Dominique Kilbourne showed up at her apartment.
 McGarvey watched from the stairwell door as she got off the elevator and
 came down the corridor. When he stepped out she stopped in her tracks, and
 for an instant, before she covered it up, she looked terrified.
 "Are you all right?" he asked.
  "Of course I am," she said sharply. "You just startled me. What are you
  doing here?"
  "I'm going to Portland tomorrow. I wanted to talk to you before I left."
 "How was Moscow?"
  "You don't want to know," he said. "When I see Kennedy I'm going to tell
  him that I no longer need you as a contact."
 142 DAVID HAGBERG

  "I asked you a question. I want to know how it went for you in Moscow.
  Did they agree? Can you give me the courtesy of answering that?" She
  seemed brittle.
 "It looks as if they'll help."
 "They said so?" she demanded sharply.
  "What is it, Dominique?" McGarvey took her arm. Something was wrong with
  her. She was flushed.
  "Well, I think we're all in danger now." She pulled away.
 "What happened when I was gone?"
  "They came here to my apartment the first night after you left."
 "Who did?"
  "Two of them, dressed in black. They broke in, but they didn't steal
  anything." Her lower lip was quivering. "Nothing is missing, except my
  security and my peace of mind. It's just that I never thought it would
  happen to me. I mean, what did they want?".
 "Were you inside?"
  "I caught them in the act," she said. She laughed nervously. "It's gotten
  to the point that I'm afraid to open my own goddamned door. Aren't you
  going to say 'I told you so?"'
 "Did you call the police?"
 "No.
 "David?"
  She shook her head. "I waited for you. This is right down your alley,
  isn't it?"
  He took the key from her, opened her door, and ducked inside, keeping to
  the left. The apartment was ablaze with lights.
  "I keep them on," Dominique said. "I can't come back to a dark
  apartment."
  It was all right. There was nobody this time. "Where were they?"
 "I don't know. Maybe in the bedroom."
  McOarvey went into the bedroom and took apart the telephone on the
  nightstand. The bug, including its pickup, transmitter, and battery, was
  smaller than an
                HIGH FLIGHT 143

 ordinary postage stamp. It had been installed behind the mouthpiece. There
 was no mistaking what the device was.
  He removed it, then put the phone back together and looked up. Dominique
  stood at the bedroom doorway.
 "What was that?" she asked.
  "It's a bug," MeGarvey said. The time for lying to her, and keeping her out
  in the cold, was over. "It's a transmitter so that they can listen in on
  what you're saying."
  "Everything that I said ... and did ... they listened to everything?"
  McGarvey nodded. "Pack a bag. I'm getting you out of here."
  Dominique's face twisted into a grimace, her eyes narrowed. "Those dirty
  bastards," she swore through clenched teeth.
  There was something alarming in her posture and sudden anger. "Did you get
  a look at them? Did you recognize them?"
  "No," she said. "It was dark, and it happened too fast."
  McGarvey stared at her for another long moment. She was lying, but there
  wasn't much he could do about it now except get her out of the way.
 "Get packed," he said.

 Edward Reid stared at the television set in the living room of the Sterling,
 Virginia, farmhouse, astonished but pleasantly surprised by what he was
 learning. He'd expected a breakout, but not this.
  The Japanese had attacked and sunk a Russian navy vessel in the Tatar
  Strait with a loss of all hands. The CNN news report was vague on when this
  had happened, but it was specific in denouncing the White House and State
  Department for not sharing what they knew with the American public. CNN had
  learned of the attack from unnamed sources in Tokyo.
 Reid maintained that the Cold War with Japan began
 144 DAVID HAGBERG

 on December 7, 199 1, when the Japanese Diet in Tokyo defeated by a large
 margin a resolution that would have formally apologized for the sneak
 attack on Pearl Harbor fifty years earlier. A faction of the Japanese
 population still demanded an apology for Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was
 the same day that President Bush had been at Pearl Harbor making a speech
 and dropping a wreath on the remains of the battleship Arizona.
  He reached for his drink and took a deep pull at the straight Irish
  whiskey, barely tasting its harshness. The Japanese were not looking for
  a confrontation with the Russians. Although Siberia contained many of the
  natural resources that Japan desperately needed, Tokyo had never publicly
  considered that option. It was more interested in developing mineral
  recovery operations in countries along the western Pacific rim, Thailand,
  Vietnam, and the Malaysian peninsula. The Japanese would open mines and
  build towns to house the mine workers, their families, and the ancillary
  families who would run the grocery stores, restaurants, department
  stores, and public works. These people would become consumers of Japanese
  manufactured goods, the radios and televisions, the trucks and
  automobiles, and the Nintendos and digital watches, Two birds would be
  killed with one stone. Japan would get the mineral resources it so badly
  needed while creating new markets for its products. The only fly in the
  ointment was the United States, which wanted those markets for itself,
  and whose navy ruled supreme.
  Reid took another long pull at his drink, finishing it. He got up and
  went to the sideboard where he poured another, then stood there, lost in
  thought.
  Japan understood full well that it had no chance whatsoever to win an
  all-out war with the United States. Certainly not now, and very likely
  not for some years to come. But Japan did not want to dominate the world,
  as it had wanted to in the forties. It wanted control only of the western
  Pacific. Nothing more.
  It could not win a shooting war, but knew that it would have to face
  increasingly tough trade agreements
                HIGH FLIGHT 145

 that could cripple its growth. It had to do something. Japan was out to
 finesse the United States by playing a series of cards it knew the United
 States could beat, but hoped it wouldn't. The attack in the Tatar Strait
 was the opening move.
  Reid was smiling when Mueller came from the stair hall. "Zerkel is here,"
  the German said.
  "Good." Reid put down his drink. He had a few cards of his own to put in
  play. "Bring him right in, Bruno. We've got a lot of ground to cover
  tonight."

 By afternoon, a light breeze sprang up, and although it was chilly the
 garden was still pleasant. Sokichi Kamiya sat on the broad, scrubbed teak
 deck, his bandy legs folded beneath him as he listened to the gurgling of
 the waterfall and the music of the windchime in the gnarled old tree.
 Kamiya, eighty-one, controlled the vast research and development zaibatsu
 called Mintori Assurance Corporation, which had been involved since
 shortly after the war with everything from pure electronics and electronic
 components research to missile development and nuclear energy.
  Beside him sat his old friend and business acquaintance, Hiroshi
  Kobayashi, who at seventy-nine controlled the banking zaibatsu of Kobe,
  second in power and resources only to the Bank of Tokyo.
  "It is gracious of our young friend, Yamagata, to share with us the
  pleasure of this place," Kamiya said. He had been contemplating the rock
  "future" and "hope" in the freshly raked garden beside the pool of golden
  carp, certain that its soul was at peace here, especially named as it
  was, and especially in this setting.
  "The storm clouds are gathering, my friend," Kobayashi said.
  They'd watched the CNN report on the new Guerin hypersonic transport and
  on the incident in the Tatar Strait. Neither had come as a surprise, but
  the White House remained silent, which both men took as an ominous sign.
  The upcoming economic summit between the United States and Japan worried
  both of them, not
 146 DAVID HAGBERG

 so much for its likely content, but because of the timing of the talks. They
 were not quite ready.
  "All of what has come to pass was inevitable. We move from this point
  forward."
  "Agreed," Kobayashi said. "But I think there will be many more dangers."
  "Because of Guerin's announcement?" Kamiya asked harshly, but without
  raising his voice.
  "It's possible they know something. Enough to offer the countermove."
  "They would have gone to Washington with it. We would have heard."
  "Perhaps not," Kobayashi said, apologetically. "Excuse me, I do not wish to
  disturb your peace, but we cannot afford to wait any longer. If we are to
  move, it must be now."
  Kamiya composed himself. He felt a sense of frustration and loss for the
  spirit that had gone out of his country. "Of course you are right, my old
  friend."
 "What will you do?"
  "Send Yamagata-san to Washington and to Portland. He will find out for us
  how to stop them."
 "And how much they know or suspectT
  "Yes," Kamiya said, focusing again on future" and "hope." "We will instruct
  him at once. He can leave in the morning."
 "We must take drastic action if this is to succeed."
  "Whatever it takes, Kobayashi-san, " Kamiya said. He smiled, thinking about
  how civilized the Japanese were compared to the Americans. Yamagata-san,
  who was almost like a son to him, would have to live among the barbarians
  for a time. That thought gave him sadness. Still, he smiled.

 McGarvey and Carrara met for breakfast at 7:30 A.M. in the Howard Johnson
 Motor Lodge coffee shop. For the first fifteen minutes McGar-vey did all the
 talking. When he was done, Carrara glanced toward the entrance.
 "Is she upstairs now?" he asked.
 "Five-oh-three," McGarvey said. "I'm leaving for
                HIGH FLIGHT 147

 Portland in a couple of hours, but before I go I wanted to make sure
 someone would keep an eye on her."
  "The Bureau will watch her, and I'll have her apartment swept, but you
  know as well as I do, Mac, that if they want her they'll get her, unless
  we take her out to the Farm where she can be isolated."
 "She won't do it."
 "Any idea who it was?"
  "No," McGarvey said. "But they left these." He handed over the three bugs
  he'd found in the telephones.
  "I'll have Technical Services take a look," Carrara said, pocketing the
  devices. He sat forward. "If they were Russians I could understand it,
  but if they were Japanese, I'll be worried."
  "Me too," McGarvey said. "In the meantime Moscow has agreed to help out."
 "What else?"
  "That's it, Phil, unless you'd care to tell me what the White House's
  reaction would be to a retaliatory strike by the Russians."
  Carrara whistled long and low. "Is that what they told you?"
 "Not in so many words, but they're thinking about it."
 "You never were one to screw around," Carrara said.
  "I'm trying to save an airplane company here, that's all."
 "And maybe get us into a shooting match?"
  "Or keep us from one," McGarvey said. "Think about it.,,

 SEVEN

 The black Zil limousine bearing Russian Foreign Intelligence Service
 director Aleksandr Karyagin glided down a narrow dirt lane through the
 birch
 148 DAVID HAGBERG

 forests along the Istra River east of Moscow. The only person in the car,
 besides his driver, was his bodyguard. Both men were personally loyal to
 their director, more loyal to him +than even to Russia, or the
 Commonwealth of Independent States. He had handpicked them as his aides
 years ago, and even during the worst of economic times they and their
 farrilies lived well.
  A few kilometers off the main highway the road had not been plowed after
  the last snowstorm so they'd had to stop and put chains on the back
  wheels. The darkness of the late afternoon, the thin cut of the road
  through the forest, and the tinkle of the tire chains lent an air of
  isolation to the place, broken only by the sophisticated communications
  equipment built into the back seat. He was never out of touch with his
  staff, or with his masters at the Kremlin. Never.
  Because of the crises in the Tatar Strait his leash had been pulled up
  short. Yeltsin and that pissant, Minister of Defense Colonel-General
  Vyacheslav Solovyev, had called him on the carpet for a "lack of
  understanding of the Japanese problem." That coming directly on the heels
  of the latest rounds of deep budget cuts. The KGB-Karyagin still thought
  of the organization by its old name-was being hamstrung by a lack of
  Western currencies just at a time when its foreign intelligencegathering
  operations were needed the most. The fools were convinced that the new
  World Market rouble, which was being traded some places outside of
  Russia, would survive. All they had to do was look around. They could buy
  wheat, medical supplies, and even some other badly needed commodities.
  But when it came to buying technology, or tractors or heavy earth-moving
  equipment-durable goods-the World Market rouble was worthless. As it was
  worthless in Tokyo.
  Yeltsin had been his mentor, but Karyagin no longer trusted the man, whom
  he viewed as too self-serving to be reliable. Look at the promises he had
  made to Polunin. Karyagin had the instincts of a politician, or at least
  an understanding of a politician's second sight. He
                HIGH FLIGHT 149

 understood that he needed some insurance in the form of advice from the
 one man on earth whom he trusted without reservation to have only the best
 interests of the Rodina at heart. He'd managed to get a message to the man
 this noon on a secure telephone link, but still there were risks.
  "There's something blocking the road ahead, Mr. Director," his driver
  said, breaking him out of his thoughts.
  His bodyguard pulled out a fifteen-shot, 9 mm Beretta 92SB pistol and
  switched the safety off. "Slow down," he warned the driver. He looked in
  the rearview mirror to make sure no one was behind them.
  Karyagin sat forward, the automobile's powerful headlights illuminating
  something about a hundred meters ahead. For a second or so his stomach
  tightened and his heart quickened. This was not so much like the old days
  when the only dangerous enemy that a Russian officer or politician had
  was his immediate superior. Political assassination had finally come to
  Russia from the West.
  But then he realized what it was. "It's all right," he said. "The road
  to the dacha must be bad. They've sent a sleigh for me."
  The troika's driver stood up and waved at them. A second figure, bundled
  up in an overcoat and fur hat, sat in the back, and as they got closer
  Karyagin could see that there was no one else, not even a bodyguard.
  "I'll come with you, Mr. Director," Karyagin's bodyguard said.
  "Very well, but put away your gun. It won't be needed tonight. There's
  no reason to make them nervous."
  The former President of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, looking
  hardy and well rested, pushed back the fur rug covering his lap as
  Karyagin climbed aboard the three-horse sleigh behind his bodyguard and
  the driver. When he was settled they shook hands.
  "Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Mr. President."
 150 DAVID HAGBERG

  Gorbachev shrugged and smiled. "Go," he said softly to his driver, and
  they lurched forward, the bells on the horses' harnesses sharp in the
  intensely cold, crisp night air.
  Within minutes they were well out of sight of the limousine's headlights.
  Even though Karyagin was truly isolated now, he felt at ease. Gorbachev
  had survived a coup attempt.
  "What do your Washington assets tell you?" Gorbachev asked, finally.
 "I'm sorry, Mr. President, about what?"
  "An American response to our retaliation for the Tatar Strait."
  It was always startling when Gorbachev came directly to the point. It was
  un-Russian. "Nothing yet. The White House is silent, although the news
  story has appeared finally on CNN."
 "When is our ambassador going calling?"
  "Within thirty-six hours," Karyagin answered. Yeltsin had brought it up
  at their meeting. "We're still studying the possibilities."
  Gorbachev's smile widened, as if to say I'm sure you are studying the
  possibilities. "The instructions have not yet been sent to Washington?"
  "No. Everybody is expecting it, of course. But at this point there's
  absolutely no predicting how their President will respond. And now he has
  his hands full with Tokyo. The economic summit is scheduled next month,
  so he's in a difficult position. But so are we."
  "Indeed we are. Tokyo Station was able to give no warning?"
  "None . . ." Karyagin hesitated, and Gorbachev picked up on it.
 "But?"
  "The attack may not have been directed by the government, or even by the
  military as an autonomous action. It's possible that a zaibatsu may have
  been formed to foment trouble between us. The submarine captain may have
  been one of them."
                HIGH FLIGHT 151

  Gorbachev looked at him sharply. "For what purpose?"
  "I have no hard evidence of this, Mr. President, I'm merely speculating.
  But I suspect that the Americans are going to want to act as a peacekeeper
  in the region. They'll try to talk us and the Japanese into making
  concessions. If that happens, Tokyo will. be in a much stronger bargaining
  position at the summit. It'll give a little to insure the peace, so it'd be
  the United States's turn to give a little."
  "Japan was always the buffer against a breakout into the Pacific by our
  navy in case of war," Gorbachev said. "So Washington gave them anything
  they wanted. But now that relations between us and Washington have been
  normalized, Japan is no longer so important."
  "Japan may be trying to bring the tensions in the region back into play."
  "You said a private zaibatsu was involved, and not the government."
  "There is a commercial interest. Without concessions from the United
  States, Japan is going to find itself in very difficult financial times."
  Gorbachev fell silent. The frozen river was a few yards off to their left,
  and a light breeze had sprung up, dropping the wind chill lower.
  "The Japanese apparently targeted Guerin Airplane Company for an unfriendly
  takeover. I met with one of the company executives yesterday. Guerin's
  offering to build a one billion dollar high-tech airplane-wing factory in
  Moscow and train our engineers and workers to run it."
 "In exchange for what?"
  "Information about this Japanese takeover attempt from our intelligence
  unit in Tokyo."
 "What are you asking me, Aleksandr Semenovich?"
  Karyagin needed no time to frame his question. He'd been thinking about it
  for a day and a night. "Who should we court as our allies? The United
  States or Japan?"
 152 DAVID HAGBERG

  "We should stand alone," Gorbachev said after another long silence. "I
  think it would be wise if you found the zaibatsu behind all of these recent
  moves before any decision is made."
  "But Boris Yeltsin is in a dream world. I don't think he understands what's
  really happening."
 Gorbachev smiled wanly. "Would you be President?"
 "No," Karyagin said.
  "Then stick to intelligence gathering, Aleksandr Semenovich, so that you
  may better advise your President."
  The rebuff stung. For the first time in Karyagin's career he felt truly
  alone.

 In many respects Louis Zerkel was just as crazy as his half-brother Glen,
 the Earth Stewards terrorist. His insanity took the form of acute paranoia.
 Everywhere he looked, there seemed to be conspiracies. His life's mission
 was to counteract these conspiracies with elaborate counterplans. He was
 forty-six, and he'd been filling endless notebooks and computer disks with
 counterplots since 1963 when President Kennedy had been assassinated on
 Zerkel's twelfth birthday.
  Another trait he shared with his half-brother was his brilliance, something
  they'd inherited from their father, not their mothers. The elder Zerkel had
  been a U.S. Army criminal investigator stationed in West Germany when he
  met and married his first wife, with whom he had Louis. A few years after
  they returned to civilian life in the States, she'd divorced him, and a
  couple of years later he married his second wife and they had Glen. He
  worked for the San Francisco Police Department as a special investigator on
  unsolved capital crimes. But as good an investigator as the man was, he was
  just as odd. Most people who came in contact with him, including his
  co-workers, his superiors, and even his family, shied away. There was
  something about his eyes, the set of his mouth, his stance that looked like
  a leopard's, or some feral animal that might be docile at that moment but
  could spring out and devour you without warning.
                HIGH FLIGHT 153

  Police Sergeant Donald Zerkel finally put the barrel of a .357 Magnum
  pistol in his mouth and blew his brains out one afternoon in the bedroom
  of his ranch-style house as his wife and her lover watched in horror from
  where they lay in each other's arms.
  By then Louis had graduated from the University of California at
  Berkeley, with a 4.0 average in electronics engineering, and was working
  for IBM in upstate New York. His younger brother, Glen, was in his senior
  year at UCLA as a physics, mathematics, and philosophy triple major with
  a 4.0 average.
  The boys came back for the funeral, attended by a lot of people who were
  relieved that the man was finally dead. Afterward, at the house, the
  brothers got into a terrific argument about Glen's mother, who in Louis's
  words was nothing but a "filthy adulteress" who'd caused their father's
  death. That was in 1980, and they'd not seen or talked to each other
  since, although there'd been one news story some years ago about Glen
  being a suspect in an act of environmental terrorism somewhere in Montana
  or Idaho. Except for one interview, no police had come calling to ask
  Louis about his brother, and over the years he'd stopped thinking about
  his sibling.
  A final trait he shared with his brother was a love-hate relationship
  with women that bordered on fear. In 1984 he took a job in the Bay Area.
  Many of his co-workers and neighbors were gay or lesbian, and not having
  the slightest clue about his own sexuality, he'd been confused. He'd
  always heard that you were supposed to be able to tell just by looking
  if a person was a homosexual. But he'd never been able to do it. Since
  the scare about AIDS he'd been ten times as confused. In fact one of his
  recent conspiracy theories involved the HIV syndrome, which he thought
  might be a plot by Zambia to kill off the white race so that Africans
  could rule the world. He conveniently turned a blind eye to the black
  people dying in droves because of it.
 Women were a mystery to him, necessary but frighten- 154 DAVID HAGBERG

 ing. Except for a couple of the female engineers on staff with him, the
 occasional prostitute he had sex with, and Dr. Shepard, his psychiatrist, he
 steered clear of them.
  The morning was cold and gray. Louis Zerkel pulled into the parking lot of
  InterTech Corporation's Alameda research center and assembly plant a few
  minutes before eight. At six-feet-five he was taller than his half-brother,
  his frame more filled out. But he had the same rawboned look that made them
  appear to be the rugged, outdoors type. Women, and for that matter men,
  found them attractive because of that look, and because their intelligence
  gave them an air of self-confidence.
  He tried to put his thoughts in order so he could wipe what he knew had to
  be a stupid grin off his face. Overnight he'd discovered a new conspiracy.
  This one very big, bigger in his mind than the AIDS plot, as big as the
  Communist Party's "Evil Empire" plot against the United States. In
  hindsight he should have seen this coming on the day in 1984, two months
  after he'd started with InterTech at its downtown office in San Francisco,
  when he overheard the president of the company taking orders from a pair of
  Japanese from Tokyo. They'd spoken in Japanese, a language that Zerkel did
  not know, but he'd been able to tell by the tone of their voices that the
  Japanese were giving an American orders. He just knew it, but he'd not done
  a damned thing about it, and now he was sick at heart and excited at the
  same time.
  As a conspiracist, which is how Zerkel thought of himself, he kept abreast
  of world events. On a daily basis he monitored all the major television
  news networks and news programs, including the specials, with the help of
  six television sets and six video recorders. He scanned at least three
  dozen newspapers, news magazines, and newsletters. Once a month he flipped
  through the latest volumes of Books in Print and the Guide to Periodical
  Literature to see what was new.
  Ten days ago he'd received the Lamplighter newsletter from Washington,
  D.C., which had started him thinking about the threat from Japan.
                HIGH FLIGHT 155

  Last night he'd watched CNN's report on the incident in the Tatar Strait.
  At 3:00 this morning he'd sat straight up in bed out of a sound sleep and
  went to his computer to look up something he'd suddenly remembered. The
  Japanese, who were trying to develop a new generation of commercial
  jetliners, had been rumored to be poised to take over Guerin Airplane
  Company. It had been mentioned in a short article in Aviation Week & Space
  Technology a few months ago. Zerkel had lifted the story because InterTech
  supplied a subassembly for Guerin. In 1990, after the crash of a Guerin
  airliner outside of Chicago, an NTSB investigator had shown up at InterTech
  to ask a few questions. It was routine, and the man had left within a
  half-hour, but Zerkel clearly remembered the incident.
  By 3:30 A.M., he was inside InterTech's mainframe and had managed to pass
  through the security lockouts, something that had never occurred to him to
  do before now, and he'd found his first anomaly.
  InterTech supplied a subassembly to Guerin that monitored critical heat
  measurements at a couple hundred spots in the Rolls-Royce engines. But in
  1985, before the Chicago crash, one of the CPU modules had been redesigned.
  Searching through deeply encoded and hidden invoices revealed that the
  modules, along with one of the engine-mounted sensor brackets, and its
  complex wiring harness actually came from Japan, developed and manufactured
  by Tojii Corporation, a subsidiary of the Mintori Assurance Corporation.
  Digging even deeper, Zerkel came up with the schematic diagrams of the
  subassembly, all of the diagrams, that is, except for the replacement
  module. Backtracking, he came up with the schematic for the old module and
  by comparing it with the replacement discovered that the new module used
  twenty-six of the mother board's thirty possible connections. Two more than
  the old one. One of the extra pins was wired back into the module's input
  section, and the second was routed directly to the wiring harness that
  appeared to deadend
 156 DAVID HAGBERG

 as an extra common ground connection to the enginemounted sensor bracket
 that the Japanese supplied.
  Something was wrong. Not only were the module connections wrong, but the
  fact that the Japanese were supplying some of the parts ran contrary to
  InterTech's contract with Guerin. It also struck Zerkel as all wrong that,
  except for the module change, the electronic subassembly had not been
  updated in nearly ten years and yet it was being used in Guerin's new
  project, the one unveiled yesterday.
  There was a plot here, all right, and hurrying across the parking lot,
  Zerkel was determined to get to the bottom of it. He'd not been a part of
  the design team for that particular assembly, but he sure as hell could
  find out more about it.

 By the time McGarvey deplaned at Portland International Airport and got
 outside to the cab ranks, it was noon. With all the east-west flying he'd
 done over the past few days his body clock was screwed up, and he just
 wanted to get some rest. But he wasn't surprised that someone had come for
 him.
  "You look like hell," Kennedy said, as McGarvey got in the Range Rover and
  tossed his bag in back.
 "It's not going to slack off now."
  "It was Al's call, Mac," Kennedy said, pulling away from the curb and
  getting around a shuttle bus. "And I see his point. If there's going to be
  a fight, let's get it out in the open where everybody can see what's going
  on. Maybe Washington will finally sit up and take notice."
  "For someone who's so smart, you're dumb. They're not going to mount some
  frontal assault. But when they hit you, and they will, it'll be decisive.
  Like 1990."
  "I wasn't the only one who tried to talk him out of it. But he's a gutsy
  old bastard, and once he gets something stuck in his craw he's not about to
  back down. Besides, that's the way he's always fought his battles-head on."
  "He's fighting this one because of a fifty-year-old grudge, and you all
  know it. This time there's a good chance it'll rise up and bite him in the
  ass."
                HIGH FLIGHT 157

 "You can tell him that yourself tomorrow morning." "Why not right now?"
  "He's up in Seattle talking to Frank Schrontz at Boeing."
 "They work with the Japanese."
 "Exactly."
  McGarvey shook his head. "You don't understand what you're facing. If
  Washington decides, for some political expediency in Tokyo next month,
  to sell you down the river, this President will do it without blinking
  an eyelash."
  "He'd put more than eighty thousand voters out of work."
 I "He'd point them toward Boeing, and you know damned well he would,"
 McGarvey said. "Look at them. They understand the global economy we're in,
 and they're prospering. Wake up to the realities, David, or you might just
 lose the entire shooting match."
  Kennedy turned off the airport road to Interstate 205 and took the access
  road directly across to Guerin Headquarters.
  "Well, that's a cheery thought before lunch. Are you telling me that
  you're writing off the Russians?"
  "Not yet," McGarvey said heavily. "But we may already be in some
  trouble."
 Kennedy looked at him. "How so?"
  "Dominique Kilbourne's apartment was broken into the other night, and the
  place was bugged. My guess is they were Japanese, but she won't tell me.
  Fact is, they may have heard everything that went on there."
 Kennedy was suddenly subdued. "What happened?"
  "She said that she came home and caught them in the act. Apparently she
  wasn't hurt. She didn't call the police."
 "She shouldn't stay in Washington."
  "Somebody is going to look out for her, and for the moment she's staying
  at a hotel under an assumed name . . ." he trailed off. Kennedy was
  shaking his head.
 "Mac, I just talked to her at her office. She was on her
 158 DAVID HAGBERG

 way out the door. Said I could call her at home tonight. She told me to tell
 you not to worry."
 "Shit," McGarvey said.

 DCI Roland Murphy was the last to arrive for the 2:00 P.m. meeting at the
 White House just behind General Anthony Podvin, chairman of the Joint
 Chiefs. They met in the cabinet room, although the only cabinet members in
 attendance were Secretary of State Jonathan Carter and Secretary of Defense
 Paul Landry, who along with General Podvin sat on the President's left.
 Murphy took his place on the right with National Security Adviser Harold
 Secor. The afternoon sun streamed in the windows, but the mood in the room
 was somber.
  "I would like to get this issue resolved as quickly as possible, so let's
  get started," the President said. "The Russian ambassador has requested a
  meeting for tomorrow morning at 9:00 sharp. And we all know what he's
  coming here to talk about, so let's start with you, Jonathan."
  "Other than the first message from Tokyo the Japanese have been silent,"
  the Secretary of State said. "We expected some announcement after CNN broke
  the story, and we even made a few private and discreet inquiries through
  unofficial channels, but there's been no word."
  "Has there been anything from Moscow?" Secor asked. "Other than from their
  ambassador?"
  "We've made a couple of back-burner inquiries at the Kremlin with the same
  results. Nobody is talking."
  "How about the Agency?" the President asked Murphy.
  "Nothing at all from the Japanese, although it's my understanding that
  Naval Intelligence at Yokosuka is on the lookout for the submarine."
  "The Samisho, " General Podvin said. "It was picked up by the SOSUS network
  in the strait, probably heading back to port. But so far the MSDF hasn't
  said a thing."
                HIGH FLIGHT 159

 "What about the Russian Navy?" Murphy asked.
  "That's a problem at this point. They've concentrated a lot of power in
  what's technically international waters but what's very close to the
  Japanese home islands."
 "What?" Secor demanded.
  "The sub has a good head start, so it's not likely the Russians will
  catch up with it, but their ships are going to come damned close to
  Hokkaido."
 "What have they got out there so far?" Murphy asked.
  "Two attack submarines, three boomers, and at least eight destroyers and
  guided-missile frigates."
  "There are plenty of Russian Air Force bases and missile squadrons along
  the mainland coast there as well," Murphy added. "How much time do we
  have before it gets critical?"
  "Thirty-six hours, give or take," the general said. "Question is, are the
  Russians willing to use all that firepower?"
  "More to the point, if they do start shooting, will we come to Japan's
  defense?" the general's boss, Paul Landry, asked.
  "That's what we're here to discuss." The President turned back to Murphy.
  "You said you've learned nothing about the Japanese. What about the
  Russians, other than their naval buildup in the strait."
  One of the things Murphy liked about the President was that the man never
  missed a beat.
  "We've gotten nothing directly from the Japanese, or the Russians for
  that matter, Mr. President, but there has been a development, of sorts,
  concerning both of them. My people briefed me this morning."
 "Get to the point," the President warned.
  "Guerin Airplane Company believes it may be the target'of an unfriendly
  takeover attempt by a consortium of Japanese companies."
  "We're not getting ourselves involved in business," the President
  cautioned. "Not unless it concerns our national security. Does this?"
 "I'm not sure," Murphy admitted. "But a Guerin
 160 DAVID HAGBERG

 executive hired one of our ex-field officers to go to Moscow to offer the
 Russians an airplane assembly plant."
  The President looked sharply at his secretaries of defense and state.
  "We've heard nothing about this?" Both men shook their heads, mystified.
  "For what type of airplane?" the National Security Adviser asked.
  "From what we can tell it's to be a next-generation jetliner."
 "But not a military aircraft?"
  "There could be a military application, but we don't have that
  information yet. The point is what the Russians are apparently being
  asked to do in exchange for the assembly plant."
 "Which is?" Secor asked.
  "They want the Russians to spy on the Japanese for them. Specifically to
  find out about this possible takeover move."
  The President sat back in his chair and stared across the table at his
  DCL "Have they broken the law?"
 "Damned if I know, Mr. President," Murphy said.
 "Have the Russians agreed to do it?" Secor asked.
  "I don't know that either," Murphy admitted. "But someone bugged the
  apartment here in town of Dominique Kilbourne. She runs the airlines and
  manufacturers' lobby, and coincidentally her brother runs Guerin's
  prototype and new product development division. In addition, she's had
  a long-standing relationship with the Guerin executive who sent our man
  to Moscow to negotiate the deal."
  "Are you saying that the Russians are spying on her?" Secor asked.
  "Not the Russians," Murphy said. "At least we don't think so. Three of
  the devices were taken from her apartment and were handed over to my
  Technical Services people who say the bugs are Japanese."
  "Would Guerin's plans have been discussed in her apartment?" Secor asked.
                HIGH FLIGHT 161

 "It's certainly possible."
  "Who is this former employee of yours, General?" the President asked.
  "His name is Kirk MeGarvey. He was dismissed from the CIA in the eighties
  by mutual agreement. Since then, however, we've used his services on a
  contract basis."
 "What services?"
  Murphy had expected the discussion to lead to this point. The problem was
  he didn't know what to tell the President other than the truth.
 "He is ... or was ... an assassin."
 "Well," the President said. "I see."
  "It shows how difficult Guerin believes the situation is."
 "Do we have any control over Mr. McGarvey?"
  "He is an independent operator, Mr. President," Murphy said. "But there's
  never been any doubt that he is anything but a completely loyal
  American."
 "There'd be hell to pay if this got loose on the Hill."
 "Yes, sir."
 "You say that the Japanese are spying on us?"
  "We've handed this to the Bureau. John Harding says that his
  counterespionage people have tracked an increasing number of industrial
  espionage reports, but this particular case was a new one for them."
  "Will Guerin and McGarvey cooperate with you?" the President asked
  Murphy.
 "I think so, Mr. President, if it's handled correctly."
  "Then do it," the President said. "Now, what do we tell the Russians?"
  "Japan is our ally," the Secretary of State answered. "We tell the
  Russians to back off. At the very least get their navy out of the strait
  until the situation cools off. As for the Japanese, we'll tell them that
  the Russians are backing down, but that an apology will have to be made."
  "All that's reasonable," the National Security Adviser agreed. "But it'll
  put us on the down side when we get to Tokyo. If we force them to back
  off over this issue-
   162 DAVID HAGBERG

 which is, after all, important to them-they'll want some extra
 consideration from us."
  "Wrong," Carter disagreed. "You're forgetting something important. The
  Japanese will insist that this incident was a mistake. The government
  didn't order the attack, and its Maritime Self Defense Force continues
  to maintain a nonconfrontational policy with the Russians in the region."
  "The Russians will back down," the President said. "Or else Guerin will
  never get the export licenses it needs to build its assembly plant in
  Moscow. But the rest of it I'll save for Tokyo, unless the Japanese do
  something else just as stupid. Make sure Mr. McGarvey gets the word."
 "Yes, sir,"'Murphy said.
  "Good." The President looked around the table. "Anything else?"
  "What about Guerin's request that the Russians spy for it?" Murphy asked.
  "We'll turn this over to the Attorney General. If anybody has broken the
  law, they'll be prosecuted. Otherwise it's something between the Russians
  and the Japanese. Something, if it comes up, I'll tell them to work out
  on their own." The President sat forward. "We're in a tough position here
  between the Russians and the Japanese. I've said it before, and I'll say
  it again, if we have to play rough, we will. But I'll be damned if we're
  going to sell out to the Japanese, or if we're going to let the Russians
  start a shooting war over a goddamned island in the middle of nowhere."

 They'd moved aboard the boat last night, and after a late dinner of
 lobster and white wine went to bed in the forepeak where they made love
 for nearly two hours before going to sleep. The stem of the boat was
 facing east, and this morning the sun blasted through the open hatch.
  "Another beautiful day in paradise," Carol Moss said, padding barefoot
  into the main saloon.
 Liskey, who'd always been an early riser, stood in the
                HIGH FLIGHT 163

 hatchway drinking his first cup of coffee for the day. He looked back at
 her and grinned. "If your CO could see you now, the old bag would toss you
 in jail and throw away the key."
  Carol smiled back at him. She wore only the bottom half of a very brief
  bikini and a gold ankle bracelet. "Not exactly Navy issue," she said.
  "Anyone up and about?"
 "Not for another half-hour."
  "Good. I'm going for a swim. And when I get back I'll expect breakfast."
  "Aye, aye, ma'am," Liskey said, moving aside so that she could get up
  into the cockpit. As she passed he reached out to grab her, but she
  nimbly avoided him, and in two quick steps was over the rail and into the
  water.
 "Nice," she cried, breaking the surface.
  "Bacon and eggs in twenty minutes," he called out to her, then went
  below. He switched the VHF radio to the weather channel, refilled his
  coffee, and started the bacon.
  The local and regional weather was broadcast twentyfour hours a day in
  English from the U.S. Navy Meteorological Station on Okinawa, which
  supplemented its local data with information from ships at sea, Japanese
  weather stations as far as Kyushu, and U.S. weather. satellites. Winds
  over the entire region today would be southeast at ten to fifteen knots,
  producing waves of three to five feet in the East China Sea, increasing
  to fifteen to twenty knots tonight, with seas gradually increasing to
  five to eight feet. The high temperatures would range from near
  seventy-five in the south to fortyfour in the north, under partly cloudy
  skies with a nearzero chance of rain in the south. Perfect conditions for
  them to set out. By tonight they would be anchored in a quiet, secluded
  cove somewhere twenty-five or thirty miles north of here where Carol
  wouldn't have to wear so many clothes when she went in for a swim. He
  grinned and began to whistle the theme from Ravel's Bolero.
 164 DAVID HAGBERG

 Louis Zerkel was aware that most of his co-workers and supervisors
 tolerated his conspiracy theories because his design and analysis work was
 nothing short of brilliant. Although he was unaware of his real worth,
 there were those in the San Francisco business office who figured he'd
 earned the company fifteen million dollars in excess of the salary and
 benefits he'd received over the years. When he spoke, people listened. You
 could never tell when a gem of design or application would pop out.
  His psychiatrist, Dr. Jeanne Shepard, listened too. In the five years
  he'd been seeing her for his debilitating bouts of fear and confusion,
  she had picked up a number of design secrets that she passed on to a
  friend in Washington, D.C., for considerations, sometimes as high as
  twenty-five thousand dollars, always in untraceable small bills. Her
  specialty was dealing with what she privately called "Silicon Valley nut
  cases." Because of the stress that these highly brilliant men and women
  worked under, her office was always busy. In Zerkel's case, his stress
  manifested itself in conspiracy theories. It was a form of paranoia that
  was relatively common among people with tunnel vision -engineers,
  mathematicians, and researchers.
  At their weekly sessions Dr. Shepard would skillfully steer his
  conversation back to his work. He was developing what he called a
  "real-time multiphasic head-up display director" for commercial
  jetliners. Her Washington friend was very excited about it and kept
  pressing her for more information.
  Sitting across from Zerkel, she could see that he was even more agitated
  than usual. He crossed and uncrossed his legs, fiddled with the pens and
  colored pencils in his pocket, and darted glances out the window at the
  overcast afternoon.
  "You're stressed out today, Louis. Would you like to talk about it?" She
  was a mature, attractive woman. Her friends said she looked like Candice
  Bergen, and she had the same, deep-throated confident voice and manner
  as the actress.
                HIGH FLIGHT 165

  "There's a lot of pressure at the lab," Zerkel said. "We've hit a snag
  in the director. Nothing that can't be worked out. But, you know,
  everybody takes orders, even San Francisco.
 "Who takes orders?"
  "Everybody. Me, you, everybody at InterTech, and I mean everybody. Maybe
  even the U.S. one of these days unless something is done."
  This was something new, Dr. Shepard thought. She'd seen him excited
  before, and oftentimes so fearful that it was difficult for him to speak
  with any coherence. During those sessions she did most of the talking.
  Trying to soothe him, trying to calm his fears, trying to bring him back
  to reality. On days like that she sometimes scheduled a second hour for
  him in the same week so that she could maneuver him back on track. If he
  ever completely broke down, he would become useless to her and she would
  have to cut him adrift. That was something she had no intention of
  allowing, even if she had to work with him every day. He was just too
  much of a gold mine to leave floundering.
  "It's the Japanese, Dr. Shepard. They're making their move."
 "I don't understand, Louis. What do you mean?"
  "I want you to read something, then you'll see." He pulled a copy of the
  Lamplighter newsletter out of his coat pocket and handed it to her. "Mr.
  Reid knows."
  Still puzzled, Dr. Shepard quickly scanned Reid's turgid prose, which,
  if she was catching the gist of it, seemed to suggest that a war between
  the United States and Japan was inevitable unless certain steps were
  taken immediately by a White House too unsure of itself to make the first
  move. It was Japanese bashing in a sophisticated forum. The newsletter's
  masthead identified Edward R. Reid as a Washington insider and a former
  undersecretary of state. "An adviser to presidents, and now an adviser
  to you."
  She looked up. "I still don't understand. What does this have to do with
  you?"
 166 DAVID HAGBERG

  Zerkel took the newsletter, carefully folded it and put it back in his
  pocket. "Do you watch television, read the newspaper?"
 "Yes, of course."
  "Then you know that a Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force submarine sank
  a Russian Navy ship just north of the Japanese home islands."
 "What's your connection?"
  "The Japanese are also trying to take over Guerin Airplane Company,
  something you might not know about."
 I 'Go on."
  "Well, look at it this way, Dr. Shepard. Say the Japanese do take over
  Guerin. Next maybe they'll go after Boeing. Or maybe General Motors, or
  U.S. Steel. They've got the money."
  'But what does - this have to do with you?" Dr. Shepard asked. She'd never
  seen him quite like this before. He was agitated and frightened, but he
  also seemed happy. He had the bit in his teeth.
  "InterTech makes certain electronic assemblies for Guerin. But I found out
  that InterTech is being supplied, and maybe even being directed, by the
  Japanese. What do you think about that?"
  It was another of his conspiracy theories. "Many American electronics
  companies work with the Japanese."
  "When that Guerin airliner went down out of Chicago it could have been
  caused by one of our subassemblies. We even had the NTSB poking around, but
  it didn't find anything. Could have been sabotage though. I haven't got
  that part figured out yet, but it's there. What do you think about that?"
  "Why would'they do that? What would they have to gain?"
  Zerkel smiled. "Maybe to bankrupt the company so they could take them over
  real cheaply, you know. Guerin is top dog right now on HSCT research.
  Didn't you see the unveiling of its prototype the other day?" He leaned
  forward. "Listen to this, Dr. Shepard. It got me
                HIGH FLIGHT 167

 thinking, why would such an advanced-design airplane use the same engine
 heat-monitor assembly that we designed more than ten years ago? Only thing
 that's never been changed is the in/out director module. What do you think
 about that?"
  "I don't know, Louis," Dr. Shepard said, and she meant it. There was
  something here, but she wasn't sure what just yet. "Have you contacted
  Mr. Reid in Washington?"
  Zerkel reared back. "Of course not," he said, and he glanced over his
  shoulder at the closed door to the reception room. "I'm not sure of this
  yet, and besides he knows what's going on. When the time comes I'll give
  him my help. But I don't want to be killed. They do that, you know. It
  could be 1941 all over again. I need more details."

 Dr. Shepard delayed her next appointment for ten minutes so she could
 place a call to Benjamin Tallerico, her Washington friend. He ran the Fund
 for International Development, which worked to match U.S. and Canadian
 venture capital with foreign projects. Tallerico, an ex-Mafia lieutenant
 from Chicago, used the money to open electronics sweat shops in Taiwan,
 Thailand, and most recently in northern Mexico where wages were less than
 a dollar per hour. The work was billed out to North American and European
 companies, who'd ordered the subcontracts, for several dollars per hour.
  Tallerico also dealt in industrial espionage, an endeavor that had grown
  tremendously over the past half-dozen years or so. It was he who had
  approached Dr. Shepard six years ago when her name came up in a
  conversation with a Silicon Valley technician who had information to
  sell. Besides telling Tallerico everything he knew about his research
  company's secrets, the man babbled on and on about his psychiatrist, the
  one person in the world whom he trusted without reservation.
  "Does the name Edward R. Reid mean anything to you?" Dr. Shepard asked
  when she had Tallerico on his scrambled line.
 168 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Everybody in Washington knows him, sweetie. He puts out a financial
  newsletter that's generally pretty close to the mark. What's up?"
 "He's going after the Japanese."
  Tallerico chuckled. "Big time. From what I hear the State Department is on
  his ass, but he won't budge."
  "I've got somebody out here who thinks he's right and might have some hard
  evidence for him. Something that might be worth a buck."
 "What've you got?"
 "Has Reid got any money?"
 "He's loaded."
  "Good," Jeanne Shepard said. "Tell him that we might have proof that the
  Japanese are trying to sabotage Guerin Airplane Company so it can be bought
  at firesale prices. Think he might be interested?"
 "Maybe. Who's your sourceT,
  It was Dr. Shepard's turn to chuckle. "Talk to him, Ben, then get back to
  me."

 The black Cadillac limousine stopped momentarily at the White House east
 gate, a distance of one thousand feet as the crow flies from an upper-story
 window in the Hay Adams Hotel on H Street, then proceeded down the drive to
 the east portico.
  "Is it Zagorsky?" the slightly built man standing back from the window
  asked impatiently. The car pulled up- at the White House east entryway.
  Someone jumped out of the front seat, ran around to the back, and opened
  the rear door on the passenger side.
  "I think so," Toshiki Korekiyo answered. He watched through the
  one-thousand-millimeter camera lens set up on a tripod in the middle of the
  room. The license plate was of the diplomatic series used by the Russian
  embassy, but they had to be certain. There could be no mistakes.
  They'd monitored a greatly increased flow of communications traffic between
  Moscow and the Russian Embassy on 16th Street over the past forty-eight
  hours. It had peaked early this morning, then abruptly stopped.
                HIGH FLIGHT 169

  Russian Ambassador to the United States Yanis Yanovich Zagorsky got out
  of the limousine at the same time Steven Nichols, the President's
  appointments secretary, came out of the White House to greet him. Two
  Marine guards stood at ramrod attention at the door, but there was no one
  else. No media.
  11 It's him," Korekiyo said, not looking up. Zagorsky seemed nervous, ill
  at ease, as well the bastard should be. Korekiyo, who worked for a
  special research unit of the Ministry of International Trade and
  Industry-MITIdidn't know all the details. But he did know that Japan was
  no longer going to allow itself to be treated as an inferior nation. Its
  humiliating defeat a half-century ago had been paid for. Time now to go
  on. First would be the Russians, but there would be other targets.
  Zagorsky and Nichols shook hands, then went Inside. Korekiyo looked up.
  "Definitely the Russian ambassador."
  Yozo Hamagachi was already on the telephone waiting for his call to
  Arimoto Yamagata at the embassy on Massachusetts Avenue to go through.
  "Who met him?"
 "Nichols."
  Hamagachl turned back to the telephone. "He has arrived," he said, and
  a moment later he turned again to Korekiyo. "Was he carrying a briefcase?
  Anything?"
 "Nothing."
 -Iie, he carried nothing."

 "Good morning, Mr. President," Ambassador Zagorsky said when he was
 ushered into the Oval Office. He crossed to the President's desk.
 Secretary of State Carter and National Security Adviser Secor stood up,
 but the President remained seated.
  "Mr. Ambassador," the President said coolly. "Mr. Carter and Mr. Secor
  will sit in on this."
  "Of course," Zagorsky said, clearly nervous. They all sat down.
  "You have something for me from your government?" the President asked.
 "Yes, Mr. President, but not in writing. It was thought
 170 DAVID HAGBERG

 in Moscow that I could open a dialogue with you in order that I might
 explain our difficult position."
 "I'm listening."
  There was no sign of any warmth or friendship among these three, Zagorsky
  thought. But he'd warned those idiots at the Kremlin that Yeltsin should
  have telephoned this President the moment they'd learned about the Tatar
  incident. They were not here in Washington, so they could not gauge the
  mood.
  "Simply put, something must be done about the Japanese incursion into our
  waters in the Tatar Strait, and the unprovoked attack on one of our naval
  vessels. All hands were lost. Many of them boys."
  "From what we understand, your Navy fired the first shot, and that in
  international waters," Harold Secor said.
  "Those waters are as sensitive to our security as the Gulf of Mexico is to
  yours," Zagorsky replied calmly.
  "But one of your anti-submarine-warfare helicopters dropped a torpedo on
  that Japanese submarine before it initiated the attack," Secor pressed.
  "The timing was critical. I have read transcripts of the radio messages and
  the helicopter."
 "So have we," the President said. "You fired first."
  A lie? Zagorsky wondered. If not, the President had made a mistake
  admitting the U.S. had that level of technology in the area. "In response
  to the submarine's torpedo doors opening preparatory to its attack."

 Before the telephone call, Arimoto Yamagata had been thinking about his home
 in the mountains outside of Tokyo, and about the rock "future" and "hope."
 He knew that under the circumstances the Western mind would consider such
 thinking frivolous, even silly, but it helped bring order to his thoughts.
 The problem his mentors had sent him to solve was so vast, and so far
 reaching in its implications, that it strained his abilities to contemplate.
 But he was truly a disciple of Mishima, and therefore capable of serenity
 under any condition.
 Rising from the tatami where he'd taken the call from
                HIGH FLIGHT 171

 his field officers, he left his quarters and headed to the embassy's
 secured communications center two floors below. At six feet two he was
 strikingly tall for a Japanese, and although he had had no plastic
 surgery, his appearance was Western. He understood that he was handsome
 in either world, and at forty-three experienced enough to u~e that
 knowledge to his advantage.
  The Russian ambassador had called on the American president. The timing,
  he thought, was most interesting.

 "Excuse me, but are you suggesting that we simply forget about that ship
 and her crew?" Zagorsky decided it was time to strike back.
  "We do not want an escalation of the situation out there," the President
  said. So far left unspoken was the upcoming economic summit talks between
  the U.S. and Japan, but the President was obviously speaking with care.
  "I'm told that your navy continues to place warships into the strait, and
  some if not all of those vessels are armed with nuclear weapons. Nobody
  wants to see further bloodshed."
  "Is it correct that two of your attack submarines are currently trying
  to catch up with that Japanese submarine?" Secor asked directly.
  That was news to Zagorsky, but it wasn't surprising. He could understand
  what they were thinking in Moscow. If they allowed the Japanese to go
  unpunished, their entire far eastern border would be weakened. From that
  narrow viewpoint pursuing the Samisho made sense. But stepping back and
  looking at it from an international platform, nothing but an immense
  danger could be seen.
  "Certain of our naval units are engaged in an exercise in the strait. But
  as to their exact deployment at this moment I have no direct word."
  "Oh, come off it, Yanis," the President replied sharply. "You came over
  here this morning to tell us that you're going to retaliate for the
  sinking of your ship, and that we're not supposed to take such an act as
  a declaration of war on Japan or anyone else."
 172 DAVID HAGBERG

 "There has not been so much as an apology."
  "Has your ambassador to Japan called on the Prime Minister?"
  "I don't know," Zagorsky answered. Damn those fools in the Kremlin!
  "Hell, we know what this will do to the posture of your eastern defense
  forces. You might even lose absolute control over the strait. I'd sell
  them Sakhalin Island, if they want it that bad. You can use the hard
  cash, and they can rename the place."
  Zagorsky could hardly believe what he was hearing. The President had
  never talked to him this way. It was almost as if they were two men
  sitting around a table, playing cards and drinking vodka together, but
  in a dangerous alliance.
  "What would you tell the mothers of those boys, Mr. President?"
  "I would say that they gave their lives to help secure a lasting peace."
  Zagorsky looked at the President for a long moment, then lowered his
  eyes. "Chamberlain," he muttered. "Am I to leave this office with a piece
  of paper in hand'Peace in our time'-that I can wave toward Moscow?"
  "Japan is not Nazi Germany, and this is not 1938," the President shot
  back. "Russia would be better off if it took care of its internal
  problems without seeking trouble outside its borders."
  "I had hoped to open a dialogue with you, Mr. President . .
  "Tell Mr. Yeltsin to pull your naval vessels out of the Tatar Strait for
  now, and I expect that the Japanese government will issue an apology. Our
  sources tell us that the act was not ordered by Tokyo, nor has it been
  condoned by the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force."
 "A renegade submarine captain?"
  "A mistake. Once that boat returns to its home port the incident will be
  fully investigated."
  "What if my government decides to proceed?" Zagorsky asked, knowing full
  well what the answer would be.
                HIGH FLIGHT 173

  "We would regret that," the President said. "And we would be forced to
  respond." He eyed the Russian ambassador coldly. "Your country currently
  enjoys a Most Favored Nation trading status with us that would be affected.
  Certainly the export of technologies would be interrupted, as would the
  flow of business developmental capital."
  "I see,". Zagorsky said, heavily. There was no mistaking what the President
  was referring to. Yemlin had discussed it at length with him. "I will
  convey your position to my government at once." He got to his feet. "Thank
  you, Mr. President, for your frankness this morning."
  "We've been friends for only a short while now. Let's not return to the old
  days."
 "No, Mr. President. Let's not."

 Yamagata graduated from Harvard Law School in 1978, so he understood
 Americans and the Western mind as well as any Japanese. From the beginning
 of his career, which had been guided by a mentor his father had arranged
 for, he'd worked ostensibly as a liaison between Japanese and American,
 Australian, Canadian, and British corporations. In actuality, his position
 with MITI was cover for his real work as a spy. He'd gone after industrial
 secrets-design and product as well as corporate strategies and intents. But
 there'd been times when he'd entered the much more dangerous political
 arena. Such as now.
  In the early days, the trade war, as it was considered, had been primarily
  one of keeping up with technologies. The only real hurt anyone suffered was
  fiscal. Now that had changed. With the sinking of a Russian naval vessel in
  the Tatar Strait they could never go back.
  He spoke from a soundproof booth on a secure line to Tokyo so that no
  one-not the Americans or the Japanese-could monitor his call. The number
  was direct.
  "Ohayo go-zai-ma-su, Kamiya-dono, " he said. "Traffic to the Russian
  embassy slowed down about seven hours
 174 DAVID HAGBERG

 ago, and the ambassador called on the White House, just as you suspected
 would happen."
  The call was not being recorded, nor did Yamagata make any notes, he simply
  listened as his mentor spoke, committing the old man's very precise
  instructions to his excellent memory. When the call was ended, Yamagata sat
  back and closed his eyes, trying to bring up an image of his home and its
  peaceful garden, but it was a full minute before he could clear his
  thoughts.

 State Department spokesperson Warner MacAndrew entered the media briefing
 room at 3:00 P.m., and went directly to the podium in front of the
 floor-to-ceiling map of the world. A hush fell over the crowded room as he
 opened a buff-colored folder.
  "First I'm going to read a short statement, and then I'll open it for
  questions," MacAndrew said. His red hair and freckled complexion seemed
  even more intense than usual this afternoon, which happened when something
  big was in the wind. Most of the press corps could read the seriousness of
  what was coming from the color of his face.
  "Five days ago an apparent incident between what is believed to have been
  a Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force submarine and a Russian Krivak-class
  frigate in the Tatar Strait, fifty miles off the coast of Siberia, resulted
  in the sinking of the Russian naval vessel with a loss of all hands. In
  response to that incident the Japanese issued the following: 'The
  government of Japan deeply regrets the recent incident in the Tatar Strait
  off the island of Karafuto allegedly involving a vessel of the Japanese
  Maritime Self Defense Force and one of the Russian Federal Navy in which
  there may have been a loss of life and property. Every effort is being made
  to quickly and fully investigate the matter to determine culpability."'
  MacAndrew looked up, then continued. "This morning at 9:00 Russian
  Ambassador Yanis Zagorsky met here in Washington with the President to
  discuss the issue. One hour ago, the Russian government issued the
                HIGH FLIGHT 175

 following statement: 'The government of Russia deeply regrets the recent
 Tatar Strait incident involving units of the Russian and Japanese navies,
 During the period of our investigation all Russian military units will be
 unilaterally withdrawn from the strait to positions north of the fiftieth
 parallel. Every effort will be made to quickly and fully determine
 culpability."'
 Again MacAndrew looked up. "Questions?"
 Everybody raised their hands, and the clamor began.

 The meeting took place in Vasilanti's office, and from the moment he
 walked into the room, McGarvey felt as if he'd stepped into the middle of
 a life-or-death council of war. No one was smiling. But, as Kennedy had
 explained it to him on the way up, Guerin Airplane Company had never been
 in such a sporty position. It was literally betting the farm on the
 outcome of the P/C2622. The situation had become so critical that the old
 man had even relented on his entrenched stand that except for engines
 Guerin airplanes were to be entirely American designed and manufactured.
  "These are extraordinary times and they call for extraordinary measures,"
  Kennedy told the board this morning. "Pitting an enemy of seventy years
  against a friend of fifty may be one of them."
  In the end the board had gone along with them, as Vasilanti had predicted
  it would. But being given such a free rein made no one very happy. This
  meeting now, which included Vasilanti, Kennedy, and McGarvey, plus
  Kilbourne, Socrates, Topper, and Soderstrom, was to be their final
  strategy session. Up to this moment they could have backed away from the
  Russian deal. But after today that would no longer be possible, and they
  all knew it.
  "Do we go, or don't we go?" Vasilanti put it bluntly on the table after
  McGarvey was introduced.
  Carrara had confirmed by phone this morning that the Russians were
  backing off from the trouble spot in the strait, and that the White House
  would offer no roadblocks in granting the necessary export license. "Make
  it
 176 DAVID HAGBERG

 clear that a permanent solution in the strait has to be found, and soon,"
 his old friend warned. Unsaid, but implied, was the warning that the
 licenses could be rescinded at any moment, no matter what it might do to the
 company. A national debt totalling in the trillions of dollars was of much
 greater import than Guerin's current difficulty.
  " I don't see that we have much choice in the matter," Kennedy said from
  the sideboard where he poured a cup of coffee. "Even if Mr. McGarvey is
  dead wrong about the Japanese, we stand to save a considerable sum of money
  in tax credits."
  "Congress handed us a plum with that one," SoderStrom, the chief financial
  officer, agreed. The U.S. aid package to Russia included a generous tax
  credit for companies setting up shop there. "But we're still faced with the
  risk of a general collapse of government which could wipe us out."
  "If the 2622 fails, for whatever reason, we're dead," Topper said. "I hate
  to be the one to keep bringing this up, but we are in the business of
  manufacturing airplanes and selling them for a profit. Unit costs on the
  wing panels out of a Moscow facility versus our Wichita plant are one-third
  less. And that includes transportation. The Russians wrote the book on
  titanium. Makes sense to me, especially if they agree to help us with the
  Japanese problem, because even if there is no problem with the Japanese, we
  still come out ahead."
 "We risk losing it all," Soderstrom responded.
  Topper shrugged. "This is a risky business. And the board went along with
  it, didn't they, JeP"
  11 They agreed to let us shoot ourselves in the head if we want to. But
  they didn't recommend that we do so," Soderstrorn argued.
  "What about Japan?" Vasilanti asked, directing his question to McGarvey,
  who'd poured a brandy and stood near the window.
  "They're after you, there's no question about that," McGarvey said. He
  glanced over at Kennedy. Apparently the old man hadn't been told about the
  break-in at
                HIGH FLIGHT 177

 Dominique's apartment, and if it was brought up now, her brother Newton
 would probably overreact and do something stupid, causing them further
 problems. "They've bugged some of our telephones, which means they
 probably know something about our deal with Russia."
 "Shit," Topper said.
  "They'll make a move soon. Going public with the prototype didn't help."
 "Does the CIA know this?"
 "Yes.
  Vasilanti looked at the others. "We have no other choice now but to get
  the Russians to help us while we put the prototype in the air as soon as
  humanly possible."
  "You get her flying and I'll generate some money for this company,"
  Topper said with enthusiasm.
 "If we last that long," Soderstrom mumbled.

 Edward R. Reid was drunk. But like many long-term heavy drinkers Benjamin
 Tallerico had known, Reid was still lucid and still. very much in control.
 of himself. At any given moment half of official Washington was in its
 cups, but whatever Reid's problem was it had not affected his power. When
 the man spoke people listened. Just now Washington was divided into two
 camps, and not necessarily down party lines. On one side were the White
 House supporters-those who agreed with the President that an appeasement
 with Japan was not only desirable but necessary. On the other were those
 who believed that a conflict between Japan and the United States was
 coming. It was a measure of Reid's power just how large that second
 faction was. What was not so widely known, however, was Reid's apparent
 growing fanaticism on the subject. After Jeanne Shepard's telephone call,
 Tallerico had dug up everything he could find on the former State
 Department undersecretary and had reread all the recent issues of the
 Lamplighter. He had come to the conclusion that the man was unbalanced.
 Nothing he'd seen or heard this evening had altered that
 178 DAVID HAGBERG

 opinion. He reached across the table and poured Reid another glass of
 wine. They were having dinner at the Rive Gau~he, Reid's favorite
 restaurant.
  "I'm a long-term admirer of yours, Mr. Reid. I just wanted to tell you
  that, before I say that I think you've never been closer to the mark than
  you are now."
  "It's nice to hear," Reid said, eyeing the younger man over the rim of
  his glass. "You have some long-standing business relationships in the Far
  East, from what I understand. Isn't that correct?"
  "Taiwan, Bangkok, Malay, but not Japan. You might say I'm in direct
  competition with the bastards."
 "Have you had problems with them?"
  "Not yet," Tallerico said. "But the time is coming. I think that's plain
  to see."
  Reid shrugged. "You didn't invite me to dinner to tell me that you
  believe in what I'm writing."
  "No. And you didn't accept the invitation to listen to that. What I have
  for you is a proposition."
 "Go on."
  "It has to do with Guerin Airplane Company. A Japanese group apparently
  wants to buy it out."
  "Yes, I've heard about it. But the company is strong. I don't think
  there's any real danger from the Japanese."
  "If the company remains strong. But if its stock were to plunge it might
  be a different story."
 "It might."
  "Let's say that Guerin airplanes started falling out of the sky for no
  apparent reason other than poor design, faulty workmanship. The company
  would head into bankruptcy."
  "Won't happen. Next to Boeing it builds the best airplanes in the world."
  "Unless its airplanes were sabotaged in such a way that no one would ever
  know about it."
  Reid thought it out and came to a conclusion in under a second. Tallerico
  read that much from the man's eyes until a veil dropped over them.
 "What is your source?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 179

  Tallerico smiled. "My source is concerned about safety. In this day and
  age safety is expensive. One million dollars."
 "No," Reid said without blinking.
  Tallerico was not surprised by Reid's rejection of the first offer, but
  he was surprised by the man's abruptness. "You're not interested?"
  "Not at that figure," the older man said tiredly. "Maybe not at any
  figure without more information up front." He sat forward. "I publish a
  newsletter, and you cannot believe the nut cases who write to me with
  offers like yours."
  "This comes from California ... Silicon Valley. A Guerin subcontractor.
  What we're talking about is an electronic device that can bring down
  airplanes." Tallerico was guessing most of that, but considering Jeanne
  Shepard's usual sources he didn't think he was too far off the mark.
  Reid nodded. "If I could have the device, or at least the plans for it,
  and clear evidence linking its design back to Japan, I might pay
  something."
 "How much?"
  "I don't know yet. First find out from your source if you can meet my
  requirements, and then we'll discuss money."
  "Fair enough," Tallerico said after a beat. The old bastard might be a
  drunk, but he was sharp.

 EIGHT

 Five minutes, Mr. McGarvey," one of the Guerin flight attendants said,
 passing him in the departure lounge and going outside to the P522
 waiting on the company ramp.
 180 DAVID HAGBERG

  It was after 6:00 P.m. as he waited for his call to Washington to go
  through. The others were already on board for the flight to Moscow's
  Sheremeteyvo Airport, but he'd been delayed trying to get through to Domin-
  ique. Her office said she'd been gone since this morning and they didn't
  know where she was. Her home phone didn't answer, and McGarvey was worried.
  It wasn't like her, Kennedy told him, to drop out like that.
  JoAnn Carrara answered on the second ring, and she called her husband to
  the phone.
  "Dominique is missing. No answer at home and no word from her office."
 "Where are you?"
  "Portland. I'm getting set to board a Guerin jet for Moscow."
 "Anything from Yemlin and friends?"
  "Not yet, Phil. But I want you to find Dominique for me. Get the Bureau to
  help out if need be. If she won't cooperate take her into protective
  custody."
  "I don't know if I can do that," Carrara replied, his voice guarded. "Word
  from the seventh floor is that you're to be warned about the delicateness
  of the situation between us and Japan, but beyond that you're to be given
  all the rope you need."
 "Enough to hang myself."
  "But no aiding or abetting the enemy on our part. Me and you, pal."
  "The bugs in Dominique's apartment were definitely of Japanese
  manufacture?"
 "State of the art."
  Kennedy came to the door and gestured for McGarvey, who waved him back.
  "I need your help on this one, Phil. Find her for me, make sure she's all
  right. Will you do it?"
  Carrara hesitated for several long seconds. "You bastard. All right. Don't
  take any wooden roubles over there."

 Edward R. Reid had barely been able to contain his excitement after meeting
 with Tallerico. If what the man
                HIGH FLIGHT 181

 had told him had any basis in truth, it was the answer to his prayers.
  In the beginning he'd had the idea of using Bruno Mueller and Glen Zerkel
  to disrupt Guerin Airplane Company by sabotaging its manufacturing and
  research facilities, assassinating Vasilanti and that hotshot exastronaut
  Kennedy, and blaming it on the Japanese. But now a more elegant solution
  was at hand if Tallerico Were telling the truth and if he could be
  convinced to cooperate with them. From what Reid knew of the man and his
  business, in what amounted to international confidence games, Tallerico
  could very well have come up with something. And as far as gaining his
  cooperation was concerned ... well, Reid didn't think there would be much
  trouble on that score.
  The Sterling, Virginia, farmhouse was dark when he drove up and parked
  in front. He'd picked this place for a number of reasons, among them its
  isolation. There were no nearby neighbors, the house was screened from
  the nearest road by one thousand yards of dense woods, and yet from the
  back of the house there was a clear view of the main runways at Dulles
  Airport five miles away.
  To see and not be seen. It appealed to his sensibilities. The farm had
  become a haven. But in the three days since Mueller and Zerkel had been
  here that had changed. Being near them was like being in a cage with a
  pair of man-eating tigers. More than once he'd had second thoughts about
  hiring them. Yet each time he wavered he immediately came back to his
  original concern about the way things were turning out for America. He
  wanted to go down in history as the "great pacifier." A man like Armand
  Hammer who'd done so much to stabilize the world during the horrible Cold
  War with the Soviet Union. Reid wanted to leave his mark. The world was
  entirely different from Hammer's time, which meant different, more
  drastic measures had to be taken to ensure peace. Japan had to be put in
  its place. There would never be another day like December 7, 1941, if he
  could help it.
 182 DAVID HAGBERG

  He let himself into the dark stair hall. No fire burned on the grate in the
  living room, and the temperature in the house was cool. Outside under an
  overcast sky the night was dark, so the house was almost pitch black.
  He found the hall light switch and flipped it on, but nothing happened. The
  feeling that he was a hunted animal suddenly rose up in his breast, and he
  turned. "Gentlemen ... T'
  "Here," Mueller said softly from somewhere in the darkness.
  Reid couldn't see a thing, but he was suddenly sober and clearheaded. "What
  the hell do you think you're doing?"
  "We're getting nervous," Mueller answered. "Alles in Ordnung, " he called.
  A moment later the lights came on.
  The East German stood beside the stairs, one of Reid's 7.65 mm Luger
  Parabellums in his hand. The gun, along with several other weapons, had
  been hidden in a concealed floor safe in the basement. The caged animals
  had gone exploring.
  Glen Zerkel appeared at the basement door, a .380 Beretta automatic stuck
  in his belt. He was grinning. He looked like a wild man. Once again Reid
  wondered who was actually in control of the situation.
  "We didn't know who was coming, so we hit the power at the breaker box
  downstairs," Zerkel said.
  "It would be better if you telephoned before you came here from now on,"
  Mueller added.
  Reid realized that there had been no turning back for him from the day a
  few years ago when he'd written his first piece about the coming struggle
  between Japan and the United States. His wife had asked him if he was
  becoming his own creation. That was during the height of the Cold War with
  the Soviet Union, when even some of Reid's colleagues thought he was
  getting too strident. He'd answered his wife and his co-workers; with some
  offhanded comment about it being a war, but at the odd time afterward he
  would stop and ask himself the same question. Like now. Except now he was
  an old man and
                HIGH FLIGHT 183

 running out of time, so he could not afford to fight with gloves on.
  "It's a sensible precaution, providing the telephone line out here isn't
  tapped," Reid said, gratified by the instant look of concern on Zerkel's
  face. He went into the living room where he poured an Irish whiskey. The
  other two followed him in.
  "Do you suspect your telephone is tapped?" Mueller asked calmly. He wasn't
  buying into it.
  Reid shrugged. "You can never tell. It would be best if you kept on your
  toes."
 Mueller studied him. "You have work for us to do?"
  "Yes, tonight. The man's name is Benjamin Tallerico. He has some
  information that we need."
 "What kind of information?"
  When he told them he wanted to bring Guerin Airplane Company down and blame
  it on the Japanese, they were more interested in the mechanical details of
  the operation than the philosophy of it. Zerkel had wanted to strike
  directly at the company's Portland-area facilities, while Mueller wanted to
  know exactly how the blame would be placed on the Japanese, who in his
  words were a "very shrewd people."
  "About the Japanese," Reid said. "It seems as if I was right on the mark.
  Looks like they're actually working on a plan to bring Guerin down. They
  weren't rumors after all."
 "Tallerico has information about this plan?"
  "A subcontractor in California is supposedly building a device that can
  bring airplanes down. He wouldn't be more specific than that, except that
  he wanted one million dollars for it."
  Zerkel was excited, but Mueller remained deadly calm as he watched Reid
  drink the whiskey. "Why not let the Japanese do this themselves? It will
  accomplish what you want, will it not?"
  Reid shook his head. "I have no way of knowing their time table. We'll help
  them along."
 "You don't intend paying the one million, do you?"
 184 DAVID HAGBERG

 Zerkel asked. The man was practically slavering at the bit.
  "No need for it," Mueller replied, without taking his eyes from Reid.
  "How far do you wish for us to go?"
  "I want the information. Beyond that it would not be beneficial if Mr.
  Tallerico were to warn his California contact, or if afterward he were
  to figure out who you worked for."
 Mueller nodded.
  "There's a Chevy Caprice in the garage, registered to Michael Larsen in
  Arlington . . ."
  "We know," Mueller said. "Are these weapons registered to you?"
 "No. 11

 "The serial numbers?"
 "Untraceable."
  "Very well," Mueller said softly. For the first time he smiled.
 Reid turned away, suddenly sick to his stomach.

 "The next major markets will be the Far East and South America. I don't
 think there's any doubt about that," Kennedy said. "Both regions are
 developing and both have immense potential for industrial growth and con-
 sumerism. No doubt about it. Problem is both regions are halfway around
 the world. Big distances."
  "Which means more business for the airlines, who'll in turn demand
  Mach-five or better airplanes," Topper added.
  McGarvey sat on the opposite side of the jetliner from the others,
  nursing a drink and looking out the window at faint lights of some small
  city thirty-five thousand feet below them in the night. They were an hour
  out of Montreal where they would refuel for the hop across the Atlantic,
  and everybody was too keyed up to get any sleep. Tomorrow morning in
  Moscow they'd all be dead tired, but for now they were talking about the
  future of the industry.
  He let their conversations ebb and flow around him, sometimes listening
  to what they were saying, sometimes
                HIGH FLIGHT 185

 drifting off into his own thoughts. There was a very big difference
 between the men and women he used to work with in the intelligence service
 and these people in the aircraft industry. Spies tended to be pessimists,
 while airplane people tended to be optimists. No other industry had ever
 progressed so far in such an incredibly short time. In 1903 the Wright
 brothers made the first flight of a powered airplane at Kitty Hawk-the
 total distance of that flight was less than the wing span of the P522-and
 only sixty-six years later, two Americans walked on the surface of the
 moon. When the P/C2622 went into regular service it would fly anyone who
 put up the price of a coach-class fare to the edge of space. Socrates
 talked about cruising altitudes at hypersonic speeds above 200,000 feet.
 "There the sky will be dark. The passengers will see the stars even in
 daylight. And they'll see the curvature of the earth."
  Glancing at the men, not one of them over sixty, McGarvey couldn't help.
  continuing the comparison between them and men such as Carrara and
  Danielle. Airplane people were engineers, futurists, science-fiction
  buffs. Technology could solve just about any problem. What we didn't know
  today, we'd figure out tomorrow, or the next day. An aircraft man's idea
  of religion was 46 pushing the envelope," an industry term for an expan-
  sion of knowledge usually at great financial, and even physical, risk.
  A lot of men and women had given their lives for the sake of flight.
  Spies, on the other hand, were often very religious in the traditional
  sense. Why else would otherwise intelligent men and women place
  themselves behind enemy lines where they had to lie, cheat, and steal to
  stay alive, and where success meant that they'd caused someone to betray
  his or her country? To become a traitor for oftentimes nothing more than
  some esoteric ideal? Certainly as many spies had given their lives for
  the cause as had airplane people for theirs. If there were comparisons,
  he decided, they would have to be opposites, with him now in the middle.
 186 DAVID HAGBERG

  Kennedy looked up, caught his eye, and came over to sit down beside him.
  "Good thoughts or bad?"
  "I was just wondering what would happen if the Russians can't help us after
  all, and the Japanese did buy us out?"
  Kennedy smiled wanly. "Guerin's demise wouldn't have any real effect on
  world peace or stability. At least I don't think it would."
 :'What about our position at the Tokyo summit?"
  'The Japanese are already laughing at us, Mac. They'd just laugh a little
  harder, that's all."

 Georgetown had an Old World charm reminiscent of Europe, but Mueller was not
 lulled into complacency because of the apparent similarities. On the
 contrary, he was even more cautious, more watchful because this was his last
 chance in the West.
  Tallerico's house was a four-story brownstone that faced a narrow side
  street off Volta Place behind the Georgetown University campus.
  "Here it is." Zerkel was driving. He started to pull over, but Mueller
  warned him off.
 :'Continue to the comer and then turn left."
  'What's wrong?" Zerkel asked, but he did as he was told.
  "I don't know," Mueller replied. He adjusted the Chevrolet's passenger-side
  door mirror so that he could see behind them. It was after ten and traffic
  was moderate. There were a few pedestrians on the sidewalks, and the upper
  side of the street was bumper to bumper with parked cars and vans. There
  was nothing out of the ordinary here, yet Mueller felt uneasy.
  Zerkel turned left at the comer and at the next intersection stopped for a
  red light. "Did you see something?"
  "No," Mueller said, watching the rearview mirror. Two cars had turned left
  off Volta Place behind them. "When the light changes turn right, drive one
  block, then turn right again."
                HIGH FLIGHT 187

 "Okay," Zerkel said, glancing in his mirror.
  The blue car continued straight, but the red Mercedes turned with them. A
  block later, however, when Zerkel made the second right, the Mercedes
  turned left.
  "It's clear," Mueller said looking up. "We'll park one block away and go in
  on foot."
  Zerkel nodded, his lip curling in a stupid grin, but the look was
  deceiving. Within the first six hours of knowing the man, Mueller had
  realized that the American was brilliant, if not a genius. But he was
  dedicated to whatever environmental mumbo jumbo he talked about, he was
  ignorant of what was happening in the world outside the United States, and
  he was crazy. If his ignorance or insanity became troublesome, Mueller
  would kill him. For now, however, he seemed to be willing to do as he was
  told.
  They parked on P Street around the comer from Pomander Walk, a block and a
  half from Tallerico's brownstone, and went back to Volta Place on foot. On
  the first pass Mueller memorized the look of the street, including the
  numbers and types of parked vehicles. To his trained eye he could detect no
  change. Neither the blue car nor the red Mercedes that had followed them
  for a short distance had been among the parked vehicles, and so far as he
  could tell there was absolutely nothing wrong here. Yet he had a faint
  uneasiness in his gut. It was the fact that he was in a foreign country, he
  told himself. The foreign country, the United States, the enemy.
 "Looks good," Zerkel said.
  "Very well," Mueller agreed. The American had remained a fugitive from his
  justice system for a long time. His instincts were to be considered.
  Together they crossed the street to Tallerico's house, passed through a
  tall iron gate, and rang the bell. From the front, the second-story windows
  showed light. Tallerico was home and awake.
  A man's voice came from a small grille set just beneath the button. "Who is
  it?"
 188 DAVID HAGBERG

  Mueller leaned forward. "Mr. Tallerico, are you alone this evening? Mr.
  Reid has sent us with something for

 you.11
 "Who is this?" Tallerico demanded.
  "Sir, my name is of no importance. Mr. Reid asked me to speak with you
  about the Silicon Valley find. Am I speaking now with Mr. Tallerico?"
  "I haven't had time to get an answer from my contact. Reid must know that."
  "Yes, sir, he does. He's sent us to make you an offer. A firm offer, Mr.
  Tallerico."
 "What the hell are you talking about?"
  Zerkel was frustrated, but Mueller held him off. Benjamin Tallerico was a
  cautious man. But he had to be cautious in his business. Mueller could find
  no fault with it.
  ,,Very well, Mr. Tallerico, we shan't bother you any further this evening.
  I'll inform Mr. Reid that you are no longer interested. Sorry to have
  disturbed you."
  Mueller turned away from the speaker grille and started away from the door.
 "Wait," Tallerico said.
  Mueller stopped but did not go back. Zerkel was watching him, the stupid
  grin on his face again. The man was like a house dog just before its
  dinnertime.
  "Goddammit, just hold on," Tallerico's voice came from the grille.
  The stair hall lights came on a second later, and Benjamin Tallerico,
  wearing a dark purple dressing gown, his thick dark hair somewhat
  disheveled, and his eyes a little blurry as if he had been drinking heavily
  this evening, opened the door and eyed them both.
 "Mr. Tallerico?" Mueller asked politely.
  "That's right. Come in." He stepped aside to let them pass, then closed and
  locked the door and led them down the hall to his study at the back of the
  house. "Why didn't he call me? I could have told him that I didn't have an
  answer yet."
 Mueller pulled out the Luger, thumbed the safety
                HIGH FLIGHT 189

 catch off, and as they entered the study and Tallerico turned back to
 them, he raised the gun and pointed it directly at the man's head.
  Tallerico, whose complexion was olive, visibly blanched. "What the fuck
  is this ... T' He stepped back.
  "We would like the name and address of your source in California."
  Reid had assured them that Tallerico's house would be free of any
  listening devices. A man in his position would make sure of it.
  Still,'Mueller was on edge.
  "Fuck you," Tallerico snarled. Reid had warned that he was a former Mafia
  lieutenant with connections.
  Mueller pulled the pistol's toggle back with his left hand and let it
  snap home, cocking the hammer. He started to pull the trigger.
  "Jesus Christ, you stupid fuck, back ofP What the fuck do you think this
  is? You want to know the name of my contact? Fine, I'll tell you. It's
  not worth my fucking life. It's only money."
  Zerkel closed the study door, and Tallerico watched him, his eyes growing
  wider.
  "I mean it. She's a psychiatrist in San Francisco. Her name is Jeanne
  Shepard. One of her patients told her about it."
 "What is this patient's name?"
  "I don't know. She wouldn't tell me. Not until we had a deal. She's just
  as careful as I am. And she never makes a mistake. Never."
 "How do we find her?"
 "Her office is in San Francisco."
 "Her home," Mueller said calmly.
  "I don't know. I've never been there. I talk to her on the telephone.
  Sometimes she comes out here, sometimes I go out there, but we always
  meet on neutral territory."
 Mueller said nothing.
  "Fuck. Who do you think you're dealing with here? We have to be careful."
 190 DAVID HAGBERG

 Still Mueller said nothing.
  "Her office is downtown, but even if you go there you won't get anything
  from her."
 "Where does she live, Mr. Tallerico?"
  "Fucking hell! In Sausalito. She's got a goddamned houseboat in the
  marina. The number's seventeen-E."
  "Thank you, sir," Mueller said, nodding politely, and he shot the man in
  the head, driving him backward off his feet, blood splattering over the
  desk.
 "Holy shit," Zerkel said.
  Mueller clicked the safety on the Luger and stuffed it in his belt
  beneath his coat. "Now we go to Sausalito."

 "Here they come," FBI Special Agent Albert McLaren said. He watched the
 front of Tallerico's house through a light-intensifying 35 mm camera that
 lit the scene with green.
  "Anybody we know?" his partner Phillip Joyce asked. They were set up
  across the street in a GMC conversion van with smoked-glass windows and
  civilian plates.
  "The tall, skinny dude looks vaguely familiar. I don't know about the
  other one." McLaren fired off three rapid shots as the two men came
  through the iron gate and started toward the van. "Take a look," he said,
  and he moved away from the camera.
  Joyce took his partner's place and snapped a halfdozen shots. "He's in
  the file, but I don't know about the little guy."
  They passed within five feet of the van, and the shorter one looked
  directly at Joyce for a second as if he could see through the one-way
  glass. Joyce had the feeling that he'd seen that face before, although
  where or in what context he couldn't remember. It was bothersome. He took
  two more shots.
  "All right, I've got them," McLaren said from the back of the van.
  Joyce returned his attention to Tallerico's house. This was only the
  second day of their surveillance so no true pattern of behavior had been
  established. The man had
                HIGH FLIGHT 191

 been investigated on a similar charge of industrial espionage five years
 ago, but after three months of surveillance in which nothing had been
 found, the case was dropped. He was either innocent, or very good,
 although John Whitman, the chief investigating officer on the case, was
 convinced he was guilty of something. "Why else install the sophisticated
 anti-surveillance equipment he's got over there?"
 "They're crossing the street," McLaren said.
  Tallerico was at home. They'd watched him answer the door. He'd been
  upstairs when the two men arrived. He'd flipped on the front hall light,
  had come downstairs, and had let them in. He'd not come to the door,
  however, when they'd come back out.
  "Did you see Tallerico when those two left?" he asked McLaren.
  "No," his partner said. "They're definitely heading down Pomander."
  Joyce continued to watch Tallerico's house. The visitors were gone, so
  why wasn't he turning off the hall light and going back upstairs?
 "They're gone," McLaren said.
  "Call it in, Al. I want a runner out here to pick up the film."
 "Did you recognize either of them?"
  "Yes and no," Joyce said. He dialed Tallerico's secured number with one
  of the cellular units.
 "What are you going to say when he answers?"
  "I got a wrong number," Joyce said, but the telephone rang twenty times
  before he hung up.
 "Nothing?"
 "Get Whitman. I want to go in."

 The Russians made no special preparations for the arrival of the Guerin
 flight from Portland, except that upon landing the aircraft was directed
 away from the civilian international terminal to the VIP apron and
 debarking area. Visiting foreign dignitaries were met here where a more
 positive crowd control was possible.
 192 DAVID HAGBERG

 But this morning there was no red carpet, only a halfdozen black
 limousines for the passengers and two vans for their luggage. Of the
 Guerin staff the only person other than McGarvey who'd ever been to Russia
 was Kennedy on a five-day astronaut exchange program at Baikonaur. The
 others were excited and nervous, except for the dour Soderstrom who had
 predicted disaster from day one. Vasilanti had insisted the CFO come along
 to make sure the entire company wasn't handed over to the Russians.
  "There'll be no danger of that," he'd assured the old man.
  Glancing over at him now, McGarvey could see that he was tense almost to
  the breaking point. He would be an ideal candidate for an entrapment
  scheme. He had an abundance of nervous energy and naivetd. His turning
  would be routine. Kennedy would have to be warned. Actually, all of them
  would have to be warned to keep on their guard and say nothing about the
  Japanese threat, especially not the Russians' part in spying on the Japa-
  nese for Guerin.
  "They're going to want to start the meetings right away this morning,"
  McGarvey told Kennedy when they came to a complete stop.
  Kennedy was reaching for his bag in the overhead. "We need a couple
  hours, but I don't see any reason not to get started this moming before
  lunch."
  "No," McGarvey said, and the tone of his voice caught Kennedy's
  attention.
  "What's the problem?" Kennedy asked, leaning over the aisle seat next to
  McGarvey. Boarding stairs were being trundled over, and three men got out
  of the limousines, one of them Yemlin's boss, Colonel Lyalin.
  "No one got any steep last night, which puts us at a disadvantage. Their
  negotiators will be fresh and very good. They'll know everything there
  is to know about you, but you'll know next to nothing about them, except
  that some of them will be professional negotiators and others will be
  intelligence officers."
                HIGH FLIGHT 193

 "What do you suggest?"
  "No matter what happens, insist on taking today and tonight off. No
  negotiations until morning. And for every hour after 8:00 P.m. they want to
  keep you up eating and drinking, insist on postponing the morning meeting
  for one hour later than 8:00 A.M."
 "We came here to talk about building a wing factory."
  "We came here to ask them to spy for us," McGarvey said. "Insist on having
  a full twenty-fours hours of rest including twelve hours of sleep before
  you start. Trust me on this one, David."
 Kennedy nodded after a slight hesitation.
  "You're going to have to trust me on something else as well. No matter what
  I do or say, no matter how odd or even outrageous it seems to you at the
  time, I don't want you to react at all. Don't say a word, don't make a
  move, just act as if whatever is happening is completely normal."
 "I don't understand . .
  "You don't have to, just go along with me no matter what I do."
  Again Kennedy nodded after a slight hesitation. He pulled back, but
  McGarvey stopped him.
  "I may drop out of sight at some point. If they ask you where I am,
  stonewall it."
  A look of consternation crossed Kennedy's features. "What the hell are you
  talking about? For how long? What are we supposed to do when it's time to
  go and you're nowhere to be found?"
  "Inform the embassy that I'm overdue, and then go home."
 "What do I tell the Russians?"
  McGarvey shook his head. "If I'm gone that long they won't ask you about
  me. They'll know."

 Lieutenant Commander Seiji Kiyoda, dressed in his winter blue uniform and
 lightweight windbreaker, waited on the ladder below the conning tower hatch
 for the Samisho to surface. They had entered the Sagami
 194 DAVID HAGBERG

 Sea early this morning and were now just a few miles south of the long
 entrance to Tokyo Bay, the peninsular city of Misaki well off their port
 bow. A cold front had settled over the area, and meteorology predicted
 twentyfive- to thirty-knot winds from the northwest, with seas running
 three to four meters. It would be sloppy until they reached the protection
 of the bay.
  A Klaxon sounded throughout the boat. Kiyoda climbed up the ladder, spun
  the wheel, and pushed the hatch open on its hydraulically sprung hinges.
  He lowered his head as a bucket of cold seawater cascaded down on him,
  and then scrambled outside onto the bridge. His XO, Lieutenant Minori,
  came up behind him, followed by a communications man. All three of them
  scanned the horizon for traffic.
  The weather was cool, with low dark clouds scudding across from the land,
  but it felt good to be in the fresh air again. Kiyoda was a dedicated
  submariner, but he appreciated times like these.
  "I have the sea buoy three miles off our starboard bow," Minori said.
  Kiyoda swung his binoculars right, picking it up immediately. "Come right
  five degrees."
  "Turn right five degrees, yo-so-ro, Kan-cho, " the comms man repeated the
  order and relayed it below. Their bow came right.
  "Secure electric motors, engage diesels ahead onehalf."
  The rating relayed the order, and by the time they passed the red sea
  buoy, its bell clanging erratically in the chop, they were settled on
  their course and speed. Yokosuka, barely fifteen miles into Tokyo Bay,
  was home not only to the MSDF's Escort Fleet Command and two of its
  flotillas plus the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force Academy, but to
  the U.S. Seventh Fleet as well. Since before he'd given the order to
  shoot at the Russian destroyer, Kiyoda had pondered his reception at
  home.
  Yesterday, after they'd safely made their way to the east coast of Honshu
  through the treacherous Tsugaru Strait and were making their best speed
  submerged
                 HIGH FLIGHT 195

 south, he'd brought the boat to periscope depth, raised the main radio
 mast, and sent the "patrol terminated" message to flotilla headquarters.
 The reply had been nothing more than the "message received" code.
  In one respect headquarters's silence was understandable. U.S. and
  Russian naval intelligence units routinely listened to MSDF traffic. What
  Flotilla Command had to say to him was properly for Japanese ears only,
  so it would wait until they docked.
  In another respect, however, their silence was ominous. ELINT had
  detected nothing in the past twentyfour hours. Nor, now that they were
  this close and running on the surface, had any ship or aircraft come out
  to meet them as often was the case at the end of a delicate or troubled
  patrol. Secure communications could have been established with a dipping
  buoy or light signals.
  Kiyoda expected that he would be relieved of his command, so he had made
  certain that everything he'd said and done during the attack would appear
  in the log as unilateral decisions that had been opposed by his officers.
  The blame would rest squarely on his shoulders.
  But he'd expected to be met out here, his boat taken away from him before
  they docked. He was not afraid, just wary.
  "Courage," his sensei taught, "is a virtue only in the cause of
  righteousness." In this instance Kiyoda knew that what he'd done was
  correct not only for himself and his boat, but for Nippon as well. It was
  honto, fact, that Japan's time had come again. Chi-jin-yu. Wisdom, be-
  nevolence, courage. It was time the world knew these things.
  His father and mother were both dead, which was too bad, because they
  would have been pleased by what happened, and what would undoubtedly
  happen in the coming months if Kamiya had his way. Which Kiyoda believed
  the old man would. "It's our time," Kiyoda mumbled.
  "Did you say something, Kan-cho?" Minori asked respectfully.
 196 DAVID HAGBERG -
 Kiyoda smiled wanly. "It's good to be home."
  "No parades this time, I think," Minori replied, averting his eyes
  politely.
  "You were obeying the orders of your lawful superior, Ikuo. Do not forget
  it."
 The XO looked up. "We were with you, Kan-cho.
 "No. 11

  "I beg your pardon, Kan-cho. I have spoken about this with the other
  officers, and we all know exactly how you administrated the attack, to
  insulate us."
  "I forbid this," Kiyoda said sharply, but inside he was bursting with
  pride. A magnificent crew such as his could go anywhere, accomplish
  anything.
 "I'm truly sorry, Kan-cho, but we are agreed."
  Kiyoda glanced at the rating who was mutely scanning the horizon with his
  binoculars. "Listen to me very carefully, luko. I forbid you and the
  other officers to come forward with your demands. No doubt I will be
  placed under arrest the moment we dock . .
 "We will go with you."
  "No, my old friend, you will not. In fact you will remain here with the
  Samisho and keep the crew intact."
  Minori's eyes narrowed. "What are you thinking, Kancho?"
  "I must do this alone, if there's to be any hope for us to regain the
  sea. Do you understand this?"
 Minori nodded uncertainly.
  "If you are assigned another captain you will delay the boat's departure
  for as long as possible. The main bearings on number two are dangerously
  worn, and our weapons, fuel, and consumables all need replenishing."
  A slight smile curled the edges of Minori's mouth. "It shall be as you
  order, Kan-cho. If need be this boat will remain in port until Mount Fuji
  has eroded to sand hills."
  "Well, perhaps not that long," Kiyoda said, his smile warming. He turned
  to the rating. "Engines ahead twothirds."
 "Engines ahead two-thirds, yo-so-ro, " the rating re-                HIGH FLIGHT 197

 layed, but then he put a hand over his mouthpiece. "Kan-cho, dono we
 enlisted men also have spoken of this. Your crew is behind you. There is not
 one dissenting voice."
  "Very well," Kiyoda said, his voice wanting to catch in his throat. "I will
  do everything in my power to deserve your trust."
  Clearing the tip of the peninsula to the west, they suddenly saw the naval
  vessels docked at Yokosuka in the distance.
  "Bridge, ELINT," Lieutenant Kawara called from below. "I'm picking up a
  powerful surface search radar."
  Kiyoda took the bridge telephone from the rating. "Who is looking at us?"
  "It's coming from the U.S. side, Kan-cho, "the ELINT officer said. "Seventh
  Fleet Intelligence. Shall I bum them?"
  "No. We shall remain passive. Let them look all they want." The 5amisho was
  equipped with a newly designed anti-radar weapon that took an incoming
  radar signal, amplified it, narrowed the beam, and sent it back to the
  sending station with such force that the receiver burned out.
 "Hai, Kan-cho.
 "We're home and everybody knows it," Minori said.
  "It would appear so," Kiyoda said, but he was lost in his thoughts for the
  moment.

 The Guerin team, including the flight crew, numbered eighteen men and five
 women. The entire nineteenth floor of the Rossiya Hotel had been set aside
 for their exclusive use. More than two hundred people could have slept
 there, and Topper called it their "splendid isolation." Having all that room
 to rattle around in made Kilbourne nervous. And Soderstrom, fearful of
 listening devices, had difficulty in speaking above a whisper. He felt most
 comfortable talking in low tones in his bathroom with water running in the
 tub and sink and the toilet constantly flushing.
 198 DAVID HAGBERG

  "They want the contamination kept to a minimum," McGarvey explained after
  lunch. They'd gathered in a corner suite that Kennedy occupied. Everyone
  was keyed up and nervous.
  "If Jeff keeps up his antics, the hotel is going to bill us for excessive
  water use," Topper quipped.
  "What you're trying to do just doesn't work," McGarvey told the
  resentful-looking CFO. "If they want to listen to our conversations-
  which I guarantee they are-there's nothing we can do about it. At least
  not with what we brought over. So if you don't want them to hear
  something, don't say it."
  "Hell of a way to play poker, if the other guy is going to know every
  card in your hand," Kilbourne grumbled.
  McGarvey jotted five words on a yellow legal pad and held it up for all
  of them to see. IF IT'S IMPORTANT, WRITE
 IT.
  Soderstrom started to say something, but McGarvey held him off, writing
  out his next instruction. He held it up.
  WHEN YOU'RE DONE, BURN THE PAPER AND BURN THREE OR FOUR PAGES BENEATH THE
  SHEET YOU'VE WRITTEN ON.
  "We've got nothing to hide," McGarvey said. "With our union problems in
  Wichita we need this wing factory. And considering the state of the
  Russian economy, I don't see any problem in getting their cooperation."
  Kennedy wrote something and held it up for McGarvey to see. WHAT ABOUT
  INFO ABOUT THE JAPS ???
  "Jeff, what's the bottom line on financing the wing factory?" Kilbourne
  asked.
  For a second Soderstrom was nonplussed, but then he realized what was
  going on. "We're talking nine hundred million, maybe one billion by the
  time we're finished here."
  "We're going to have to sell beaucoup airplanes to recoup that cost,"
  Topper said.
  "We will," Kennedy said. "But, Mac, what'd you mean they want to keep the
  contamination to a minimum?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 199

  "Did you spot the Germans and the French in the lobby this morning?"
 "I didn't notice."
  "I think the word might have leaked, somehow, about why we're here. If
  the Germans or the French get the opportunity, they're going to pitch us.
  Our hosts would rather that not happen."
 McGarvey wrote on his pad and held it Up. THEY'RE
 SENSITIVE ABOUT THE JAPS NOW.
  Kennedy and the others nodded. McGarvey wrote again.
  IF OUR QUID PRO QUO BECAME PUBLIC THERE'D BE HELL TO PAY!!!
  "Maybe it'd be better if we put the factory in Germany," Soderstrom
  suggested with a grin. He was actually starting to enjoy himself.
  "Frankly I think the Russians will do a better job," Kennedy said.
  "Ukraine was the aircraft manufacturing region for the Soviet Union. Now
  the Russians have something to prove, and I think they'll bend over
  backward to show they're capable. In fact I think they'll do just about
  anything it takes."
 "It'd be profitable for them," Soderstrom said.
 Kennedy held up his note pad. He'd underlined his
 query: WHAT ABOUT INFO ABOUT THE JAPS???
 McGarvey wrote his response and held it Up. COLONEL
 LYALIN SAYS YEMLIN IS IN MOSCOW. WE'LL MEET BEFORE MORNING.
  Kennedy reluctantly nodded. It was what they'd come for.
  "Speaking of profit, it'll profit us all if we get some sleep," Kennedy
  said. "We've got a long day ahead of
 US. 11

 It was after 5:00 A.M. before Special Agents McLaren and Joyce made it
 back to the J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue. They'd
 managed to secure the crime scene until the Bureau's forensics team
 gathered most of what it needed. D.C. police had been brought into the
 act, and within fifteen minutes of their arrival
 200 DAVID HAGBERG

 Volta Place was crawling with newspaper and television reporters. By then
 the Bureau had slipped away, so the fact that Tallerico had been under
 federal investigation was still secret.
  "We're going to keep it that way for as long as possible," Chief
  Investigating Officer John Whitman told them. He looked like an IBM
  executive with hair graying at the temples, gold wire-rimmed glasses, and
  a pinched disapproving expression on his face. But he was a good cop.
  They met in his small office.
  "That might depend on the Washington cops keeping their mouths shut,"
  McLaren said.
  "Don't worry about them. We've got another fish to fry," Whitman said.
  He handed across an 8 x 10 glossy photograph of the two men coming out
  of Tallerico's house. It was one of the shots Joyce had taken. "Recognize
  either one of them?"
  "The tall skinny guy looks familiar. Haven't had a chance to run it down
  yet," McLaren said. "Don't know about the other one."
  "Neither do we. But first one is probably Glen Zerkel. Earth Stewards.
  Environmental terrorists."
 "Idaho," McLaren said.
  "Right. But he dropped out of sight afterward and hasn't surfaced until
  now. Makes you wonder what Mr. Tallerico was up to this time."
 "Doesn't fit the pattern," Joyce said.
  "Maybe we never really established a pattern," Whitman said.
  "This other one with him could be anybody," MeLaren said, staring at the
  photograph. "But what have we got on Zerkel?"
  "He's got a half-brother in San Francisco, which might be the connection
  to Tallerico. Brother's name is Louis Zerkel. Works for a high-tech
  electronics company as a design engineer. We checked him out just after
  the Idaho incident, but the field investigation at that time turned up
  nothing. The brothers had a failing out several years earlier and were
  never in touch."
                HIGH FLIGHT 201

 "Until now?" Joyce asked.
  Whitman shrugged. "It's worth a visit. I want you two On it ASAP."
  "Why not just let San Francisco run with it?" Joyce asked.
  "You're already familiar with the case. It'd take them a couple of days
  to get up to speed, and I don't want to miss anything. I've got a feeling
  that if we don't hustle we'll miss the boat."

 Mueller rented a Ford Taurus from the Hertz counter at San Francisco
 International Airport under the Michael Larsen persona that Reid had
 supplied. Theirs was the last flight for the night, and it was well after
 12:30 A.m. by the time they reached the northbound Bayshore Freeway.
 Zerkel drove because he was familiar with the area. He'd grown up in
 California, but he felt no sense of homecoming. In fact the only thing he
 felt was excitement that he was finally doing something. Not once did he
 think about his fellow Earth Stewards or about the stewardship movement.
 This time he was on a new quest and damned glad to be working with a real
 pro for a change.
  Mueller had slept soundly during the flight from Dulles, and he was
  dozing now, his head back, his eyes closed. Zerkel glanced over at the
  German, his respect tinged with fear. The ex-East German Secret Service
  assassin was not like any of the men Zerkel had known and worked with.
  The instant before he'd pulled the trigger to kill Tallerico, Zerkel had
  watched his eyes. There'd been nothing there, not so much as a flicker
  of emotion to betray the fact he was about to blow away a human being.
  Zerkel had examined his own feelings about the murder during the long
  flight west, but the only conclusion he'd come to about himself, beside
  the fact he was crazy, was that although he never hesitated to kill when
  it was necessary, he did have feelings. He did think about his victims
  afterward with some remorse. Mueller
 202 DAVID HAGBERG

 was clearly cut of a different cloth. Perhaps it was because he was
 European, or more specifically German. Those people had had plenty of
 practice killing each other. Maybe it was in their blood. Whatever it was,
 Zerkel thought, he was glad to be working with the man. It was a real
 education.
  The urban sprawl that was San Francisco spread for miles to the north,
  east, and south. Millions of people, all using and spewing harsh
  petrochemicals into the environment, all using up the limited reserves
  of precious water, all of them choking the environment beyond repair. It
  made Zerkel sick at heart to see it again. If the Japanese took over it
  would be worse. Mthough he'd never been to Tokyo, he'd read about the
  city and its problems. Too many people crammed into too small a space for
  too many centuries had turned them into automatons. They wanted to do the
  same thing to the entire world. Eventually one supernational corporation
  would exist that would consume the world's natural resources, build the
  world's products, supply the world's food, drink, and entertainment, and
  set the world's rules and regulations. It would be Brave New World and
  1984, and in Zerkel's mind the only way to prevent such a thing from
  happening was by opposing it now with every measure at their disposal.
  Including sabotage and murder.
  A ship was passing beneath the Golden Gate Bridge, heading out to sea,
  and Zerkel had the vicious thought that if it was heading for Japan he
  hoped it would sink in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
  Mueller opened his eyes and sat up as Zerkel pulled off the highway and
  headed down to the marina on Richardson Bay. The night was damp and chill
  with a light breeze coming out of the northwest. The marina was home to
  a hundred or more live-aboard houseboats, some of them two and three
  stories tall, and some of them elaborate. Many of them had to be in the
  onemillion-dollar-plus range. Whatever sort of practice Dr. Jeanne
  Shepard ran, it had to be extremely successful.
 It was late enough that no one sat on their decks or
                HIGH FLIGHT 203

 strolled along the quay. Finger pier E was on the opposite side of the
 basin from the marina office.
  Zerkel parked nearby. They sat in the dark car, the windows down,
  listening to the distant hum of traffic on the highway and the rhythmic
  clapping of wavelets against the boat hulls. This was a peaceful spot.
  "I'm going with you," Zerkel said. He got both guns from the single bag
  they'd checked through.
  "We'll switch pistols this time," Mueller said. "You'll take the Luger."
  Together he and Mueller walked back to pier E and headed out to the
  houseboats on the end.
  "As with Mr. Tallerico, you will be good enough not to interfere with me.
  You may not always understand what I am doing or why I am doing it, but
  these are timehonored methods that work."
 "I can dig it. You're the man."
  Seventeen-E was one of the more elaborate boats in the basin. Eighty feet
  at the waterline, she was twentyfive feet wide and rose two stories out
  of the water. The roof was covered by an elaborate patio garden with
  flowers and shrubs and what appeared to be living trees. Stepping aboard
  they could hear classical music from within, and Mueller motioned for
  Zerkel to hold up.
  There were no lights. The woman had probably gone to sleep to the music.
  Mueller tried the door into the main salon, but it was locked as he
  expected it would be. Taking out a four-inch section of ice pick that he
  had found at Reid's farmhouse and modified, he picked the flimsy lock in
  ten seconds. A cursory examination of the door and frame revealed no
  alarms, nevertheless he waited a full minute for lights to kick on and
  a siren to blast the night.
  When nothing happened he stepped inside. Zerkel came in behind him and
  softly closed the door. The place smelled of perfume and incense. Enough
  light filtered through the windows for them to see that they were in a
  large salon. Long white couches, glass and brass coffee tables, artwork
  on the walls, books along one wall. Straight ahead was a fireplace, and
  to the right and
 204 DAVID HAGBERG

 aft, spiral stairs let up to the second floor. The soft music came from
 above. It was Dvotik's New World Symphony. The doctor had good taste.
  Mueller checked the pistol, then crossed to the stairs and went up.
  Zerkel, careful to make no noise, followed the East German. At the top
  they followed the music down a hall to an open door that led into a
  combination sitting room/bedroom that spread across the' entire width of
  the boat. Sliding glass doors on the aft wall opened onto a broad
  balcony, the railings of which were covered with weather cloths.
  Dr. Jeanne Shepard, her blonde hair spilling over her pillow, the covers
  pulled up to her neck, was sound asleep. She was alone.
  Nonchalantly, Mueller went to the stereo and turned up the music. Dr.
  Shepard stirred slightly but did not wake up. He went to the windows and
  drew the curtains, including the drapes across the sliding glass doors.
  Finally he flipped on the small table lamp on the nightstand.
  Dr. Shepard stirred again. This time she came awake. For several moments
  she stared up at Mueller and Zerkel uncomprehendingly. Suddenly something
  connected in her head, and she sat straight up, her eyes wide, her hands
  flying up as if to ward off a blow.
  "My God ... who are you? What are you doing here?"
  "We've come from Washington, D.C.," Mueller said pleasantly. He made no
  move to conceal his gun. "Mr. Tallerico supplied us with your name and
  address~ and now we would like you to give us the name and address of a
  certain patient of yours."
  Dr. Shepard looked from Mueller to Zerkel in disbelief. Suddenly she
  lunged for the telephone, but Mueller reached her in two steps, bringing
  the pistol up to her face.
 "I don't want to kill you, but I will," he said.
  Her breath caught in her throat. "I don't know what you're talking
  about."
 Mueller gently pulled the bedcovers to the foot of the
                HIGH FLIGHT 205

 bed. Dr. Shepard, dressed in a long, lavender-flowered nightshirt, shrank
 back, drawing her legs up beneath her.
  "Take your nightgown off," Mueller said, He pulled the pillow out from
  under her and laid it aside. "Do as'l say, Dr. Shepard, or I shall shoot
  you in the head."
 "I'll give you the name. . ."
  "Do as I say," Mueller insisted. He pulled the Beretta's hammer back.
  "My God, this can't be happening," she cried. "I'll tell you what you want
  to know, it isn't that important to me ...
  Mueller backhanded her in the face, the blow so unexpected it caught her in
  mid-sentence. Her head banged against the wall, and she grunted in pain.
 "Take off your nightgown," Mueller said calmly.
  It took her several seconds to recover. "You can't do this to me," she
  whimpered. But she struggled up to her knees, and hesitating a second
  longer, tears filling her eyes, she pulled the thin nightgown over her
  head. Mueller took it from her. Her breasts were large but firm, her tummy
  only slightly rounded, and her hips and ass looked tight.
  "On your back now," the East German said, his voice still maddeningly calm.
  "And spread your legs."
  "You're going to rape me? No ... my God, no, please ... you don't want to
  do this. God, please!"
  Mueller switched the safety on the pistol, stuffed it into his belt, and
  then wound the nightgown around his right fist, his actions slow and very
  deliberate as Dr. Shepard continued to plead with him. Zerkel didn't know
  what was going to happen next, but he was very impressed.
  "Why are you doing this to me?" Dr. Shepard asked. "I'll tell you what you
  want to know . . ."
  Mueller smashed his nightgown-padded fist into her face, breaking her hose
  and knocking out two of her teeth. Her entire body was driven against the
  wall with a thud that shook the entire houseboat. She was dazed and offered
  no resistance as Mueller grabbed her ankles, pulled her flat on her back,
  and spread her legs.
 206 DAVID HAGBERG

  He glanced at Zerkel. "We've found by experience that naked people, in
  this sort of position, tend to tell fewer lies than when they're fully
  clothed."
 Zerkel nodded, unable to take his eyes off the woman.
  "Saves time," Mueller said. He sat down at the head of the bed and
  watched Dr. Shepard's eyes until they came back in focus. She started to
  bring her legs together, but he shook his head. "Nobody wants to hurt you
  again, Jeanne."
 She stopped, her body rigid, her eyes locked into his.
  "Please tell me the name of the patient that you and Mr. Tallerico spoke
  of. He is the one who knows something about a device that brings down
  airplanes. We would like to know his place of employment and his home
  address."
 "Louis Zerkel," she mumbled.
  "No, you don't understand," Mueller said maintaining his calm. Had he
  misheard her?
 "Wait," Zerkel interrupted. "She said Louis Zerkel."
  "Louis Zerkel," Dr. Shepard repeated, her voice nasal. "He works for
  InterTech Corporation in Alameda. His apartment is there too." She gave
  an address. Her face was already swelling, blood oozing from her nose and
  her mouth.
  "It's my brother, man," Zerkel was saying. "How about that shit."
  "Will he cooperate with us?" Mueller asked, amazed. Only in America.
  "Last time I saw him was at my old lady's funeral. He was pissed off at
  me. But if he was dealing'with this bitch I'll be able to talk to him."
  Mueller thought it out, still finding it difficult to believe the
  coincidence, but he played with the cards he was dealt. "Fuck her," he
  said, getting up.
 Zerkel reared back. "What?"
  "Fuck her," Mueller said matter-of-factly. "She needs to be found with
  semen in her vagina." He pulled out the Beretta, switched the safety
  catch off, wrapped the gun in the pillow, and before the stunned Jeanne
  Shepard
                HIGH FLIGHT 207

 could react, he shot her in the left temple at point-blank range, killing
 her instantly.
 "Sonofabitch," Zerkel whispered.
  "Now, Mr. Zerkel, fuck her, if you please. I'll wait for you in the car.
  When you're finished we'll go see your brother."

 A weather system over Moscow deepened the overcast so that by late afternoon
 streetlights were on and it was necessary for cars and buses to run with
 their headlights. The others were asleep, but when McGarvey came to
 Kennedy's suite the Guerin executive was wide awake.
  "Quite a mess they've got for themselves," Kennedy said from the window.
  From here they could see the Kremlin walls, Red Square, St. Basil's, the
  Moscow River, and across it to another, grimier section of the vast city.
  "Having second thoughts about putting the factory here?"
  "Second thoughts, third thoughts, fourth thoughts. Jeff might be right.
  Maybe we'd be throwing money down a bottomless pit."
  McGarvey held his silence. Moscow almost always affected newcomers the same
  way. It was depressing. After just a few hours you began to lose hope. The
  grayness, the drabness everywhere got you down.
 "I don't know."
  "Still a big country, David," McGarvey said. "Lots of talent here even if
  the system is bankrupt."
  Kennedy turned around. "Rather have them as friends than enemies?"
  "Something like that," McGarvey said. He gestured to himself, then the
  door, and waved goodbye. Kennedy nodded his understanding, offered him the
  thumbs- up sign, and MeGarvey left.
  Like any building that contained as many people as the Rossiya Hotel-as
  many as six thousand guests could be accommodated-there were dozens of ways
  in and out. In the old days MeGarvey had teamed them all.
 208 DAVID HAGBERG

 It was a bit of tradecraft useful for any spy in Moscow. Ten minutes after
 leaving Kennedy, McGarvey slipped out a basement maintenance entrance and so
 far as he could tell came away clean.
  He was back in the field and it was affecting him the same way it always
  had: butterflies in the gut, tense muscles, and an almost preternatural
  awareness of his surroundings. And, God help him, he found that he loved
  it. He was alive.

 Louis Zerkel's apartment was located in a faded complex a few blocks off
 Alameda's Central Avenue. The security system was broken or switched off so
 they didn't have to pick the lock to gain entry to the rear corridor.
  It was a few minutes before four when Glen Zerkel knocked at his
  half-brother's door. Mueller stayed out of sight of the peephole. Glen was
  crazy and his halfbrother was seeing a psychiatrist. No telling how they
  would react to each other.
  Zerkel knocked again. He was having trouble keeping in focus. He'd never
  fucked a dead body before, and he didn't know how he felt.
  "What do you want?" a muffled voice asked from within.
  Glen Zerkel looked up. "It's me, Louis, your brother. I want to talk to
  you."
  "What do you want with me? Why have you come here?"
  Glen glanced at Mueller, then turned back to the peephole. They'd discussed
  just how this situation would have to be handled.
 "Who's there with.you?" Louis demanded.
  "We talked to Dr. Shepard tonight. She told us that we should come over
  here to see you."
  "You talked about me with Dr. Shepard?" Louis demanded loudly.
 "Yes. Now let me in."
  "You talked with my doctor? Goddammit, you had no right to do that."
                HIGH FLIGHT 209

  "We need your help, Louis. With the device you're building for Guerin."
  "She shouldn't have told you about that," Louis Zerkel shouted. If this
  kept up they would wake the neighbors and they'd have trouble.
  "We came from Washington just to see you, Louis. Let us in. We need your
  help, and Dr. Shepard said you would do it."
  "You came from Washington? Did Dr. Shepard talk to Mr. Reid after all?
  Did he send you to talk to me?"
  Glen Zerkel glanced again at Mueller who was nodding yes. "Yes, Mr. Reid
  sent us. He heard about what you'd discovered and he sent us."
  Mueller could hardly believe his ears. It was as if the entire scenario
  had been scripted. He'd never run into a situation like this in his
  entire career. If he had he would have immediately backed off, but he no
  longer had the luxury of choice. He would have to take this wherever it
  led.
  Louis Zerkel unlocked the door and opened it. He was dressed in tattered
  UC-Berkeley sweats, his hair wildly disheveled. A strong odor of
  electronic equipment wafted out of the dark apartment, and for an instant
  Glen Zerkel felt as if he were a hapless victim being invited into a mad
  scientist's laboratory on some latenight horror flick.
  "It's the Japanese. Mr. Reid is absolutely correct," Louis said
  excitedly. He turned back into the apartment and switched on a dim light.
  Computer equipment filled the living room.
  Mueller locked the door as Louis brought up what appeared to be a
  schematic diagram on one of the computers.
  "Take a look at this . . ." Louis said as he looked up, the words dying
  in his throat when he saw Mueller.
  "Good morning, Mr. Zerkel, terribly sorry to bother you so early in the
  morning, but Mr. Reid thought it was very important that we come here to
  personally see you," Mueller said smoothly. He came across to where
 210 DAVID HAGBERG

 Zerkel sat in front of the active screen. "What have we got here? Don't
 tell me that you've actually got hold of the circuit diagram for the
 device?"-
  Louis looked to his half-brother, who smiled and nodded, then back to
  Mueller, his enthusiasm returning. "It was Mr. Reid's articles that got
  me thinking, that and the fact that InterTech is owned, or at least
  controlled, by the Japanese."
  "Could you duplicate this device for us?" Mueller asked.
  "You mean build it?" Zerkel asked. He shrugged. "I suppose so, but
  there's more going on here than meets the eye, you know. It's the new
  module they switched. Could be a receiver. Have to build a transmitter
  to find out. But this little baby could have brought down that jet in
  '90. What do you think about that?"
  "Brilliant, Louis. It's just brilliant. Would you be willing to come
  along to Washington with us and work it out?"
 "When?"
 "Right now. This morning."
 "Holy Jesus."
  "Mr. Reid would very much like to meet you and have you on our team,
  We're assembling only the very best, because, as you certainly
  understand, this is very important."
  "Don't you know it," Louis Zerkel said excitedly. "What do I tell my
  boss? Or Dr. Shepard?"
  "We'll take care of all that for you. We'd just like you to pack a few
  things, perhaps take the disks on which you've stored the data you might
  need, and we'll be on our way before the sun comes up."
  "Holy Jesus, what do you think about that? It's very important."
 "Very important," Mueller repeated.
 "Something's got to be done."
 "That's for sure."
 "By God, I'll help," Zerkel said.
 Mueller took out the Beretta .3 80, wiped it down with
                HIGH FLIGHT 211

 his handkerchief, and held it out. "Have you ever used one of these, Mr.
 Zerkel?"
 Louis flinched and shied away. "No."
  "Well, I'd like you to hold it, for just a moment, to see what it feels
  like."
  Zerkel hesitated, but Mueller kept holding the automatic out to him, butt
  first. Finally he took it, hefted it, and then handed it back.
 "It's heavy," he said.
  "Yes, it is," Mueller agreed. "As soon as you're ready we'll leave for
  the airport."
  "This'll take about ten minutes," Louis Zerkel said, turning back to his
  computer.
  Glen watched closely as Mueller stuffed the Beretta under a stack of
  computer printout on the floor, then using his handkerchief so that he
  would leave no prints, tossed one of Dr. Shepard's business cards into
  a wastebasket. "What do you think about that?" he said to himself.

 The sun was coming up behind them as the Maryland National Guard C 130
 transport aircraft crossed over the city of Sacramento and started its
 long descent into Oakland International Airport on Bay Farm Island.
 Communications Technician Specialist 6 Luis Guerra called McLaren forward.
 "Your boss is on the horn. He wants to talk to you."
  "A couple of things before you touch down," John Whitman said.
  "Ballistics has an ID on Tallerico's murder weapon. It's a 7.65 mrn
  German Luger. Probably a collector's item. Registration is checking it
  out, but nobody's holding their breath."
  "We'll be on the ground in twenty minutes," McLaren said. "Anything
  else?"
  "The other face in the picture. The man with Glen Zerkel. But I don't
  know what the hell to make of it. His name is Bruno Mueller. A colonel
  in the former East German Secret Service. A paid assassin. The French
  want him in the worst way. He's the last surviving
 212 DAVID HAGBERG

 member of a gang of ex-Stasi officers who've been terrorizing the French
 for the past few years. Apparently he escaped after a shootout south of
 Paris, and they put his photo on the international wire." "I think I saw
 it when it came in," McLaren said. "I just couldn't place it the other
 night." "He's one tough sonofabitch, Al." "What the hell is he doing
 here?" "Unknown." "I'll pass it along to Phil. Anything else?" "That's it
 for now. Just watch yourself." "Will do," McLaren said, and he went back
 to tell Joyce the good news.

 NINE

 The meeting was held in the Council of Ministers building great hall inside
 the Kremlin. Chairs were placed around a highly polished oval table forty
 feet long and ten feet wide. David Kennedy took his place on one side of the
 table, his negotiating team of fifteen men and two women seated to his left
 and right. Opposite him, the Russian Minister of Aviation and Aerospace
 Affairs, Viktor Gregorevich Matushin, and his team of fifteen men and two
 women took their places. Coffee, tea, and carafes of iced mineral water were
 served by a team of efficient stewards. For the first ten minutes as
 everybody was settling down, photographers were allowed in the room.
 Finally, however, Minister Matushin made a signal, and they cleared out.
  "If this were Washington, D.C., I don't believe we would have gotten rid of
  the media so easily, Mr. Minister," Kennedy said pleasantly.
 Matushin's translator provided the Russian simulta-                HIGH FLIGHT 213

 neously, and the minister smiled. "They're my photographers," he said in
 English. "Time enough for the news media later, don't you agree?"
  "Wholeheartedly. We don't need the international press trying to
  second-guess us."
  "I understand the problems you are facing, Mr. Kennedy. So long as you
  understand mine we will come to an agreement."
  Kennedy nodded. "I think I do." Russia's new metalbacked monetary system
  had not gained acceptance in the world marketplace. The shortages of hard
  Western currencies with which to purchase desperately needed foreign
  foods and American or German machinery were worse than ever. Three years
  ago they'd begun peddling weapons and weapons systems, but so
  aggressively that within forty-eight months the market was glutted.
  Prices dropped and finally the demand slowed. There were just so many
  emerging nations wanting war materials. Although the threat of global
  thermonuclear conflict was all but eliminated, never in human history had
  the world been so heavily armed. "Have you been given the authority to
  make a final agreement here?"
  "Yes, I have," Matushin answered. "What about Mr. Vasilanti and your
  board of directors? Will they need to vote their approval?"
  "Normally, yes," Kennedy said. "But in this instance I have been given
  the full voice of the company. Unless I blunder badly, there'll be no
  problem."
  Matushin and his translator exchanged some words, and Kennedy leaned over
  toward his translator Sally Fine.
  "Mr. Matushin has asked for the correct meaning of 'blunder,"' she said.
  Matushin grinned broadly. "Let us hope that neither of us blunder, Mr.
  Kennedy. Frankly speaking, we need this factory as badly as Guerin
  Airplane Company needs success with its new design."
  Kennedy's ears perked up. MeGarvey had warned him about just this. Ask
  the Russians for hard intelligence
 214 DAVID HAGBERG

 and their first move will be to gather information about the customer-the
 agency, or in this case, the company asking for help. Matushin had his
 experts advising him. Around the table this morning would be at least two
 FIS officers posing as either government or financial experts. He wished
 McGarvey were here now, if for nothing else than balance. He'd come in early
 this morning and had gone back out just before this meeting started. Kennedy
 hadn't had a chance to speak with him, nor apparently had any of the others.
 There was no telling where he was or what he was doing.
  The Russians probably knew just how close to bankruptcy Guerin was, and
  therefore how important the P/C2622 had become. They also understood that
  the Japanese were offering the biggest threat to them, and that if Guerin
  went down the Russians stood to lose a substantial source of foreign
  exchange. But in one sentence Matushin had admitted knowing all of that. He
  had laid his cards on the table: We need each other. There couldn't be any
  other interpretation. Kennedy decided that he would never make it as a
  politician, but he was leaming.
  "Speaking just as frankly, Mr. Matushin, it's our opinion that since
  Russia's need for our factory is so acute, your managers, engineers, and
  employees will do a good job for us."
  Again the Russian aerospace minister exchanged a few words with his
  translator, but this time they kept their voices too low for Sally Fine to
  catch anything. Matushin stiffened slightly, but then smiled wanly and
  nodded. He was a bulky man with thick eyebrows and thick, black hair, his
  face pockmarked by childhood chicken pox or teenage acne.
  "Won't giving us this opportunity make matters worse for you with your
  union in Wichita?"
  Bingo. There were no problems with the union at their Kansas facility.
  McGarvey had called it a "flag," to prove that the Russians were listening
  to their conversations in the hotel.
                HIGH FLIGHT 215

  "It's nothing to worry about, Mr. Minister, I assure you. Nor will securing
  the necessary export licenses from my government."
  "Have you already spoken with your State Department?"
  "Our legal people have, and they see no impediments," Kennedy said.
  Matushin and his translator spoke. "Very well, Mr. Kennedy. Will your
  company be posting a performance bond with us? I'm told ten percent is the
  norm. After all, we are exposing ourselves to just as big a risk as you
  are. Possibly even a bigger risk considering the tension between us and
  Ukraine."
  Jeff Soderstrom started to object, but Kennedy held his CFO off. "That
  would be a point of negotiation, Mr. Matushin. Can I take it that we are
  agreed in principle to proceed?"
 Matushin smiled. "Of course, let's proceed."

 "Where is he, Bruno?" Reid asked. It was shortly after midnight.
  "Upstairs setting up his computers. Apparently they're adequate," Mueller
  replied. Before leaving the West Coast, he'd telephoned Reid at the special
  number from a pay phone at the airport in San Francisco with Zerkel's list
  of needed computer equipment. It was extensive, but everything was waiting
  when they arrived at the farmhouse.
  "It's hard to believe that they're brothers. The sheer coincidence is
  stunning, although it does have a certain internal logic, if you know what
  I mean. Is this one just as crazy as Glen?"
 "Crazier."
 "Where is Glen?"
  "Upstairs watching his brother. Helping him, I think. They haven't seen
  each other for a long time, although it doesn't seem to bother Louis. He's
  only interested in his theory that the Japanese are going to purchase
  America outright."
 216 DAVID HAGBERG

 "He may be correct."
 "I don't care," Mueller said mildly.
  "I care enough to pay one million dollars in gold if what I'm trying to
  do comes to pass."
  Mueller turned his full attention to the older man. "What is that, Reid?"
 "I'm a crusader."
  Mueller dismissed the comment with a smirk. "On your white horse. First
  the Russians and now the Japanese. Could have been any country. Maybe
  Germany."
 "Perhaps."
 "What exactly is it you want?"
  "Guerin Airplane Company driven to its knees so that the Japanese will
  make the buy-out attempt, and for my government to stop the deal."
 "Creating a conflict between Japan and the U.S."
  "Yes," Reid said. He was half-drunk again, his face puffy, his complexion
  mottled and his eyes watery.
  "Manipulating governments would seem to be a tall order."
  "Frighteningly simpler than one would expect," Reid answered. He poured
  another Irish whiskey at the sideboard in the living room and looked at
  Mueller's reflection in the mirror. "Tallerico's murder will not be
  connected to Louis, I presume. We're okay on that account?"
 "That one will be a mystery."
 Reid turned back. "Has there been another?"
  "Tallerico's California contact was Louis's psychiatrist. Her murder will
  be blamed on him."
 "The police will eventually catch up with him."
  "When we no longer have need of his services, he will commit suicide."
  Reid recoiled at the utter callousness of the East German. Life meant
  absolutely nothing to the man. Once again he was given pause to wonder
  if he was doing the right thing. But this was war, after all. He was
  fighting for nothing less than the survival of the United States of
  America as an entity, if not an ideal. In war there were casualties. But,
  like a general in the opening
                HIGH FLIGHT 217

 moments of a battle, Reid felt sorry for the destruction his plan would
 cause. Yet there was no other way.
 "Does he know about his psychiatrist?"
  "No, but if he finds out I will speak with him. Or you can. He believes
  you're the only man in the country who knows the truth about the Japanese."
  Reid glanced toward the stairs. "He says he can actually build this device?
  It actually exists?"
  "He says he can. But apparently there's more to it than that. Something
  about a transmitter, perhaps a remote control of some sort. He isn't very
  coherent."
  "But he said the Japanese were behind it? He told you that?"
  "He said InterTech, the company he works for, is either owned by the
  Japanese or controlled by them."
 "This device he's talking about is built by InterTech?"
 "Yes. On contract with Guerin."
  Reid nodded thoughtfully. "My guess is that Guerin knows nothing about the
  Japanese connection. They've always made the claim that except for the
  Rolls-Royce engines they use, their airplanes are wholly American designed
  and built."
 "Companies have lied before."
  "Not this company," Reid said with assurance. "It may be one of the reasons
  they're in trouble." He glanced again toward the stairs. "I'll go up and
  meet him now."
  "He's. expecting you, but do you think it's wise?" Mueller asked. "To this
  point he has no valid claim to a connection with you. He's never met you.
  In case something should go wrong."
  "As you say, when he is finished he will commit suicide." Reid finished his
  drink and set the glass down. "Get some rest. You've earned it."
  All of his life Reid had been a doer, a fixer, an arranger, the man who
  could come up with whatever was needed, whenever it was needed, with a
  minimum of lead time. This applied to the information that he used for his
  Lamplighter newsletter, as well as people who were attracted to him and who
  did him favors (for which
 218 DAVID HAGBERG

 he helped make them money), and of course things, physical objects, such as
 the Lugers, in Germany and the sophisticated computer equipment Zerkel had
 ordered.
  He hesitated for a moment at the head of the stairs. The equipment that
  Reid's supplier had acquired for him in under six hours was mostly IBM gear
  designed for scientific and engineering applications. The main central
  processing unit was the new 18340, with a complex ultra-dense memory system
  of more than 950 gigabytes and the ability to handle several million opera-
  tions per second, as well as ten completely different functions
  simultaneously. A half-dozen keyboard terminals and screens were connected
  to the CPU, along with two high-speed drafting machines, an
  ultra-high-speed modem for talking directly to other sophisticated com-
  puters, an auto-pen input, a direct-feed document reader, and a voice
  recognition board that would allow the operator to control many of the
  machine's functions with voice commands. It had cost him more than a half
  million dollars, but eventually he would get that back and then some,
  because when Guerin's stock took the plunge he was going to be one of them
  waiting at the bottom to buy. He would make a hundred million dollars. But
  even more satisfying was the thought that he'd be taking the money away
  from the Japanese. He would be hitting the bastards where it hurt them the
  most.
  Louis Zerkel, his left sneaker untied, his shirt half untucked, and his
  long hair in disarray, was hunched over one of the terminals in the front
  bedroom. All the furniture had been stacked in the hall or moved to one of
  the other bedrooms to make room for the equipment. The window was wide open
  to keep the heat down, and printouts were spewing from every printer. His
  halfbrother Glen leaned against the door frame from the adjoining bedroom,
  a beer in his hand. He looked up when Reid appeared at the corridor door.
  "Mr. Reid is here to see you, Louis," he called softly. At first Reid
  didn't think Louis heard his brother, but then the man whirled around and
  threw up his hands.
                HIGH FLIGHT 219

 For just a moment Reid was afraid that the man was going to attack him.
 Mueller said the Zerkels were crazy, but if appearances were any judge,
 that was an understatement in Louis's case.
  "Oh, wow, you're actually here," Louis Zerkel cried. "If it wasn't for
  your Lamplighter, Mr. Reid, I would never have figured out what was going
  on. It's just fate, that's all. But we'll beat the bastards. What do you
  think about that?"
  Reid crossed the room and shook Zerkel's hand. "It's a pleasure to meet
  you. Your brother speaks highly of you:~
  "They've been planning this shit since right after the war, you can bet
  on it," Zerkel gushed. "From tin whistles to computer chips, what do you
  think about that?
 "Have you got everything you need?"
  "No," Zerkel said. He turned and plucked a halfdozen sheets of computer
  printout from atop one of the machines and handed them to Reid. "I'm
  going to start with the transmitter. It's that replacement chip I don't
  understand. I need to make an experiment."
  Listed on the printouts were hundreds of electronic components, by name,
  function, rate value, and tolerance, along with test equipment and dozens
  of tools.
  "Whoever got this stuff for you knows what they're doing. It's not bad.
  Have them pick up that shit too."
 "Anything else?"
  "No," Zerkel said. "Not for now." He turned back to the terminal, brought
  something up on screen, and was immediately lost in some incomprehensible
  diagram.

 Finding Louis Zerkel was more difficult than McLaren or Joyce thought it
 would be. They wanted to keep their investigation low key in case they
 stumbled upon something unexpected. More than one line of inquiry had
 unraveled because some ham-fisted agent had unknowingly flushed the
 partridge or had ruined the case because of faulty evidentiary procedures.
 As a result it had taken them all day.
 220 DAVID HAGBERG

  It was past 9:00 P.m. as they waited outside a white stucco, two-story
  apartment building for someone downtown to show up with their search
  warrant. In the two hours they'd been watching, there'd been no lights in
  Zerkel's windows, nor had there been any sign of the man. After Whitman's
  warning about the East Gen-nan, they were taking few chances.
  Earlier they'd checked Zerkel's last known address, which had turned out to
  be a small house in Oakland. The current renters had never heard of him,
  nor did the rental agency in San Francisco have a forwarding address. One
  of the neighbors remembered Zerkel, but only vaguely, as an "odd duck." The
  U.S. Post Office, Pacific Bell, and Pacific Gas & Electric had no present
  listing. Vehicle registration showed he owned a 1983 Chevrolet, but the
  address listed was for the Oakland house. It was the same at the credit
  bureau, and Social Security.
  San Francisco S-A-C-Special Agent in ChargeCharles Colberg was pissed off
  that he'd not been consulted before his turf had been invaded, but once he
  talked to Whitman in Washington he calmed down. The local Bureau file on
  Zerkel had no further information, nor was there anything of value on
  InterTech.
  By then they had run out of options, so they'd finally approached the man's
  employer.
  "Let me get this straight," Zerkel's supervisor Bob Sutherland said, a
  cigar clenched in his mouth. "You're FBI, you want to talk about Louis, but
  this is not a background investigation for a government job offer?"
  McLaren grinned. "You tell me, Mr. Sutherland, how many new government jobs
  have you heard about in the last couple of years? We're just clearing out
  deadwood here. Louis Zerkel has a secret clearance-we're checking it out.
  New program, going to save the taxpayers some money. You know how it is."
 "So do a hundred other people here have clearances."
  "We can only do this one at a time. Maybe if we could just take a peck at
  his personnel file, and then maybe have a chat with him?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 221

  Sutherland came to a decision after a second and handed Zerkel's file
  over to McLaren. "You can take a look at this, but he's not here now."
  McLaren flipped open the file and turned directly to the personal data
  section. His address was an apart ment right in Alameda. Rent probably
  included gas and electric, which was why his name hadn't been listed with
  the utilities.
 "Is this his day off?" Joyce was asking.
  "He didn't come in," Sutherland said. "And he doesn't answer his phone
  or his bulletin board."
  McLaren looked up. "There's no phone number listed here."
  "The company provides phone lines for engineers of his level and above.
  The amount of data networking they do would drive their phone bills to
  astronomical levels."
 "Does he miss work often?" Joyce asked.
  "Once in a while," Sutherland said, shrugging. "Frankly I wasn't getting
  worried until you showed up. Is this a criminal investigation?"
  "What would make you think that?" McLaren asked, his senses perking up.
  "We did our own background check, and we know about his brother Glen."
  "Any contact between the two of them, that you know about?"
 Sutherland shook his head. "None."
  Two unmarked cars and a dark blue van pulled up behind McLaren and Joyce.
  A dozen men and a few women jumped out. They all wore dark windbreakers
  and baseball caps with "FBI" stenciled on them, and they Were all armed
  with semiautomatic pistols. Colberg's number two, A-S-A-C Gordy Behrens,
  came up, a serious expression on his hound-dog face. "Any activity here?"
  he asked.
 "Nada, " McLaren said. "Did you bring the warrant?"
 Behrens nodded. "We're going to do this my way."
  "For Christ's sake, Gordy, we just want to talk to the man."
 222 DAVID HAGBERG

  "I talked to Whitman this afternoon," Behrens said. "We'll do this my
  way."
 "So much for keeping our heads down," Joyce said.
  "Just don't shoot him before we can ask some questions," McLaren told
  Behrens. "Okay?"

 The first part of the meeting went well-better than anyone thought it
 would. Not all the details of the deal had been worked out, but the
 substantive points had been agreed to one after the other with such a
 minimum of discussion that it caught everyone off guard.
  "Don't expect miracles," Soderstrom had warned them earlier. "The
  Russians have only had a few years to develop a capitalist mentality, so
  they have different expectations than we do."
  Aviation Minister Matushin was anxious to see the deal go through, and
  it became obvious early on that someone above him was calling the shots.
  Authority or not, Kennedy got the definite impression that the man was
  on a very short leash. The wing factory was going to be built on Russian
  soil, and whatever it took to accomplish that goal would be done.
  At the break before lunch, Kennedy and Matushin stepped over to the tall
  windows overlooking the brooding pile of brick that housed the Kremlin
  arsenal.
  "The only problem that I can see is the continued stability of your
  government," Kennedy said, bringing up Soderstrom's concern as he
  promised he would if the opportunity arose.
  "A legitimate question, Mr. Kennedy. But frankly it's one for which I
  have no satisfactory answer. Ten years ago we could not have had this
  conversation. It would have been unthinkable."
  Kennedy had to smile. "We have an old saying: Be careful what you wish
  for, you might get it."
  Matushin looked sharply at him. "Are you considering backing out of this
  deal?"
  "It's not that. I meant that we in the West never really believed that
  the Soviet Union could fall apart in our
                HIGH FLIGHT 223

 lifetime, and we certainly never expected the economic impact it's had on
 the world."
  "Neither did we," Matushin said distantly. "But no matter what happens we
  will never return to the old ways. There isn't enough blood in all of
  Russia to drown the new order."
 "A personally held belief, Mr. Minister?"
  "I'm not alone in thinking this, if that's what you're asking. But as you
  say, the cost is great."
  "Then it's up to us to get on with it, with as many safeguards for each
  other as possible," Kennedy said.
  The Russians were offering two thousand acres adjacent to Domodedovo
  Airport on the Kashira Highway thirty miles southeast of Moscow. One of the
  largest airports in the world, Domodedovo handled the bulk of Russia's
  internal flights and could handle any type of aircraft currently flying. A
  special rail line would link the wing-panel assembly hall with the airport
  so that the parts and raw materials could be flown in on modified P522s,
  and the finished wings could be returned to Portland the same way. The rail
  spur was already in place, as was a three-story building that could be used
  to house engineering and administration. Until ten years ago there'd been
  a tank factory on the site.
  Russian workers would put up the assembly hall to Guerin's
  specifications-which would mean on-site American inspectors and
  supervisors-and would also supply the precision metal cutting, bending, and
  shaping equipment needed to build the wing components out of titanium. Most
  of the electrical and hydraulic parts would be U.S. designed and supplied,
  and Guerin would provide extensive on-the-job training for the Russian
  engineers and assembly workers. Within five years Guerin would be able to
  reduce its participation to fifty percent. Quality control would always
  remain strictly under Guerin's supervision, however. As Kennedy explained
  across the table, "If a wing fails it'd be a Guerin airplane that goes
  down. We'll make sure they're built correctly."
 224 DAVID HAGBERG

  "This will be a good thing for both of us," Matushin said, lighting a
  cigarette. He was a chain smoker. "Admittedly your company is taking a
  chance by coming here, but it's one that will pay off well for you."
  "We think so," Kennedy said carefully. So far there'd not been so much
  as a hint about the Japanese, but he wondered if that's what the Russian
  was referring to now. "You'll be sharing in the risk."
  "When we begin exchanging dollar credits toward the purchase of airplanes
  from you."
  "I meant that cooperating so closely with us might subject you to some
  criticism."
  An odd, almost wistful, expression crossed Matushin's features, and he
  shrugged. "I don't believe I completely understand you, Mr. Kennedy.
  Perhaps we need the translators."
  "I was merely talking about the hardliners still in your government.
  Maybe there is still some mistrust."
  "Ah, I see what you mean," Matushin said. He shook his head. "That is
  absolutely nothing to worry about. As I said, we will never go back to
  the old ways."
  Kennedy watched the Russian's eyes, but he could find nothing that might
  indicate something was being held back. Matushin was a professional
  bureaucrat, and probably very adept at saying whatever had to be said at
  the moment, but Kennedy prided himself on his ability to judge people.
  Unless he was way off the mark, he decided, the aviation minister
  probably knew nothing about the deal that McGarvey had cut with the SUR
  for information about the Japanese.
  "I would hope that we could begin construction in the spring," Kennedy
  said. "It'll take a year to build, and possibly that long afterward
  before the first wing panel is completed."
  "Possibly longer," Matushin replied. "Don't forget our winters. They've
  defeated more than one intended conqueror."
  "if we can enclose the building and get heat to it before the cold
  weather we'll be all right. You'll have to throw enough people into the
  project to get it done."
                HIGH FLIGHT 225

  Matushin nodded thoughtfully. "Providing we come to final agreement here.
  There are still many details, some of them quite critical, left to be
  worked out."
  "As you say, Mr. Minister, this will be a good thing for both of us. We
  will make it work."
  The Russian glanced over to the long conference table where several of
  the negotiators were already back at it, then stubbed out his cigarette
  in an ashtray on the broad windowsill.
  "There is still time before lunch," he said. "Shall we return to the
  task?"
  Kennedy turned. "Delivery schedules are very important to us, crucial in
  some instances."

 "Have you figured it out yet?" Reid asked. It was 9:00 A.M., and he felt
 like shit. He'd been up all night arranging for the electronic components
 and equipment that Zerkel had requested.
  The InterTech engineer was crouched over a series of schematic drawings
  spread out on the floor. "A relay of some type, I think. But I can tell
  you for sure that it doesn't belong in the circuit."
  "Could it have brought down that American Airlines flight in '90?" Reid
  asked. Mueller had reported everything that Zerkel had talked about on
  the flight from San Francisco. The engineer's conspiracy theory fit with
  Reid's suspicions so perfectly that it was almost spooky.
  "This module refit was put in place before the crash. My guess is they
  tried one out; when it worked they modified all the boards."
 "But you still have no proof?"
  Zerkel looked up. His eyes were red-rimmed and he looked as bad as Reid
  felt. But there was passion in them. He wasn't fooling around here. He
  was dead serious.
 "Did you get my parts?"
  "Downstairs in the van. Your brother and Bruno will bring them up." The
  van had been delivered to him at a supermarket parking lot in Arlington.
 "I'll put together a breadboard transmitter that should
 226 DAVID HAGBERG

 fit the frequency range of that circuit, and then run my encoding program
 through it until we hit the right combination."
 "You're opening a lock?" Reid asked.
  Zerkel grinned. "Something like that, only it's electronic, and I'm just
  guessing that there's a circuit internal to the new module that makes up
  an encoded receiver. Input the correct sequence of digital pulses, and
  the module will spit a signal out the other end."
 "A signal to do what?"
  "Trigger an explosive in the engine," the engineer said. "Maybe confuse
  the heat sensors into believing the engines are running too cold. If the
  heat builds past a critical level the turbine could fail. Might swallow
  a blade, blow the engine apart."
 "But would it bring down the plane?"
 Zerkel nodded.
  Reid thought it out, careful to keep his excitement off his face. "Once
  you get the transmitter built, how will you know it works?"
  "Simple. I'll tie into InterTech's circuit simulator and see what happens
  when I push the button. If the frequency is right, and I can hit the
  proper digital sequence, we'll see an output."
 "Then what?"
  "That's up to you, Mr. Reid. But if it works, and if the Japanese have
  installed these,modules in all the heat sensors Guerin got from us,
  you'll be able to do the same thing the Japanese can do. And that's to
  bring down Guerin airplanes. What do you think about that?"

 "We've got the bastard nailed," Phillip Joyce said, coming back into the
 autopsy theater at San Francisco General. He and McLaren had stayed with
 Dr. Shepard's body from the moment they'd found it on the houseboat.
  "Did you talk to ballistics?" McLaren asked. He was having a cup of
  coffee with one of the lab technicians. The autopsy was finished, and the
  body had been zippered up in plastic and put in a refrigerated drawer.
                HIGH FLIGHT 227

  "The bullet dug out of her skull was fired from the Beretta we found in
  Zerkel's apartment. No doubt whatsoever."
  McLaren nodded tiredly. The sun was just coming up. It had been a very
  long night, and the new day stretched ahead of them. "They found semen
  in her vagina, 0positive. Same as Zerkel's blood type."
 "He raped her, then killed her?"
  "No. He killed her first then raped the body," the lab tech, an older
  man, said. "Couldn't have been very pleasant, no lubrication."
 "Ah, shit," Joyce said, turning away in disgust.
  "We'll put out an APB on him," McLaren said. "But I'm wondering if this
  has anything to do with Tallerico's murder."
  "We'll ask him," Joyce snarled. Two years ago his fifteen-year-old
  daughter had been raped by her boyfriend. As a result, Joyce had
  developed a special aversion for that type of crime.

 Zerkel started by drawing the transmitter wiring diagram on layout paper.
 He took care to trace and retrace each element of the circuit to make
 absolutely certain there were no mistakes before transferring it onto a
 sheet of etch-resistant rub-on paper and then transferring that onto the
 copper side of a blank printed circuit board twenty inches on a side. He
 was a design engineer, not a technician, so he wasn't used to working with
 his hands. But he understood the theory, and he forced himself to slow
 down, to take his time.
  Across the hall in the bathroom he'd set up a plastic dishpan in the
  bathtub for the etching solution of ammonium persulphate. The solution
  had to be kept at a temperature between 90 and 115 degrees Fahrenheit,
  so Zerkel rigged an ordinary heat lamp just above the pan. It took him
  a couple of hours before he got the height of the lamp just right to keep
  the etch bath at the proper temperature. Once that was done he added a
  small amount of mercuric chloride crystals, which served as an activator
  for the bath, and placed the circuit board into
 228 DAVID HAGBERG

 the solution, holding it with a set of long wooden tongs so that he could
 keep the board in continuous motion. Where the etch-resistant wax was laid
 down on the circuit board, the copper would be untouched by the chemical.
 Everywhere else on the board the copper would be eaten away, leaving
 behind a complicated web of interconnected copper strips that made up the
 wiring of the transmitter circuit.
  His brother was watching him. "How long do you have to keep that shit
  up?"
 "About an hour."
 "Then what?"
  "Wash it with water, dry it off, and start wiring up the components."
  "I can do this part," Glen told his brother. "You've got other shit to
  do."
  Louis nodded. "Thanks," he said, and he went into the other room to begin
  assembling the parts. He hated mindless, repetitive tasks and was
  grateful for his brother's help. Maybe Glen wasn't so bad after all.

 Darkness came early to Moscow at this time of year. Kennedy sat beneath
 the yellow glow of the chandelier listening to Soderstrom and Topper
 discuss purchase orders with Russian Federal Bank representative Ilya
 Lyukshin and Aeroflot Acquisitions Director Aleksei Voskoboy. They'd been
 at it for more than an hour but didn't seem to be any closer to an
 agreement than they had at the start of the meeting. Part of the problem
 was the transfer of credits from Washington for the deal. Guerin would get
 a tax break at home, but in order for Aeroflot to acquire eighty P522s and
 thirty P/C2622s over the next eight years, the purchases would have to be
 backed by U.S. loan guarantees, something Soderstrom had cautioned could
 be a stumbling block.
  "Boeing and McDonnell Douglas could argue that Washington is subsidizing
  us. Could cause a glitch."
  A possible way around the problem would be for the Russians to divert
  available Western credits from other needs to purchase the airplanes-or
  at least come -up
                HIGH FLIGHT 229

 with the down payments that Guerin needed to survive-and get U.S. loan
 guarantees to replace them. The Russians were balking because if Washington
 decided not to go along with the loan guarantees it would create a problem
 for the Kremlin. Russia needed wheat, corn, and butter more than it needed
 high-tech jet airliners.
  Dominick Grant, Guerin's tall, thin, patrician-looking government liaison,
  sat forward. "What if we get Washington's approval beforehand?"
  Voskoboy started to say something, but Minister Matushin waved him off.
  "This would take time."
  "Thirty-six hours," Grant replied. He turned to Kennedy. "It's a little
  before 9:00 A.M. in Washington. If I could get out of here tonight, I'd be
  at the State Department first thing tomorrow morning. Tom Bruce knows
  what's going on. He'll give us a reading as fast as humanly possible."
  "You don't think they'll try to play politics with you, Dominick?" Kennedy
  asked. "We could get bogged down with this approach. It'd be harder for us
  to make any kind of an alternative deal later."
  "They'll have their big guns, but we'll have ours. I'll take Howard and
  Jeff with me. Push comes to shove, Mr. Vasilanti can fly out to
  Washington."
  "In the meantime, Mr. Minister, I assume that we can continue to negotiate
  here in good faith on the assumption my people will be successful."
  The Russian aviation minister hesitated only long enough for his translator
  to finish before he smiled and nodded his massive head. "By all means, Mr.
  Kennedy."

 "Hello, Viktor Pavlovich," McGarvey said. He stood at the open door to the
 Russian's apartment on Kalinin Prospekt. A stereo played softly inside.
  "Yeb vas, you come as a very big surprise," Yemlin said, stepping aside.
  "Colonel Lyalin is threatening to have someone shot if you are not found."
  "I was busy," McGarvey said. Yemlin's apartment was large by Russian
  standards and very nicely fur-
   230 DAVID HAGBERG

 nished with modern Scandinavian furniture from Helsinki. But the place had
 not been used for some time. Everything was dusty.
  "We must know where you went last night after you disappeared from the
  hotel." Yemlin closed the door and followed McGar-vey into the apartment.
  More had changed in Russia than was visible at first glance. McGarvey's
  old friends, those of them he'd been able to find, and who were willing
  to talk to him, had been frightened. But it wasn't the SUR they were
  afraid of. It was starvation. There was no money or food, nor was there
  any way to get either except by murder, or theft, or prostitution. Even
  little girls and boys as young as five or six were being offered to
  pedophiles. Almost all moral order had broken down in Moscow.
  "This is very serious, Kirk," Yemlin persisted. Like everyone else, the
  former Washington rezident was frightened.
  "I went to see some old friends," McGarvey answered softly. "David
  Kennedy believes that the negotiations will go well. What about network
  Ahunai? Heard anything yet?"
 "The colonel wants to speak to you. I'll call him."
 "Goddammit, what have you found out?"
  Yemlin slapped the side of his leg, vexed. "It's believed that a group
  called Mintori Assurance Corporation may be coming after you. But at this
  point we have no confirmation. Nor does Tokyo Station know to what extent
  the Japanese are willing to go to achieve their goals, although there are
  rumors. Do you understand this, Kirk? These are only unconfirmed rumors,
  but we are trying."
  "Good," McGarvey said, a measure of relief coming over him, the first in
  twenty-four hours. "Let's talk to Colonel Lyalin now. We're going to need
  more information, Viktor. And soon."

 It would be a grueling flight that no one was looking forward to. Captain
 Peter Morrisey and his crew had gone out to the airport earlier to prep
 the P522, but it
                HIGH FLIGHT 231

 was well after midnight before Grant, Soderstrom, and Guerin's general
 counsel Howard Siegel showed up. The weather had warmed up a bit with the
 passage of the front, but the winds had increased, driving the windchill
 factor to nearly 100 degrees below 0 Fahrenheit.
  No one said much in the van on the way out from the hotel, nor were any
  of them inclined to carry on a conversation as they hurried, bent against
  the bitter wind, across the tarmac and up the boarding stairs into the
  airplane. Carol Cameron, one of their two attendants, closed and dogged
  the door, and even before she came back to offer coffee or something
  stronger the engines were spooling up. They knew what had to be
  accomplished, and why. For now there was nothing to do but hang on until
  they got to Washington.

 It took all day and most of the evening to drill tiny mounting holes in
 the printed circuit board and install the several hundred individual
 components in their proper places. A simple transmitting device would have
 been infinitely easier to design and build, but this circuit had to do
 much more. Zerkel was proud of his handiwork, and he sat back with a
 proffered beer from his brother.
 "Is it done?" Glen asked.
 "Not yet. Still has to be wired up and then tested."
  The problem was coming up with the electronic code sequence that would
  trigger the on-board heat sensor's module. His computer could spit out
  millions of combinations per second, but the possibilities numbered in
  the tens of billions. He had designed a multiplex circuit internal to his
  transmitter that would allow one hundred encoded sequences to be
  broadcast simultaneously. The sophisticated circuit would speed up the
  search by a factor of one hundred. Not bad, Zerkel thought, for an
  afternoon's work.

 In the morning Minister Matushin suggested they spend the day touring the
 proposed site at Domodedovo Airport. Nothing would be forthcoming from
 Washington
 232 DAVID HAGBERG

 until the next day, so they might as well make good use of their time.
 Kennedy agreed.

 By 3:00 A.M., Zerkel had finished the wiring and preliminary electrical
 tests on the circuit board. He'd not slept in what seemed like weeks, but
 he felt good, fully alert. Whatever shit his brother had given him did the
 trick, because he was flying. He was invincible.
  The interface between the transmitter and his computer decoding program
  took only a couple of minutes to set up, and once it was in standby he
  brought up a line into InterTech's mainframe in Alameda and entered the
  company's electronic simulator.
  Operating much like the flight simulators pilots use, InterTech's
  sophisticated program could be loaded with the schematic diagram of an
  electronic device, which in turn could be operated and tested as if it
  were the real thing. A schematic diagram for an ordinary television set
  could be loaded, and the user could switch channels and receive simulated
  television pictures. On a higher level, simulated circuits could be
  tested for malfunctions, for operating characteristics under varying
  conditions, or even analyzed for function. In this case, Zerkel loaded
  the heat-sensor circuit from InterTech's files into the simulator, and
  then began running the encoded output into it from his transmitter.
  It was a little past midnight in San Francisco, which gave him nearly
  eight hours on this circuit before he'd have to shut down, but a lot
  could be accomplished in that time. Maybe the whole enchilada.

 "Guerin Airplane Company nancy-four-seven-sevenniner-echo, you are cleared
 for final approach and landing. Report to Dulles Ground Control on
 one-two-twoone-niner on touchdown."
  "Roger," Captain Morrisey responded. His eyes were gritty and his back
  hurt like hell despite the fact he'd managed to get a few hours sleep on
  the last leg of the
                HIGH FLIGHT 233

 flight from Shannon. Providing the company brass didn't want a quick
 turnaround he'd be okay by tomorrow for the return flight. Regular
 commercial pilots did not fly under the same restrictions as airline
 jockeys. But if they wanted to return to Moscow sooner, a new crew would
 have to be brought from Portland.
  "I'd better get back and check my charges," Lois Milliken, the second
  attendant said, smiling. She had come to Guerin almost directly out of
  Northwest's flight-attendant school and had had less than three months
  experience working with the general public. She liked this a lot better.
  "Find out if we're heading back today," Morrisey said. "I'd like at least
  twenty-four hours."
  "Roger that," co-pilot Joe Tobias said. He looked just as tired as
  Morrisey.
  "Will do, Captain," Lois said. "I've got some shopping to do if we get
  the time,"
  Morrisey and Tobias exchanged glances and grinned. "We'll be on the
  ground in three minutes," the captain said.
 "Yes, sir," Lois said, and she left the flight deck.
 "Shopping," Tobias said, and he chuckled.

 The encoding solution had come up more than an hour ago, but the simulated
 heat-sensor circuit had not responded the way Zerkel thought it would.
 Something was missing. Something in the module had definitely switched to
 the on mode. There was a tone on the output line, but that signal was
 being shunted to ground by a capacitive circuit tuned to that frequency.
 Beyond that was a second circuit that Zerkel realized almost immediately
 would pass only a certain frequency or combination of frequencies. What
 threw him off at first was the extremely low theoretical values he was
 coming up with.
  They were in the three thousand to eight thousand cycles-per-second
  range.
  Within the audio range, the thought suddenly occurred to him. Within the
  range of a human voice.
 234 DAVID HAGBERG

  Zerkel brought up a five-thousand-cycle tone and entered it into the
  ~imulator program. Immediately a sharp spike showed up on the output line.
  A couple of volts, at perhaps 150 milliamps or so.
  The encoding sequence was merely the key used to cock the mechanism, while
  the low-frequency tone provided the actual firing pulse.
  His brother Glen, who'd gone downstairs a few minutes ago for some
  breakfast, had left his walkie-talkie behind. Reid had insisted they all
  keep in constant touch. It was a good idea.
  He pried the back cover off the walkie-talkie, and after a quick
  examination found the modulation section where the voice frequencies were
  added to the transmitter's broadcast frequency. He clipped a wire to the
  input section and led it to the input section of his breadboard
  transmitter.
  A specially built walkie-talkie would be the way to go if you wanted to
  bring down one airplane at a time. First an encoding tone would be
  transmitted that would cock the heat-sensor unit, and secondly the operator
  or terrorist or whatever you wanted to call him would say something into
  the microphone.
 "Boom. 11
 A spike showed up on the heat sensor's output line.

 "What the hell was that?" Captain Morrisey shouted. They were lined up for
 their final approach to landing, wheels down, flaps at twenty degrees.
  "It's number one engine, Captain," Tobias screamed. "It's going."
  The aircraft was listing sharply to port but there was nothing Morrisey
  could do about it. Alarms flashed and buzzed all across the panel and
  overhead.
  It was the port engine. The entire engine was gone, flying away in pieces!
  It had swallowed a blade. Something.
  "Mayday, mayday, mayday," Tobias shouted into the radio.
 It was no use, they were well past a ninety-degree list
 HIGH FLIGHT 235

 to port now, the end of the runway frighteningly close, and they were still
 turning over.
  It was just like the American Airlines flight out of Chicago in '90,
  Captain Morrisey thought.
  The instant before they hit he said, "Fuck it!" They were the last words on
  the cockpit voice recorder.

 Glen Zerkel came running up the stairs, Reid and Mueller pounding right
 after him. They'd been in the kitchen having breakfast when they saw the
 crash.
  Louis Zerkel, his hair flying, his T-shirt untucked and dirty, his eyes
  wild, danced around the room, hooting and singing. In his left hand he held
  a walkie-talkie, its back off, wires trailing from its insides, and with
  his right he was pointing toward the ceiling.
  "It worked!" he cried. "Did I tell you it would work? It did! It worked!"
  "An airplane just crashed at the end of the runway," Glen Zerkel said in
  awe. "It fell over and crashed in a ball of flame."
  Louis Zerkel stopped in his tracks, a large grin on his face. His brother
  and the others were looking at him. Waiting for him to say something. He
  shrugged.
 "Well, what do you think about that?"

 TEN

 Minister Matushin put down the car phone, his face grave. "I'm afraid I have
 some very bad news for you, Mr. Kennedy."
  The day had been gloomy. It was 5:00 and starting to snow as they returned
  to Moscow from touring the wingpanel factory site at Domodedovo Airport.
  Kennedy had been having premonitions of disaster all afternoon. "What is
  it?" he asked.
 236 DAVID HAGBERG

  "You are to call Chris Bradenton as soon as you get to the hotel. Another
  five minutes. Do you know this name?"
 "He's our director of flight operations."
  "He's on his way to Washington. The hotel will help get through to him. My
  staff is setting it up for you now."
  "Chris, on his way to Washington?" Kennedy said. "Why? What's happened?" He
  had an ugly feeling.
  "Your company airplane crashed on landing at Dulles Airport a little more
  than an hour ago," the minister said. He and Kennedy rode in the back seat
  of the minister's Zil limousine. The others followed in an Intourist bus.
  "Apparently there is little chance that anyone survived. There was fire."
  Kennedy slumped back in the seat, stunned. He felt as bad as he had in 1986
  when he learned that the space shuttle Challenger had gone down with all
  her crew. His gut was hollow, and he found it difficult to concentrate.
  Such a thing was impossible to swallow in one lump. The P522 was the safest
  airplane that had ever flown. In her eleven-year history she'd only been
  involved in one fatal crash, the American Airlines accident in 1990.
  There'd been other minor incidents, but they were just thatnothing to be
  overly concerned about, although Guerin took even the smallest problems
  seriously.
  "I'm sorry, Mr. Kennedy, I understand how you must feel," Minister Matushin
  said. "But let me assure you that this accident in no way diminishes our
  faith in your company and our desire to proceed with the project."
  Kennedy looked at him. Soderstrom was gone. Despite the CFO's dour,
  pessimistic disposition and outlook, Guerin Airplane Company had come to
  depend on his counsel. Vasilanti had called him the "corporation's
  conscience." And the others: Siegel, Dominick Grant, the aircrew. It was
  impossible to believe they were gone.
  "An aircraft and crew will be made available immediately to fly you and
  your people anywhere you need to go. We understand and sympathize.
  Completely."
 Kennedy had made tough decisions all his life. As a
                HIGH FLIGHT 237

 pilot and then as an astronaut when timing was often critical, his
 decisions had to be made instantly. But now the consequences of his
 judgment were more far reaching. Eighty thousand people worked for Guerin
 Airplane Company. Their futures rode on the future of the company, which
 rode on the managerial skills of its executives, from Vasilanti down. If
 you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, the old man was fond of
 saying. Either manage or get the hell out of the way. Pearls of the
 business. "This is not an industry of fainthearted namby-pambies,"
 Vasilanti said when he hired him. "So if you don't think you can handle
 it, son, let's get it on -the table now and spare us all the grief later."
  "Simply tragic," the Russian said. "No doubt these men were indispensable
  to your company. They will have to be replaced, of course, and new people
  brought into the talks. Which will take time, naturally. As will your
  government's investigation of the crash, and your own company study ...
  all of it, such a waste. But we will be patient here in Moscow, no matter
  how long the delay. We know about these things."
  Christ, Kennedy thought. He took a deep breath to clear the pressure in
  his chest and made his decision. He felt terrible, but there was nothing
  else he could do.
  "Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Mr. Minister," he said, pulling
  himself together. "I'll need to inform my staff, and we'll need a
  conference room in the hotel with eight or ten reliable telephone lines,
  two or three competent bilingual operators, and at least three fax
  machines. Can that be arranged with a minimum of delay?"
  "Of course," Minister Matushin said. "You're not returning to
  Washington?"
  "I don't know yet. If there's something for us to do there, if we're
  needed, then we'll go. Otherwise we'll stay to continue our
  negotiations."
  "I beg your pardon, Mr. Kennedy, but your people were to meet with State
  Department officials about loan guarantees."
 238 DAVID HAGBERG

 "We'll send a new team."
  They raced across the river and passed Red Square, the hotel just ahead.
  Minister Matushin eyed Kennedy with respect. "Life goes on," he said.
  "Yes," Kennedy replied absently, his mind already ranging to the enormous
  problems Guerin faced because of the accident and to the distasteful job
  facing him of telling the others, following in the bus, what had hap-
  pened.

 Louis Zerkel locked himself in the front bedroom and sat cross-legged on
 the floor. Reid had been at him all morning, and now it was time to think
 about what was wanted of him. For a while he had watched all the activity
 over at the airport from an upstairs window. Ambulances and fire trucks
 and helicopters had streamed into the crash area just short of the main
 runway. Two hours after the P522 had gone down the stench of burned
 kerojet, baked metal, scorched rubber, and incinerated plastics and foams
 still lingered on the air. No one had survived that crash.
  Zerkel knew that he was strange, probably even crazy. At this moment he
  wanted to talk to Dr. Shepard more than he'd ever wanted anything. All
  of his life he had been a law-abiding citizen. He never got traffic
  tickets, he always paid his taxes on time-and never cheated, even if it
  would have been ridiculously easy for him-nor had he ever stolen from
  anybody or lied. On the occasions he went with a prostitute he told
  himself that he really wasn't breaking any law. It was a matter of
  geography. If he were in Amsterdam, or Hamburg, or even Nevada the act
  would be perfectly legal. Simple.
  But people had died in that crash, and he had made it happen. He was a
  murderer. He ran his fingers through his long, unruly hair. Something
  very odd had been done to him in the past forty-eight hours. Something
  had changed him from what he had been in California.
  In California he had been content to study world conspiracies. Here he
  had become part of one. He had
                HIGH FLIGHT 239

 no illusions now about Edward R. Reid and the othersespecially the German.
 They had their agendas, which ,they thought they were hiding from him, but
 he'd seen through their bullshit almost from the beginning. Or, certainly
 he'd realized what they were up to this morning after the crash when
 they'd come rushing up to see what he'd done.
  Fact is, he didn't think he minded awfully much being a killer. It didn't
  bother him as he thought it should. It even fit quite well. He felt a
  sense of power, of brute strength over all the sonsabitches who'd ever
  done a double take in his direction. Hey, geek, what'cha think you're
  doing?
 Zerkel grinned.
  Reid hated the Japanese because his kind needed to hate something, but
  his love of making money was even stronger. He wanted to bring Guerin
  airplanes crashing to the ground and blame the Japanese government for
  doing it. The company would slide toward bankruptcy, but Washington would
  block the Japanese from buying stock, so it would be up to Americans such
  as Edward R. Reid to help bail the company out. There would be hundreds
  of millions of dollars in profits.
  Zerkel didn't mind. The question was how it could be done, and he had
  already begun thinking about it. One problem would be making sure that
  the blame ended up squarely in the laps of the Japs. InterTech was the
  key. The company was owned and directed by Tokyo. If InterTech could be
  blamed, the guilt would transmit directly to Japan.
  Another problem was bringing down the airplanes. There was going to be
  a big investigation into this morning's accident. If another Guerin
  airplane went down soon, the entire fleet might be grounded. Two
  accidents might be suspicious, but they'd still be classified as
  accidents. If a lot of Guerin airplanes went down all at once, or all on
  the same day, no one would believe the crashes were coincidental. There
  would be tens of millions of dollars in property damage and hundreds if
 240 DAVID HAGBERG

 not thousands of lives lost. The act of terrorism would be monstrous,
 beyond belief. If the blame could be placed on the Japanese, it would be
 the end for them. The consequences would be even worse than losing the
 war.
  There were at least two other wrinkles Zerkel could see. The first was
  his absence from InterTech. Someone bright out there could very well be
  putting together this morning's crash with his disappearance. The next
  time he went back into the company's computers he was going to have to
  be extra careful of traps.
  He had to smile thinking about it. A lot of sharp people worked for
  InterTech, but he was smarter than all of them. Thinking about the second
  wrinkle, however, wiped the smile off his face.
  Bruno Mueller meant to kill him as soon as he'd outlived his usefulness.
  It was up to Zerkel to make sure that didn't happen.

 Kennedy and his staff used a conference room across the broad corridor
 from the Rossiya's three-thousand-seat concert hall. Phone lines and fax
 machines had been set up for them within the hour, but the news about the
 crash still hadn't sunk in. Soderstrom and the others were dead. The ones
 who'd been left behind felt isolated, cut off from the rest of the world.
 And they felt lucky and guilty because of it. Yet they had work to do, and
 they got to it.
  Vasilanti and Bradenton were on a company jet enroute to Washington,
  D.C., when Kennedy finally made contact with them. "We got the news about
  an hour ago."
  "Something's goddamned fishy, David," Vasilanti shouted. "It was the same
  engine as '90. Has George seen the specs?"
  Kennedy glanced at Socrates standing at one of the fax machines. "I think
  they're coming in now," he told the old man. "What happened, Al? We
  haven't been able to get through to the NTSB, so we're still in the
  dark."
  "The port engine disintegrated on the approach to landing. It's going to
  be just like the American Airlines
                 HIGH FLIGHT 241

 crash. We'll find that the engine swallowed a blade and fell apart. A
 severe overheat."
 "We'll take another look at the sensing system."
  "You're damned right we will, but that won't turn out to be the problem.
  It's in the engine. I can feel it in my gut."
  "Are you talking about the ceramics?" Kennedy asked. The Rolls-Royce
  engine used a carbon-ceramic composition for some of its turbine blades.
  They were lighter than steel and supposedly withstood much higher G
  forces and temperatures. After the crash in '90, Rolls reverted to
  titanium blades, but two years ago it switched to an improved ceramic
  composition. All of Guerin's P422s and P522s had been retrofitted.
  "That's right. O'Toole is on the Concorde from London. I want you and
  George here. Will the Russians fly you, or should I send one of ours?"
 "Al, were there any survivors?"
  "No," Vasilanti said, heavily. He sounded like an old man suddenly.
  "Then for now I think you should leave the crash investigation to the
  NTSB and to our engineers. George is setting up a go-team. There's
  nothing we can do for Jeff and the others."
  "Except make goddamned sure it doesn't happen again," the CEO retorted.
  "Our technical guys will do that. Right now you need to get Maggie Drewd
  and Tony Glick out to Washington." Margaret Drewd was Guerin's assistant
  chief financial officer, and Anthony Glick had been Howard Siegel's
  number two.
  "They're on the plane with me. What have you got in mind, David?"
  "I was sending Jeff and the others to Washington to talk to State about
  loan guarantees for our deal. Maggie and Tony can take over their
  respective departmental loads for now. But you're going to have to stand
  in for Dominick."
 "You're staying there?"
 242 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Until we can get a reading from State. Once that's in place, the deal
  will be set and I can come home."
  Vasilanti took a moment to reply. When he did, his tone was guarded.
  "What are the Russians saying?"
  "They sympathize, but Aviation Minister Viktor Matushin says our deal
  will not be affected. They want this just as badly as we do. They've even
  offered us a former tank factory and administration building at Domode-
  dovo Airport. There's a rail spur already in place out to one of the
  taxiways where we can load and unload. It looks good."
  Again Vasilanti hesitated. "I'll have to talk to Jefrs wife, and the
  others."
  "Sorry, Al. I know it's something that I should be doing, but we're at
  a crucial point here. McGarvey has been very busy."
  "I understand," the old man said. "This is a bad time for us."
  "It is. But if we can get past this one, I think we'll be okay."
  "Until the next time," Vasilanti said, the heaviness back in his voice.
  It was as if he personally was responsible for Guerin airplanes staying
  airborne and safe. It gave Kennedy an odd feeling trying to comfort the
  CEO. It'd always been the other way around.
 "We can only take them one at a time, Al."
  "Yeah," Vasilanti said. "But God help us all if this was sabotage and the
  Japanese were behind it."
 "AP91
 "Yes?"
 "It won't happen again."
  "I hope not, David," Vasilanti said, a distant quality in his voice.
  McGarvey came over when Kennedy hung up the telephone. His face was red
  from the cold.
  "I just heard from one of Lyalin's people. What happened?"
  "Same as '90," Kennedy said. "The port engine flew apart. "
                HIGH FLIGHT 243

 "Survivors?"
 Kennedy shook his head.
  McGarvey looked away for a moment. Everyone was busy, no one paid them any
  attention, and for the moment there were no Russians in the room. "Mintori
  Assurance Corporation," he said, turning back. "They're the ones after us."
 "What else?" Kennedy asked.
  "That's all, but the timing gets you, doesn't it?" McGarvey replied. "You
  guys show the world your new design, and one of your airplanes falls out of
  the sky."
 "You don't think it was an accident?"
 "No, I don't, David. And neither do you."

 McGarvey took a shower and changed his clothes before he left the hotel
 again, this time by the front door. He picked up a tail immediately, two men
 in an old Moskvich station wagon who followed his cab over to the Arbat
 Restaurant on Kalinin Prospekt. Yemlin said it was one of the few places in
 the city that had anything decent to serve.
  The former Washington rezident was waiting at a table overlooking the dance
  floor. "I didn't know if you'd show up after what happened in Washington.
  From what I understand there were no survivors."
  "That's right." McGarvey sat across from him. "I hope to Christ I never
  find out that the FIS heard rumors and didn't pass them along."
  "We heard nothing, I swear it. But we've queried Tokyo Station."
  None of McGarvey's old friends had much bitterness
 about the old days. They were too busy trying to survive
 in Russia's new free-market economy. But McGarv * ey
 was still having trouble believing and trusting Yemlin or
 anyone else from the old KGB. Still, this was his idea,
 and they didn't have much choice. Especially not now.
 "Do you have a name for us?" he asked.
  "We know who heads the Mintori Assurance Corporation, but that's not to say
  he's personally involved in any
 244 DAVID NAGBERG

 sabotage attempts. He's a very old man. He may be nothing more than a
 titular leader."
  "The Japanese don't run their corporations like that, and you know it."
  "His name is Sok1chi Kamiya," Yemlin said. He took an envelope out of his
  coat pocket and handed it across the table. "He's eighty-one years old,
  and by various accounts, he's the eighth or ninth richest man in Japan."
 "Is there a zaibatsu?"
  Yemlin nodded. "Kamiya is in the middle of it. Electronics, exotic
  materials, some petrochemicals, mostly R&D for industry. There's
  apparently some linkage between Mintori and a banking zaibatsu at Kobe.
  Tokyo Station is still working on that."
  "Any possibility of getting inside Mintori? Bugging its boardroom?"
  "I think you're expecting too much too soon, Kirk," Yemlin objected.
  McGarvey sat forward. "There were no survivors of that crash, and I
  expect there'll be more disasters to come."
 "This sort of thing takes time."
  "We don't have time," McGarvey said harshly. "If need be we'll put this
  on the table with Minister Matushin as a condition of the deal. And you
  people can handle the Japanese if it gets out."
  "I'll see what can be done," Yemlin replied tiredly. "We can't work
  miracles. You can't believe how difficult it has become for us."
  "After seventy years of communism it's not surprising, Viktor Pavlovich.
  But pardon me if I have no fucking sympathy for you. Just get the job
  done for us, and skip the excuses."

 "Ohayo Go-zai-ma-su, Kamiya-san, " Arimoto Yamagata said. He spoke on a
 secure phone in the Japanese consulate in San Francisco. It was a little
 past noon on the West Coast, which made it two in the morning in Tokyo.
 A very bad time for the call. But Yamagata was confused.
                HIGH FLIGHT 245

  "Are you calling because of the crash?" the old man asked sharply.
  "Yes, Kamiya-dono. Has it begun? Have you given the order?"
  "No, of course not. It must have been a coincidence, or a technical flaw.
  We sent you to America to prevent such a necessity. What have you
  accomplished? What information are you offering me this morning?"
  "I am ashamed to admit that I have very little to report. But, Kamiya-san,
  mightn't we use this incident to our advantage?"
  "Of course we will. But first we must know how and why it has happened. If
  someone else is behind it. If someone has discovered what steps were taken
  seven years ago, we must know this. It may be the Russians. They have begun
  to spy on us through one of their crude networks here."
  "For what reason, Kamiya-san?" The world as he understood it, as everyone
  had understood it, had changed in the past five or six years.
  "I don't know yet, but Guerin may be behind it somehow. A number of its top
  executives have been meeting with the Russian Minister of Aviation in Mos-
  cow. There were some of them aboard that airplane."
  "Iie, it was no coincidental crash in that case. But if the cause had been
  anything other than it was . .
  "It gives one pause for thought, Yamagata-san. Now you know what must be
  done."
 "Hai, Kamiya-dono. I will not fail you."
 "No, you will not fail me."

 Russians loved to have formal dinner gatherings at midnight-a custom,
 Kennedy thought, getting to his feet, his people were going to have to get
 used to.
  Their last meeting at the Council of Ministers building in the Kremlin had
  been subdued because of the tragedy in Washington. Yet they'd all felt a
  sense of optimism because the State Department had given its approval in
  principle to hammer out a loan guarantee package that
 246 DAVID HAGBERG

 would work for everybody. The only proviso State had placed on the deal
 was that the Russians would have to work out their differences with the
 Japanese first. It was a provision that Kennedy had not brought up with
 Minister Matushin. Nor did he have any intention of doing so.
  "This will remain a business deal and nothing more," he told Vasilanti.
  They both sidestepped the work the Russian Secret Service was doing for
  them for the moment.
  "I would like to propose a toast," Kennedy said, raising his wine glass.
  Minister Matushin and the others around the table raised their glasses.
  This deal was going to be good for all of them, despite Soderstrom's
  concerns to the contrary. Kennedy could feel it.
  "To our joint venture of developing and producing what will prove to be
  the most advanced airliner the world has ever seen. An airplane that will
  take us out of the twentieth century and well into the twenty-first. An
  airplane that will not only transport the general public in safety and
  comfort to the far corners of the earth with flight times of minutes
  rather than hours or days, but to the edge of space. An airplane that
  will become an important link in building the chain of trust and friend-
  ship between our two countries. Minister Matushin, ladies and gentlemen,
  I congratulate us all."
  Everyone drained their glasses. The Russians banged theirs on the table
  and the waiters moved in to refill them. Minister Matushin got to his
  feet and raised his glass of vodka. They'd been drinking for nearly two
  hours, and his face was flushed, his forehead sweaty.
  "I will toast to the success of our cooperation, but I will also drink
  to your.brave executives and airplane crew who gave their lives. I make
  the suggestion that the Guerin-Moscow Wing Panel Development and Assembly
  Facility be named the Soderstrom-Grant-Siegel Assembly Facility Number
  One."
  For a long second or two no one said a word, or made a move. The Russians
  watched the Americans to see
                HIGH FLIGHT 247

 their reactions, and Kennedy and his staff were caught off guard.
  But then Kennedy smiled wanly and raised his glass. "It is a wonderful
  suggestion, Minister Matushin. One which touches us all, and one which
  I wholeheartedly support."
  He drank his wine, put his glass down, and turned and walked out of the
  hall. Time now to go home, he thought, to begin picking up the pieces.

 From his modest home near the Maritime Self Defense Force Academy
 overlooking the city of Yokosuka and the lower reaches of Tokyo Bay,
 Lieutenant Commander Kiyoda could see the Samisho at her berth. A barrier
 had been placed on the quay, lights had been strung up, and guards had
 been posted.
  Within hours after the Samisho had docked she had been fully provisioned,
  and Kiyoda had been allowed to take a taxi to his home. That was
  forty-eight hours ago. Since then no one had been allowed in or out, nor
  were communications with the crew allowed.
  Minori had been correct when he predicted there would be no parade for
  them this time. No one from the Admiralty had come to greet them or to
  accept their patrol report, nor had they received any communication
  whatsoever. It was, in Kiyoda's mind, ominous.
  It was early morning, and low dark clouds continued to move in from the
  northwest, threatening more rain. Whitecaps marched along the broad
  expanse of the bay. Kiyoda shivered.
  His two children were away at boarding school in Kobe, which left with
  him only his wife Moriko, their cook, and their gardener. Sitting on a
  tatami in front of the floor-to-ceiling window in his private sitting
  room, Kiyoda listened for their sounds as he stared down at the town and
  the harbor, but he could hear nothing. They were up and about, but they
  were being discreet for his sake.
 The sinking of the Russian frigate had been in all the
 248 DAVID HAGBERG

 newspapers and on all the television channels. Half the country was
 calling him a war-monger and villain, while the other half was calling him
 a hero, the hope for Nippon. It placed the MSDF, and in fact the entire
 government, in a difficult position, because no matter what action was
 taken half the country would find fault with it.
  Yesterday, Yabe Takagi, his sensei from the Mishima Institute, had come
  to the house. They had spoken briefly about honor and about self-control,
  which were so necessary to a Japanese bu-shi.
  "Dishonor is like a sear on a tree, Kiyoda-san, " his instructor told
  him. "Time will not erase this scar but only enlarge it. Understand that
  patience and forgiveness are a part of honor."
 "I understand," Kiyoda whispered.
  "To bear what you think you cannot bear, Kiyoda-san, is really to bear."
  Kiyoda heard the car coming up the road from the city, and he sat up
  straighter.
  The car pulled up in front and stopped. He heard two car doors open and
  close, and they were at the entry. Two of them. It was to be expected.
  His wife Moriko came to the rice-paper door. "I am sorry for disturbing
  your peace, my husband, but two officers have come from the admiral. They
  wish to speak with you."
  "They are honored guests in our home, Moriko-san. Please offer them tea,
  and bring them to me," Kiyoda said.
  "As you wish, my husband," his wife said softly, and she left.
  Kiyoda remained seated for five full minutes before he got to his feet
  and faced the open door. He wore his winter dress blues as did the two
  officers in the doorway. Both of them were full commanders, he was
  pleased to note.
  "Lieutenant Commander Seiji Kiyoda, you are under arrest," the tall,
  fair-skinned officer said. "On orders
                HIGH FLIGHT 249

 from the Admiralty, you are requested, sir, to come with us. 11
 "What are the charges, sir?" Kiyoda asked.
 "Treason," the same officer said.
  Kiyoda suppressed a smile. He had won! Kamiya had somehow pulled it off. If
  he had been charged with disobeying orders, he would have lost his command
  and gone to jail in disgrace. There was no defense against such a
  specification. But against the charge of treason there were a host of
  defenses. Half the country was behind him.
  "May I be allowed to commit seppuku?" Kiyoda asked.
 "No," the first officer said.
 "Very well, then. I will accompany you."

 "Prove InterTech is controlled by a Japanese firm, and we'll win," Glen
 Zerkel said.
  "There is a more elegant solution," his brother Louis suggested. "If Mr.
  Reid has the stomach for it."
  "I'm all ears, my dear fellow," the older man said. He'd been drinking for
  twenty-four hours. But like the true functioning alcoholic he wasn't
  falling-down drunk, just very loose.
  "I believe all Guerin's P522's have been equipped with the control chip. If
  we can prove that, and if we can reprogram a couple of the FAA's flight
  service stations to send out the trigger signal on our command, we'd be
  able to bring a lot of airplanes down all at once."
  "Wouldn't they trace the signal back here?" Reid asked.
  "That's the beauty of it," Louis replied. "InterTech will send the signal,
  and the orders will come from Tokyo."

 U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Clifford Talmadge had a raging hangover. His
 head was about to split apart, his eyes felt as if someone had thrown hot
 sand into them, his mouth tasted like dog shit, and he had a piss hard-on
 that was killing him. On top of all that, his live-in
 250 DAVID HAGBERG

 girlfriend, Susie Heidinori, was bitching at him to get up, her whiny,
 needling voice going on and on like an irritating insect.
  Last night had started out all right at the Noncommissioned Officers Club
  on base. Nearly eighty percent of the Seventh was at dock, so Fleet.HQ
  was crammed. It was party time, and when the Navy partied, everybody
  partied. By 2000 hours there probably wasn't a sober offduty sailor
  within a hundred klicks. That's when the exodus into town began.
  Yokosuka had been home to the Seventh Fleet since after the war. As a
  result a lot of great drinking establishments, strip joints, and
  whorehouses flourished just off base, although lately the city fathers
  were making moves to clean up the area. Apparently there was some resent-
  ment by the locals.
  After last night there'd be even more resentment, Talmadge thought.
  There'd been fights. He'd heard that one of the after-hours clubs had
  been practically destroyed. And no-doubt there'd been a handful of rapes
  and sexual assaults as well.
  Susie came into the bedroom in her black lace bra, panties, garter belt,
  and nylons, her makeup only half finished. "Goddamn you bastard,
  Clifford, get your ass out of bed. We're both going to be late." ,
  Like most Japanese women she was slightly built, with a golden complexion
  and tiny features. Six months ago when they'd met at a party at the NCO
  Club he'd thought she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever laid eyes
  on. But then he was new to this theatre, and the novelty had worn off
  quickly.
  "Fuck you," Talmadge said good-naturedly, although he was starting to get
  mad. "It's early. We don't have to be to work until eight," He was a
  large man, a former Penn State running halfback, and he'd always had to
  watch his temper.
  "Well, it's quarter 'til, you prick. Get up!" She went into the bathroom
  and slammed the flimsy door.
 She'd stuck a hot poker up his ass. "Sonofabitch," he
                HIGH FLIGHT 251

 roared grabbing his wristwatch. She was right. He shoved the covers back
 and scrambled out of bed. This would make the third time this month he was
 late for work. His C.O. had warned him about it last week.
  "I don't care what you do on your own time, mister, until it affects my
  time," the old man said. "If need be I'll confine your ass to base. Is
  that clear?"
  "Aye, aye, sir," Talmadge had replied crisply. "It won't happen again."
  Susie worked on base as a bilingual secretary in Procurements. Her boss
  had reamed her out too.
  He put on his shorts from yesterday and pulled a semiclean set of blues
  out of the closet.
  "For what?" he shouted in frustration. Last night had turned out shitty.
  He'd gotten into a squabble with a couple of bastards from Meteorology,
  was thrown out of at least two places he could remember, and in the end
  he and Susie had gotten into a terrific row about going to listen to a
  blues combo playing at one of the whorehouses. She liked the music, but
  she didn't want to go to that kind of place, and he couldn't understand.
  In the end they'd come back to the apartment downtown, and they tried to
  make love, but he couldn't do it and he blamed her.
  "Christ, fuck, sonofabitch," he swore, pulling on a pair of dirty socks.
  For what? "Get the fuck out of the bathroom, I gotta get in there," he
  shouted.
  Their apartment was on the third floor front, facing busy Kaigan-dori
  Avenue, in an old brick building that always had been used to house
  foreigners. Like Kamakura and Yokohama, which were part of the Tokyo
  megalopolis a few miles north, Yokosuka had been one of the port cities
  where the British and others seeking trade with Japan were isolated so
  as not to contaminate the purity of Nippon.
  In Talmadge's opinion it was bullshit then and it was bullshit now. The
  Second World War had established that, all their color TVs, VCRs,
  stereos, and Toyotas notwithstanding. If it came to it, we'd just kick
  ass again.
 252 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Get out," he shouted again, putting on his shirt. He had to shave. But
  his tongue felt as if it had a three-day growth of fungus on it that only
  a dozen hours of sleep could possibly cure.
 "Just a minute," Susie yelled.
  Talmadge tried the bathroom door, but it was locked. "Goddammit," he
  swore. She always locked the door, which really pissed him off. What the
  hell was she hiding that he hadn't already fucked, kissed, or licked?
  Well, he was through being the nice guy. He put his shoulder to the door
  once very hard, the frame splintering against his 220-pound bulk. Susie,
  dressed now in her skirt, reared back in alarm, her eyes wide.
  "I told you to get the fuck out of here," he bellowed. He grabbed her
  roughly by the arm, hauled her out of the tiny bathroom, and threw her
  against the dresser.
  She cried out in pain and looked at him with hate and venom in her eyes,
  her jaw tight, her body rigid. This moment had been coming for weeks, and
  they'd both known it.
  "Put on your blouse and get us a cab," Talmadge ordered. "I've got to
  take a piss and grab a shave, then we can shove off."
  He turned to go into the bathroom when Susie, screeching in rage like a
  banshee, leaped on his back, biting and scratching his neck and the side
  of his face. She wanted to draw blood, to hurt him, like he had hurt her
  so often in their brief relationship. She wanted to knock him to the
  floor and stomp him into the dirt where he belonged, because he was a
  lying, bigoted sonofabitch.
  The unexpectedness of her attack caught him off guard, and he was driven
  forward, banging his head against the door frame. Still she wouldn't let
  up. The bitch really wanted to hurt him.
  He spun her into the wall, smashing her against the edge of the door,
  knocking the air out of her lungs. She grunted and lost her grip on his
  neck. It was enough. He grabbed her by the hair, plucked her off his
  back, and
                HIGH FLIGHT 253

 tossed her like a rag doll across the bed and halfway into the tiny living
 room.
  She scrambled to her hands and knees, but Talmadge was much faster.
  He came over the bed, grabbed her arm, and yanked her to her feet. "You
  fucking bitch," he shouted, spittle flying.
  She raked his face with her free hand, her long fingernails opening three
  gashes in his check that began oozing blood.
  "Goddamn you whore!" he yelled, completely out of control. He shook her
  so hard her head flipped back, spraining her neck.
  This time she cried out in real pain. She was not angry now. Suddenly she
  was frightened for her life.
  Talmadge was seeing red. He had crossed over the brink to where he wanted
  nothing more than to hurt her, to cause her pain. To blot her out of the
  universe.
  Still violently shaking her, he shoved her backward into the living room
  toward the low couch that sat in front of two windows overlooking the
  street.
  "You fucking bitch, all you want is a free ride. You want to be an
  American. You want us to fuck you, and then you laugh at us behind our
  backs. I know about you fucking superior Japs. Fucking sneaky bastards.
  Slanteye fuckers! Maybe we ought to drop the fucking bomb on you again,
  teach you some fucking manners."
  Susie was incapable of making even the smallest effort to protect
  herself. Physically she was no match for Talmadge, who outweighed her by
  more than a hundred pounds, but she was mentally stunned as well. She'd
  never seen him act this way, had never seen anyone act this way, and she
  was flabbergasted. She was convinced that he was going to kill her.
  At the last moment, Talmadge picked her off her feet, his big, rough
  hands breaking three of her ribs, and he tossed her over the couch and
  through one of the windows, the thin bamboo-slat Venetian blinds going
  with her, and she was gone.
 254 DAVID HAGBERG

  Still it wasn't enough for him. He wanted to hurt her even more, and in
  his insane rage he was even madder that she hadn't begged for him to
  stop.
  In three steps he was across the living room. He yanked the door open,
  snapping both locks, and thundered down the dark, narrow stairs to the
  street. Already a crowd was gathering around Susie where she lay on her
  back, half off the sidewalk into the street. It was rush hour and traffic
  was heavy, the street clogged with cars and buses and bicycles. Many of
  the drivers stopped to see what was happening.
  Talmadge bulled his way through the people, his rage still increasing,
  blind hatred choking out rational thought. He'd always had a chip on his
  shoulder, especially when he was drinking, and he'd always had a problem
  controlling it. More than one school psychologist had predicted he would
  do something very bad one day. But fuck 'em, something was saying at the
  back of his head. They'd never been laughed at like he had when he'd been
  a little fat boy. Fat and stupid.
  "Bitch!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. He kicked Susie in the side
  of her rib cage with every ounce of his considerable strength, flopping
  her body over on its stomach without a sound from her.
  She was dead, and those closest in the crowd sighed and tried to step
  back, but others were coming, pressing them nearer.
  She was dead. The stupid bitch had gotten herself killed. He kicked her
  again with all of his strength, pushing her limp body completely into the
  street.
  He was in some big shit now. There'd be nothing so simple as a Captain's
  Mast and a weekend in the brig. It just wasn't going to be that easy.
  He'd killed a woman, a fucking Japanese national, because of his foul
  temper, and he was going to have to pay the price.
  He kicked her again, this time more in frustration than in rage.
  "Yamero, " someone in the crowd. shouted, and someone else took it up.
                HIGH FLIGHT 255

  Talmadge understood enough Japanese to know that they were calling for
  him to stop. But how could he stop? He'd already gone too far. He looked
  at Susie's bloody body, her arms and legs splayed out, and he felt the
  first stirrings of remorse mixed with a growing fear and confusion. How
  could he have done this thing? Christ, how could it have happened?
  He looked at the crowd, some of the people jostling forward menacingly,
  shouting and screaming what sounded like threats. He couldn't remember
  from his orientation course if Japan had the death penalty, but he
  figured for sure he would be turned over to the civilian authorities.
  What he did remember was that Japanese prisons were notorious for hard
  time, especially for foreigners.
  The blare of a police siren sounded like it was just down the street, and
  Talmadge stepped back a pace. It would be one thing to turn himself over
  to his own Shore Patrol and get a Navy hearing, but something completely
  different to get himself arrested by Jap cops. He wouldn't have a chance,
  The crowd. was pressing even closer, and the siren stopped just on the
  other side of them. What the hell had he done this time? He had to get
  to the pay phone in the downstairs hall. He could call the base.
  Talmadge charged straight at the crowd, bowling the much smaller Japanese
  out of his way as if they were nothing. It seemed as if everyone were
  shouting and screaming, pummeling his back with their fists, kicking at
  his legs, hitting him with umbrellas, shopping bags, anything they
  carried.
  He broke loose in front of the door to his building at the same time a
  uniformed cop came up the street in a run, a white plastic holster
  flapping at his hip.
  People in the crowd shouted something to the cop, and pointed at
  Talmadge, who pulled up and stopped. A second cop came across the street
  in a dead run, and the people in the crowd shouted what sounded like a
  warning.
 256 DAVID HAGBERG

  Talmadge looked toward the open door into his building and started toward
  it when the first cop, now just a few feet away, fumbled at his side for
  his night stick.
  "Ugokuna, " the cop shouted as he got the night stick out.
  Such a stupid little toy, the thought popped into Talmadge's head, but the
  Jap looked like he was going to use it. Fuck, he wasn't going down this
  way. Not a chance in hell.
  The cop was raising the night stick when Talmadge batted it out of his
  hand, and snatched the big automatic pistol out of the Jap's holster. Out
  of the comer of his eye he saw the other cop pull out his gun and bring it
  up.
  This wasn't happening! Fucking hell, it wasn't happening!
  Talmadge raised the SigSauer 9 mm automatic and pulled off four shots as
  fast as he could squeeze the trigger. An old woman in the crowd fell back,
  and then the cop went down, the right side of his head exploding.
  Something hard came down on his right collarbone. His right hand instantly
  went numb, and he dropped the pistol. It was the first cop. The sneaking
  sonofabitch had hit him from behind with the night stick.
  Howling in pain, Talmadge came around with his left fist, swinging it like
  a bludgeon, smashing the cop in the head, knocking him backward off his
  feet.
  Still the cop tried to get up and come after him, so Talmadge scooped the
  pistol off the pavement with his left hand and awkwardly pumped three shots
  at pointblank range into the Jap's chest.
  More sirens were approaching now, and despite the fact he'd killed two cops
  and possibly the woman, and held a gun in his hand, people kept streaming
  into the crowd. People screamed and shouted. Called him names, called him
  a killer, taunted him ... he didn't know what, but he was frightened. He
  couldn't kill all of them, even if he wanted to.
  But Christ, it hadn't been his fault. He had not meant to kill the bitch,
  but she'd gone on and on at him. He'd
 HIGH FLIGHT 257

 told her from the beginning to just leave him the fuck alone in the
 morning. At least until he had his coffee. And then everything would be
 hunky-dory. But she wouldn't let it go.
  He stepped back toward the door to his building, the crowd louder now,
  the sirens closer.
  And the cops, Christ, what the hell was he supposed to do? Let the
  bastards shoot him down? Well, fuck that. That part he'd do the same if
  he had to do it over again. It was simple self-defense, goddammit!
  He turned and sprinted across the sidewalk when a bottle tossed from the
  crowd caught him on the back of the head, and he stumbled forward,
  slamming his right knee into the concrete steps, pain temporarily
  blotting out his vision.
  "Sonofabitch," he shouted, but it only came out as a croak. He started
  to bring the big pistol around when it was grabbed from his hand, and
  someone kicked him in the side of the head.
 The little bastards. Always attacking from behind.
  They were kicking him in the head, in the neck, in the back. Rolling him
  over, kicking him in the chest and stomach and groin.
  He was done. The fuckers. There were too many of them. And their blows
  didn't even hurt anymore, as it all began to fuzz out, coming down to a
  point.

 ELEVEN

 The Aeroflo for the retu the Guerin

Ilyushin 11-86 the Russians provided rn trip to the States was a far cry from
 P522 that had brought them to Russia. Even fitted out for the diplomatic
 service, as it was, its accommodations were narrow and cramped. Every-
  258 DAVID HAGBERG

 thing was chipped or worn and in need of replacement or refurbishment. The
 half-dozen Russian engineers and finance people who would continue to
 Portland to work with the plant development, design, and construction
 engineers didn't seem to notice the shabbiness. Neither Kennedy nor any of
 the other Guerin executives saw fit to point it out to them. The differences
 would become painfully obvious when they were given the grand tour at Gales
 Creek.
  Heading west they would gain eight hours, so their twelve-hour flight from
  Moscow would put them on the ground four clock hours after they left. It
  made for a long day.
  Socrates and his staff were huddled in deep discussion with some of the
  Russian engineers, while the others either slept or tried to. A pall of
  sadness hung over them, and it affected Kennedy more than the others
  because he and Socrates would stay in Washington to work with the NTSB on
  the accident investigation. It would be them, not their staffs, who would
  have to reassemble the remains of the airplane. He wasn't looking forward
  to it.
  Sir Malcolm O'Toole, Rolls-Royce's chief designer, was already on the
  scene, and without a doubt the old lion was doing a lot of growling. Onder
  most circumstances the Brit was a delight to work with. But this time would
  be infinitely different. Two engine failures in ten years was, on the
  surface, a fantastic performance record. It would be like driving an
  automobile for ten million miles with only two problems. But the crashes
  were apparently caused by the same malfunction. How many other Guerin
  airplanes would fall out of the sky?
  They'd just finished lunch and Kennedy was seated alone with his thoughts
  when McGarvey sat down beside him.
  "I had the flight engineer tune in the BBC's World Service. You went down
  four points yesterday."
  "I know," Kennedy said. He'd spoken with Vasilanti about it last night just
  after the market closed in New York.
                HIGH FLIGHT 259

  "I'm assuming that isn't a big enough drop for them to start the run on
  you."
  "Not a serious run. So far as we can tell there were no big buys or
  institutional trading. Presuming our fleet isn't grounded, we'll start to
  come back in ten days or
 SO. 11
 "What would another crash like that do to you?"
  "Don't even think it," Kennedy shuddered. "But if it happened within the
  next year or eighteen months we'd be in for a hell of a bad time. We might
  not survive even just one more crash."
  "What about two crashes, or even three or more within the next ten days,
  before you recover from this one? Could you weather it?"
  "Not a chance in hell, Mac. Unless Washington bailed us out." One of the
  problems was the scaled-back military establishment. Just a few years ago
  Guerin, McDonnell Douglas, and even Boeing depended heavily on military
  orders. Now that that market was all but gone the airplane manufacturers
  were cash poor.
  "Along with our accounts payable and federal taxes outstanding, this year's
  drawdown on our long-term debt is running at nearly four billion dollars.
  Match that against our accounts receivable-for all the air-plane deals
  we've financed for the airlines-which amounts this year to only three
  billion, a lot of it slow to come, and you can see we're in the hole. Al
  wants to spend one billion on the Moscow facility in addition to what we've
  already spent at Gales Creek, which means our ass is out in the wind."
 "That's what they'll do."
  Kennedy looked bleakly at McGarvey for a long second or two. It's a tough
  world out there, his father told him years ago. But sitting here now he was
  sure his father hadn't a clue just how tough it really was.
  "It's hard to keep a handle on it," he said. "What do we do? Voluntarily
  ground the fleet until we can prove Mintori is on the verge of killing a
  lot of people? We'd go bankrupt. Or continue flying as long as the FAA
  allows
 260 DAVID HAGBERG

 us to, and face the risk that you are right, and that they will bring down
 more of our airplanes? In which case we'd also go bankrupt. Is that what
 you're telling me, McGarvey, that we've been placed in a no-win situation?"
  "If we can prove the Japanese are behind this before something else happens
  we'd be able to block their takeover move and save a lot of lives."
  "According to your timetable you'd have less than ten days in which to do
  it."
 "That's right."
  Kennedy looked up the aisle toward Socrates and the others-all good people
  who earnestly believed that designing and building safe and efficient
  airplanes was more important than working simply for profit. Boeing had
  taught them that lesson. Make a good airplane and the profits will be
  there. Safety first, money second. But this assault on them by the
  Japanese, if it was true, was so monstrous it was nearly impossible to
  believe. It could not be allowed to succeed. If they gave in now, more than
  an airplane company would have been lost. He knew that he was being
  melodramatic, but it was true nevertheless. When one section of the fabric
  of a country was torn-not altered, not exchanged for something of like
  value, but torn-then the entire country was diminished.
  "Ten days, Mac," he said. "At the first incident, at so much as a hint that
  something's about to happen, I'll ground the fleet myself."
 :'Agreed," McGarvey said. "But it's going to get ugly."
 ,:It couldn't get worse."
  Oh yes it could, David. And it will."

 Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Director Aleksandr Semenovich Karyagin
 was of the new generation of Russian politicians, those who'd not been
 involved with the Great Patriotic War of 1940-45. At fifty-five he didn't
 remember the end of the war, but he clearly remembered the privations
 afterward, the post-Stalin years in which the gulags; continued to flourish.
 As a
                HIGH FLIGHT 261

 result he'd become a Russian patriot as well as a practical man who knew how
 to bend with the times in order to survive. It was a knowledge that many of
 his contemporaries had not learned. Some of them were dead or still in
 exile, while others, like General Polunin, sitting across the desk from him,
 had risen as high as they would ever get. Every time Polunin came up here he
 fairly radiated animosity and jealousy, which was fine with Karyagin. It
 provided the raw energy and zeal so vital to an intelligence-gathering
 organization. And, in the end, Polunin would serve as a scapegoat should the
 situation go awry.
  "What has Mr. McGarvey provided us as a quid pro quo?" Karyagin asked,
  looking up from the bound report Polunin had brought him. "No mention is
  made of it here. In fact did he tell us anything?"
 "Nothing substantive, Mr. Director."
  "I see," Karyagin said. He sat back and stared at his general. Polunin's
  jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
  "You may recall that McGarvey told us in very certain terms that he would
  not spy on his country, even if he did have access to the White House, or
  the seventh floor at Langley. Neither of which he has, so far as I under-
  stand the situation."
  "What about his control officer, Colonel Yemlin?" Karyagin asked.
  "He's on his way back to Washington. Should arrive within hours of the
  Guerin flight."
 "What is his impression, General?"
  "A provision of the U.S. State Department's approval of the loan package is
  an early settlement of the situation in the Tatar Strait."
  "Were our navy or air force to retaliate, the loan guarantees would be
  withdrawn. Is that the substance of Colonel Yemlin's report?"
  "That is the substance of his speculation, Mr. Director," Polunin said,
  refusing to be drawn into the trap. "I omitted it from my report because
  Colonel Yemlin told me that Mr. McGarvey never made a direct statement to
  that effect. "
 262 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Something must have been said to give him the impression."
  "Generalities. Hints. Vague suggestions. Nothing more, Mr. Director."
  Polunin was in uniform, as if to distinguish himself from the strictly
  civilian element of the SUR.
  "Why are they suddenly being so coy?" Karyagin asked half to himself. "If
  our cooperation is so necessary to the loan guarantee, then why hasn't
  Washington told us directly?"
  "Presumably Guerin's executives want to make certain that we understand
  the distance between them and their own government. This is not a
  Washingtonsponsored project, although Guerin's government must approve
  of the exchange of technologies."
  "In other words the incident in the Tatar Strait should have nothing to
  do with our deal with Guerin Airplane Company."
 "That is Yemlin's thinking."
  Russia was in a difficult position. Unless some response were made to the
  Japanese attack on its frigate in Russian waters, what little credibility
  the eastern fleet had would evaporate, Karyagin thought. But Yeltsin was
  following the Guerin negotiations with a sharp eye. The deal was very
  important for a number of reasons, not the least of which were the jobs
  it would create and the influx of Western currencies it would generate.
  On another level the deal was important because of the ongoing tension
  between Russia and Ukraine. Kiev was to the former Soviet Union's
  aviation industry what Seattle and Portland were to America's. If Moscow
  could come out as a rival it would do wonders for Russian prestige, not
  only at home but around the world as well.
 They were walking a very tight line.
  "Has Tokyo Station provided us with any further information?"
 "Not yet, Mr. Director."
  "I want to review any new material before it is passed to Colonel Yemlin
  for transmittal to McGarvey."
                HIGH FLIGHT 263

 "Of course."
  "What of the airplane crash in Washington? Were the Japanese
  responsible?"
  "Tokyo Station has no word on it, but Washington's official preliminary
  position is that it was an accident."
 "Does Guerin Airplane Company share that view9"
  "No," Polunin said. "From what was discussed among them here as well as
  in the air, they suspect that this Japanese zaibatsu may be behind it,
  and may be planning other accidents within the next ten days."
  "If they are correct, and if they cannot prevent this from happening,
  their company will be ruined. Am I correct?"
 "Yes, Mr. Director."
  "Then I will send a personal message to Tokyo Station to make this
  problem their number-one priority."
  So close, Karyagin mused, and yet so far. Strange how the world had
  changed so dramatically in the last seven years.

 The timing was incredible. As Edward R. Reid watched the CNN bulletin and
 then the follow-up reports on the killings and the riot in Yokosuka, he
 could hardly believe his good fortune.
  It had all the earmarks of turning out like the Rodney King incident a
  few years ago in Los Angeles in which a black man had been severely
  beaten by a group of cops. The entire country had been affected by what
  appeared to be a clearcut case of police brutality. When the police
  officers were brought to trial for use of excessive force they were
  acquitted, and Los Angeles was hit by the worst riots since Watts. Never
  mind that Rodney King was a criminal. Never mind that just minutes before
  the beating he'd apparently gone berserk and according to witnesses was
  a real threat to the cops. The glaring message Americans focused on was
  that a group of white cops had beat the living hell out of a lone black
  man.
  The same could be true with this incident in Japan. So far as the early
  news stories were reporting, a U.S. Navy enlisted man had murdered his
  Japanese girlfriend, and
 264 DAVID HAGBERG

 when the Japanese police attempted to arrest him he disarmed one of them and
 shot them both to death. The mob of civilians that had gathered went after
 the American and beat him to death. Probably rightly so, Reid thought, but
 it wouldn't play that way.
  A lone American serviceman-a boy actually-away from home in a strange,
  often hostile country, is backed into a corner by an angry, out-of-control
  mob, armed men in uniforms closing in on him. He does the only thing he can
  do, the only thing any reasonable redblooded American boy would do in the
  same situationhe defends himself the best he can. He's well trained. The
  U.S. military is the best-trained military in the world. So he manages to
  protect himself for a few minutes. It's all been a misunderstanding, he
  pleads, but the horde has gone crazy. It was an accident, he pleads. But it
  is to no avail. They swarm over him, pulling him limb from limb, trampling
  him into the foreign soil so far from home. All the training in the world
  could not have protected him from the crazed mob. He was one boy, alone, in
  a strange land. Now he is dead.
 Americans love their melodrama.

 Bruno Mueller was upstairs in a bedroom across the corridor from Zerkel's
 computer room. The genius and his brother had been tapping into computers
 all day long-Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety
 Board, State Department, Department of Defense, Dulles Flight Traffic
 Control, any government agency that had anything even remotely to do with
 the investigation. So far the crash was still being classified as an
 accident. Although Guerin engineers were questioning that preliminary
 finding, as was a British design engineer from Rolls-Royce, nothing to this
 point indicated sabotage.
  From where he stood, smoking a cigarette, he could look over his shoulder
  into the computer room, or straight ahead out the window that faced the
  airport. The accident site was lit up like a small city. So far as he
  understood the procedure in this country, accident in-
                  HIGH FLIGHT 265

 vestigators would remain on site for at least a week, possibly two. They
 would sort through every single piece of debris, no matter how large or
 small, catalog it all as to its condition and precise location, and then
 transport the parts to a hangar where the airplane would be put back
 together in an effort to understand what happened.
  All that would take additional time-weeks, certainly, and probably months.
  Long before the NTSB had reached any conclusions the next P522s would have
  already fallen out of the sky.
  For the first time in a very long while Mueller actually felt the stirrings
  of interest. Killing generally meant little or nothing to him. The act of
  murdering a human being affected him about the same way swatting a mosquito
  or a fly would affect a normal person, but what Reid wanted was something
  different. This was murder on a very grand scale. Scores of people would
  die. Perhaps dozens of airplanes would crash and burn, the passengers'
  panic would be agonizing as their airplanes fell out of the sky and they
  knew they were going to die but couldn't do a thing about it. It was an
  interesting idea.
  He had been trained to wreak havoc on the capitalists, but his training had
  gone to waste. His masters were all dead or gone. Even his group of former
  comrades was no more.
 His life had been a waste. Until now.
  Reid came up from downstairs. He was drunk again, but Mueller had come to
  appreciate the man's capacity for alcohol. No matter how much he drank he
  seemed to be in control of himself.
 "Have you watched the news?" the older man asked.
 "No. Has something interesting happened?"
  Reid grinned. "You could say that. It's the Japanesethey'~e doing exactly
  what I want. There was a riot this morning in Yokosuka. A young American
  serviceman was killed. Pulled apart by an angry mob of civilians. That ass
  in the White House will have to say something this time."
  "Why was this man killed?" Mueller asked, his voice soft.
 266 DAVID HAGBERG

  "It doesn't matter. He was trying to defend himself, and the crowd went
  berserk. It happens. Mob psychology is a strange phenomenon."
 "You say you want this?"
  "Yes," Reid said. "Of course I do. First the incident in the Tatar
  Strait. Then the airplane crash, which the Japanese will take the blame
  for. Now this latest atrocity, this violent outbreak of anti-American
  sentiment. Soon the bastards will go completely over the edge. Something
  will have to be done, I tell you."
  Mueller could see that Reid almost believed what he was saying. Among
  other things the man was a consummate actor. Glen Zerkel had told him
  that their host had once been a rabid anti-communist and for more than
  thirty years had done everything within his considerable power to keep
  the Cold War alive and well. "His motto is 'In conflict there is
  profit,"' Zerkel had explained.
  "The Soviet Union was America's enemy, but Japan is your ally. It can't
  be so easy this time."
  Zerkel had grinned. "Don't count on it. Mr. R. is what we call a mover
  and a shaker. If he wants to make Japan our enemy, you'd better believe
  it'll happen. I shit you not."
 "But why Japan?" Mueller had asked.
  "I don't know," Zerkel had shrugged. "I really don't. But whatever his
  reasons they'll be good, and there'll be more than one of them. He never
  does anything off the cuff. Before he makes a move he studies it three
  ways to Sunday. He knows what he's doing. He's never been wrong yet."
  "What are you getting out of it?" Mueller had asked. It was early morning
  and they'd crossed paths outside.
  "I get to fight back," Zerkel had said, and Mueller hadn't asked him what
  he meant, because he knew. He felt the same way himself.
 "We'll have to move soon," Mueller told Reid.
  "Louis should be finished by tomorrow, and then we'll know where we
  stand." Reid glanced across the corridor toward the computer room. "The
  FBI has issued a warrant for his arrest in Jeanne Shepard's murder."
                HIGH FLIGHT 267

 "Has he been told?"
  "Not yet. It's going to be difficult moving around the country with him.
  You'll have to be careful."
  "It was necessary in case he tried to back out," Mueller said, but Reid
  held up a hand.
  "I agree one-hundred percent. Nevertheless, we'll have to take care of him
  until he gets everything set up. 1~

  Another thought occurred to Mueller. "Do you think he suspects that once
  he's finished he becomes expendable?"
  "He's not a stupid man, but if he does suspect I haven't seen any signs of
  it."
  "Nor I," Mueller replied absently. Yet there was something different about
  Zerkel since the morning of the crash. As if the man were smirking. As if
  he had a secret.
  "Glen will help you," Reid was saying. "He understands the stakes."
 "Against his own brother?"
 Reid nodded. "Without a moment's hesitation."
  Mueller had no siblings, but he'd always had the vague notion that
  brothers, since they were of the same blood, would be staunch allies.
  Apparently that wasn't always so. He'd learned something new.
  "We'll talk again in the morning," Reid said. "I have to go into the city
  to work on my newsletter."
  "Have you given thought to what will happen afterward?" Mueller asked,
  watching Reid's eyes very carefully.
  "What do you mean?" the older man asked without blinking.
  "I won't be able to return to Europe for some time to come. Possibly
  years."
 "Have you thought about what you want?"
 "Not specifically."
  "I suggest you do so, Herr Mueller. And when you have decided the course of
  your future, we will discuss my role as well as my responsibilities in it."
 "Very well," Mueller said, and Reid left. From the
 268 DAVID HAGBERG

 front window he watched the headlights of Reid's car head down the
 driveway, the night very dark except toward the airport where the accident
 investigation continued. He wondered where his life was heading.

 It was the easiest headline Reid had ever written. He had been building
 up to this one for several months, so he did not think many of his
 readers, including Secretary of State Jonathan Stearnes Carter, would be
 surprised. Some of them, however, would scream for his blood. Everything
 he'd written to date was nothing but the solid-gold truth, as he saw it.
 No one had ever gone wrong, not financially wrong, following his advice.
 Not even his detractors would deny him his track record. People listened.
  He maintained a suite of offices for the Lamplighter at the Grand Hyatt
  Washington, a half-dozen blocks from the White House. The weekly
  newsletter was written completely by him, but it was researched by a
  staff of a dozen people, many of whom had been editors of prison
  newspapers whose prison releases he had sponsored. His staff was
  completely loyal to him.
  At three in the morning, however, he was alone in his office, working at
  his computer. Despite his drunkenness and tiredness, he never felt more
  lucid. His words flowed like a mountain stream-clear, cold, precise, and
  very fast.
  He didn't bother with his notes, or with the latest stack of reports from
  his analysts, but wrote simply and directly from his heart. The passion
  was on him.
  After this was sent to his six-thousand-plus subscribers the present
  relationship between Japan and the United States would change, and the
  change would be dramatic.
  ARE WE WAITING FOR ANOTHER PEARL HARBOR? his head
 line demanded. And he proceeded to tell his readers why
 another Pearl Harbor, this one possibly a strike on the
 Panama - Canal, bottling the Atlantic fleet, would happen.
 Combined with an accident at the mouth of Tokyo Bay,
                HIGH FLIGHT 269

 which would keep the Seventh Fleet from striking, the Japanese MSDF would
 have a free, if short, reign over the western Pacific. Wiser heads would
 prevail, of course, and the little war would be stopped almost
 immediately, but not before Japan got what it wanted, which was economic
 control of the western Pacific basin.
 "It's coming," he warned.

 The NTSB took over an old TWA maintenance hangar across Dulles field from
 the terminal, well away from the public's eye. Some of the wreckage had
 already been transported from the site three miles away, and investigators
 were piecing the airplane back together. It was hard enough making sense
 out of the tangled, burned wreckage without the intrusions of television
 cameras and press photographers. However, each day at noon, a media
 briefing that lasted exactly twenty minutes was held in one comer of the
 hangar. No one cared for the arrangement, but that's the way the Board did
 things.
  Kennedy and Socrates showed up ten minutes after the briefing ended, just
  as Al Vasilanti and Malcolm O'Toole were emerging from one of the office
  trailers set up at the rear of the hangar. Vasilanti had aged ten years
  in the last three days, but O'Toole was an ageless English bulldog, his
  long white hair and muttonchops in total disarray.
  "You just missed the press," Vasilanti told them. "And it's a good thing,
  because they're starting to smell blood."
  All four men shook hands, but Socrates couldn't keep his eyes away from
  the remains of the P522 laid out in pieces like a corpse at a
  post-mortem. He shook his head. "It wasn't my airframe's fault," he
  muttered.
  "It was an engine overheat again," O'Toole said, following the engineer's
  gaze. Pieces of that wing were still being picked up, whereas most of the
  starboard wing had been brought over and reassembled. The absence of the
  port wing and engine made for a stark conclusion.
 "The ceramic blades again?" Socrates asked sharply.
 270 DAVID HAGBERG

  "It would appear so, George. But I'll swear by the Queen Mother that for
  whatever reasons the highpressure blisk turbine overheated, the
  temperatures were well within our design parameters."
 "But the blades broke down?"
  "Yes. It should not have happened, but it did. And it looks as if overheat
  was the case."
  "Could it have been sabotage, Sir Malcolm?" Kennedy asked.
  "I sincerely wish it were, but I've found nothing to indicate that the
  cat's been in the cream."
 "What about the heat sensors?"
  "We've found nothing on the recording tape to indicate a malfunction of the
  port unit. Of course it was completely destroyed. But we've got the
  starboard unit on the bench."
 "Anything?" Kennedy asked.
  Sir Malcolm shook his leonine head sadly. "Functions as designed."
 "Then we're back to 1990," Socrates said bitterly.
  "With one important exception," Kennedy interjected. "In '90 it was our
  first crash. This is the second one, apparently from the same cause. That
  in itself gives us a starting point."
  "Rolls goes back to the Gamma titanium aluminide for its blades," Socrates
  shot back. "We must immediately ground the fleet and retrofit all the
  engines."
  "That will take time and money, neither of which we can afford," Vasilanti
  said. The remark was so uncharacteristic that it stopped everyone dead.
  "But, Mr. Vasilanti, think of the lives that might be lost," Socrates
  protested, recovering first.
  "As long as the FAA does not issue the grounding order, we will quietly
  inspect each engine in the field. Our AOG teams can get the job done within
  the month. The airlines won't object, and they'll keep their mouths shut."
  The AOG-Aircraft on the Ground-team had been Boeing's idea. Airplanes
  grounded because of maintenance problems were bad publicity. So Guerin,
  like
                HIGH FLIGHT 271

 Boeing, fielded rapid-deployment teams of experts who could go anywhere
 at a moment's notice and fix virtually any problem. Each team had
 available to it at least one P522 equipped as a flying spare-parts store,
 machine shop, and electronics repair facility. On more than one occasion
 an AOG team had completely rebuilt a jetliner that had been so heavily
 damaged in an accident or hijacking or shelling by a military force that
 the owners had already contacted their insurance carrier to find out where
 the carcass should be scrapped. In many cases it was the insurance company
 that contacted Guerin.
  "It will take us some time to supply you with replacement blades," Sir
  Malcolm said.
  "I didn't say that we were replacing the blades. We're going to inspect
  each engine. Top to bottom."
 "For what?"
  "Booby traps. Bombs. Remote-control devices on the fuel ports or air
  intake ducts."
  He had their attention now. Especially Socrates and Sir Malcolm.
  "It would answer some fundamental questions, that," the British engine
  designer said.
  "Our AOG teams will go out with a pair of brand-new engines from stock
  so there'll be no chance they will have been tampered with. We'll work
  one airplane at a time. Yank the old engines, replace them with the new,
  and before we move on, tear down the old engines. Sooner or later we'll
  come across another plane ready to blow."
  "If there is another," Sir Malcolm said. "It has been seven years between
  incidents."
  "There'll be another," Kennedy interjected. "Possibly more than one."
 Vasilanti eyed him sharply.
 "What?" Sir Malcolm asked.
  "We can't assume that this crash is an isolated incident. Certain facts
  have come to our attention that lead me to suspect that something like
  this will happen again. Very soon."
 272 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Then I agree with George, ground the fleet. In the meantime, what are
  these certain facts, David?"
 "I'd rather not say at the moment."
  "These are Rolls-Royce engines. We too have a reputation to maintain. Good
  Lord, man, think of the consequences if another of your birds goes down.
  Think of the lives lost."
  "We have," Kennedy said. "Which is why we're glad that you're here. If
  anyone can find out how those engines are overheating, it will be you and
  George."
  Sir Malcolm looked at Kennedy shrewdly, his lips pursed. "There've been
  rumors floating about that your company may be under attack. A hostile
  takeover of one sort or another. Any validity to this?"
  "Possibly," Kennedy said carefully. This was not Rolls-Royce's fight,
  although the company would suffer if Guerin went under. But, if Rolls were
  to be officially notified that a major problem was looming on the, horizon,
  the British government-which controlled the company-might withdraw as
  Guerin's primary engine supplier. That in itself would spell disaster.
 "Would there be a connection to this business?"
  "We hope not, Sir Malcolm, but that too is a possibility we cannot ignore."
  "What a cockup," the Brit said. "Then we'd best shake a leg and keep it in
  the family."

 The riots that began in Tokyo's Akasaka District the next morning had not
 been planned. Japanese newspapers and television over the past month had
 been filled with grisly stories about a young Japanese woman on vacation in
 New York who was raped and killed in Central Park. It was the eleventh
 murder of a Japanese citizen visiting the United States in three years, and
 the public was sick to death of the mindless violence. The neo-fascist
 organization Rising Sun, which wanted control of the Diet and wanted to take
 Japan back to a preWorld War 11 condition of international military might,
 took full advantage of the growing crowds in front of the
                HIGH FLIGHT 273

 Suntory Building and nearby New Otani Hotel. The organization, which was
 an offshoot of the old Red Army faction, was superb. Within twenty minutes
 of hearing the news, the co-founders and leaders Shotoro Ashia and
 Takushiro Hatoyama were exhorting the crowd with bullhorns that their
 enemy was very near. Only blocks away, in fact, in Minato-ku at the U.S.
 Embassy.
  The district, bounded on the northwest by the Akasaka Palace and grounds
  and to the east by the Imperial Palace, was a warren of federal
  government buildings, international business offices, and foreign
  embassies. They were in billionaires' row, and there were more foreigners
  per square hectare here than anywhere else in Japan. Which was perfect,
  so far as Rising Sun was concerned.
  The second step, after agitating the rapidly growing crowd, was to
  produce an old woman who purported to be the mother of the girl killed
  in New York's Central Park last month and the young woman who'd been
  killed yesterday in Yokosuka.
  The girls were sisters, Hatoyama claimed. The old woman's only daughters.
  Both of them brutally murdered by savages.
  Timing the old woman's appearance perfectly, Rising Sun was able to hold
  the crowd from marching on the U.S. embassy until the media showed up so
  that everyone would know what was happening here, and why. When CNN
  arrived the crowd began its march to Minato-ku.
  U.S. Consular Officer Philip Webb was on his way into work and had to
  skirt the still-growing early crowd, which he estimated to contain at
  least ten thousand people. He was off by a factor of ten, but he did get
  their purpose and destination right and managed to get into the embassy
  compound about five minutes ahead of the first wave.
  On hearing what was coming their way, Marine Lieutenant Lloyd Robinson,
  chief of the A.M. security watch, called his CO, Major Bob Richards, CIA
  Assistant Chief
 274 DAVID HAGBERG

 of Station Stephen Pelham, and Special Assistant to the Ambassador Judy
 Bromme, who was the only ranking officer around this morning who could
 speak Japanese.
  The crowd, still orderly despite its size and motivation, filled the
  streets immediately surrounding the embassy and spread in all directions
  as far as the eye could see. One official estimate placed the final
  number of people at one million. No one doubted that figure. Softly the
  crowd began to chant a single word, low, and menacing for its gentleness.
  "What are they saying?" Lieutenant Robinson asked nervously from his post
  within the gates.
  "Wakarimasen, wakarimasen, " Judy Bromme repeated the ominous chant. She
  was frightened. "It means 'I don't understand."'
 "They don't understand what?"
 "I don't know, but I think we'd better find out."

 Washington's rush-hour traffic was in full swing.
  McGarvey waited for Dominique Kilbourne to come out of her office just
  off Thomas Circle a few blocks from the Russian embassy, and he followed
  her across the street to the parking lot where she kept her car. It was
  already dark, cars and buses ran with headlights, and the streetlights
  had come on. She walked as if she were tired, and yet she was wary, even
  jumpy. He'd seen the same sort of attitude in field officers who'd lost
  their nerve, or who'd gone over the edge
 thing.
  She turned and waited for him to catch up. "I saw you standing out here,"
  she said. "Has the Board found anything yet?"
  "No," McGarvey said. He'd spent most of the day at Dulles at the crash
  hangar. It was depressing. "How are you holding up?"
  "I'm keeping busy, if that's what you mean," she said defensively. "But
  I sent your CIA goons away. I got tired of them following me around."
 "Do you still keep all your lights on at night?" he

 . or who were hiding some-                HIGH FLIGHT 275

 asked, cruelly. He wanted to get to her, cut through her bullshit.
  "That's right. And I bought a gun, so I suggest the next time you want
  to see me you call first. I can't guarantee I won't get jumpy and pull
  the trigger by mistake."
  "I could talk to your brother. He'd probably pull you out of here, no
  matter what you'd say about it. He thinks that you should be in Portland
  with him anyway. Kennedy would give you a job."
  She laughed derisively. "I talked to him this afternoon. It's funny, you
  know, because he doesn't like you. He thinks that you're sleeping with
  me."
  When she was excited color came to her cheeks. She was flushed now. He
  decided that she was beautiful.
  "I could arrange to have you arrested and forcibly taken out of
  Washington."
  "It won't happen," she said. "Do you want me to tell you why?"
 "All right."
  "Because you've come here to ask for my help." She looked back across the
  street. "The Japanese are demonstrating in front of our embassy in Tokyo
  right now. Did you know that?"
 "No."
  "They think we're a violent people. They want us to get out of Japan.
  Which is funny, if you think about what they did during the war. Their
  emperor is still apologizing to the Chinese."
 "Now you're afraid of them."
  "That's right, and it's your fault. You pointed out what they were
  capable of doing to us. Now every time I pick up a newspaper or watch a
  television news show, or even go home to my apartment, I think about
  them."
  "It's not the Japanese government, or even the people, only one group of
  old men."
  "What difference does it make who does it if you are violated?" She
  stepped closer so that he could almost feel the heat radiating from her.
  "They're not so far off the track. We are a violent people."
 276 DAVID HAGBERG

 "What happened that night in your apartment?"
 "It got broken into. You found the bugs."
 "Did you recognize them? Were they Japanese?"
  She turned on her heel and went across the parking lot to her low-stung
  yellow Corvette. It suited her.
  McGarvey followed her, even more worried than before. She was a woman
  with a purpose, which in this situation was very dangerous. She had no
  real idea to what depths of savagery people could sink.
  "What makes you think I came here to ask for help?" he said.
  "If you really wanted me out of the way, you would already have arranged
  for my arrest, and I would have been whisked out of Washington to some
  safe house in the country. Isn't that what you people call those kinds
  of places?"
 "Maybe I'll do it myself."
 I 'No. 11

  "I don't want to see you get hurt. Can't you understand that?"
  She unlocked the car, but before she opened the door she gave him a wan
  smile. "What do you want, Mr. McGarvey?"
 "Do you know anybody at Japan Air Lines?"
 "Yes. 11

  "I want you to arrange a meeting for me as soon as possible."
 "For what purpose?"
  "I want to know if they are interested in purchasing a major block of
  shares in Guerin Airplane Company."
 She held her breath, and her eyes widened.
  "Tell them that Guerin is not interested in dealing with Mintori. At
  least not at this time."
  "Do you know what you're saying? Have you talked to David?"
 "How soon can you arrange the meeting?"
  "They'll never agree to talk to you. You'd be wasting your time, and
  you'd be placing Guerin in a difficult position. Do you have any
  loyalties?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 277

  "They were Japanese, the two men who broke into your apartment that
  night, weren't they?"
 Dominique opened the car door.
  "If the Japanese are implicated in the plane crash, it would make you a
  material witness to an act of international terrorism. I know some people
  who would very much like to talk to you about that."
 "I'll set up your meeting tomorrow," she said.

 Edward R. Reid's Georgetown home was set back in a copse off R Street.
 From the rear windows he could look across Oak Hill Cemetery and the
 Potomac River, on the other side of which was the embassy of Japan. The
 irony was not lost on Reid, who stood in the darkness at his bedroom
 window, a glass of whiskey in hand. At long last he had his cause celt>bre
 and the means to do something about it.
  A small noise in the corridor caused him to turn around, and his stomach
  did a slow roll, the liquor rebounding sourly. Bruno Mueller stood at the
  doorway, his slight figure outlined by the dim light filtering from the
  stair hall.
  "Good evening, Mr. Reid," the assassin said pleasantly.
  "What are you doing here?" Reid asked breathlessly. "How did you find
  this place?"
  "You mistrust the telephones, and we must talk before I leave. As for
  finding your house, such things are very simple."
  Reid's hand shook as he set his drink down. He reached for the table
  lamp.
 "No light, please," Mueller cautioned.
  "What do you mean, leaving? Where are you going? Are you quitting?"
  "No, I am not quitting. Louis has completed his studies, and now it is
  time for the next phase."
  "What are you talking about?" Reid asked. He was losing control of the
  operation.
 "Louis and I will go to San Francisco. He tells me that
 278 DAVID HAGBERG

 he needs further information from InterTech. Information that he cannot
 obtain via computer. In the meanwhile, Glen will travel to Portland to see
 what he can find out at Guerin Airplane Company."
 "Traveling together like that will be risky."
 "Yes, it will be."
  "If you're recognized, everything that I have worked for will be
  jeopardized."
  "Yes," Mueller said. "You would probably be arrested. But then you must
  have considered that possibility very carefully before you embarked on this
  scheme. Before you hired me."
  "I don't know," Reid said indecisively. He'd not planned on seeing anybody
  this evening, so he'd not controlled his alcohol intake. He was drunk, and
  it was difficult for him to focus.
  "The problem is we need more data so that we will be able to minimize your
  risks later."
 "I can see that," Reid said.
  "Your plan is very brilliant, let me tell you that, Mr. Reid. But it is
  also very large and very dangerous. If we are successful, which I have no
  doubt we will be, then many very dedicated, very professional people will
  be searching for us with a very great earnestness. I want to be prepared,
  not only for our success, but for the aftermath. Do you understand this as
  well?"
  "Yes, I do," Reid said. For the very first time since he'd begun this
  campaign, as he called it, he was getting a sense of just how large and
  dangerous it really was.

 The President, his National Security Adviser Harold Secor, his Secretary of
 State Jonathan Carter, and his Secretary of Defense Paul Landry were
 gathered in the Oval Office to watch CNN's live broadcast of Japanese Prime
 Minister Ichiro Enchi's speech to the Diet. It was 8:00 A.M. in Washington,
 which made it 10:00 P.m. that evening in Tokyo.
  The White House had been informed late last night that the PM would be
  making what the communiqud termed a "substantive" presentation to the
  parliament.
                HIGH FLIGHT 279

  Within two minutes of the start of Enchi's speech, for which CNN was
  providing a simultaneous translation, Secretary Carter turned to Harold
  Secor and said, "Substantive, my ass. This one's a bombshell."
  "It would appear that an error of navigation, combined with the passions
  of a young crew, ultimately led to the tragedy in the Tatar Strait," the
  Japanese leader said. "The government of Japan deeply regrets the
  incident and the unnecessary loss of lives."
  Prime Minister Enchi looked out at the assembly. "I too add my personal
  sorrow for the suffering the families of the crew of the Russian naval
  vessel are experiencing. I pledge that my government will leave no avenue
  unexplored in its effort to make amends for the loss."
  "He's practically handed them the strait on a silver platter," Secretary
  Landry commented.
  "Question is, what'll they do with it," Carter said, but the President
  waved him off. Prime Minister Enchi was continuing.
  "In this difficult transitional era, none of us must be guilty of the
  errors of pride and complacency. The world has stepped away from the
  brink of thermonuclear war. Let us not relax our vigil, however. Here,
  at home, the unrest in Tokyo and Yokosuka must end."
  Again the Prime Minister looked up for the benefit of the parliament as
  well as the international media. He was a consummate politician.
  "I appeal not only to my people, but to the peoples of the world, for
  patience and understanding. In a measure to alleviate world tensions, to
  step even farther back from the brink of the unthinkable, I am proposing
  a new purpose for the economic summit meeting scheduled for next month
  here in Tokyo. I am offering to take steps that would create a Japanese
  free-trade zone. All trade restrictions will be lifted for a trial period
  of one year.
  "In addition, I would like to invite every nation, not just our friends
  in the United States, but every nation, to attend the summit. No nation
  with goodwill in its heart
 280 DAVID HAGBERG

 will be turned away. We are a family of humankind. Let us begin to be a
 family of friends and equal partners." "Jesus Christ," Harold Secor
 muttered. "You can say that again," the President said.

 TWELVE

 Karl Schey's passport was flagged at Charles de Gaulle Airpo~rt. Once he
 was passed through, a plainclothes Action Service officer by the name of
 Albert Thiers was assigned to track him to his destination.
  The German's name, along with a hundred others, had been placed on the
  red list posted at every airport, railway station, bus terminal, water
  port of entry, and frontier crossing by the SDECE five years ago. Like
  the others, Schey was suspected of having some connection with Stasi.
  Each name that remained on the list was weighted with a number from one
  through ten. One meant that in the opinion of the Service that person was
  considered an important, and probably dangerous, suspect, while a ten
  meant that the Service was interested, but not very.
  Schey's number was seven. Under other circumstances his entry into France
  would have been noted, but he would not have been followed. However,
  since the shootout near Chartres, the Action Service had increased its
  surveillance operations.
  It took him ten minutes to make his way through customs-he had only one
  carry-on bag-and get to the cab ranks in front.
  Thiers knew little about the man, except his number and his nationality,
  but it was obvious that he was, if not wealthy, at least well-to-do. His
  suit was English and expensive, his shoes were probably Spanish or
  Brazilian,
                HIGH FLIGHT 281

 and definitely handmade, and his travel bag was a Gurkha, solid, no
 nonsense, and pricey. So it did not surprise the Action Service officer that
 Schey opted for a cab into the city and not the much cheaper bus.
  Memorizing the taxi's shield number, Thiers motioned for his partner, Paul
  Falli&es, waiting in a dark green Peugeot, to move up.
  "It's the taxi that just pulled out," Thiers said, getting in.
  ,, Anyone important?" Falli&es asked, merging with the light traffic.
 '71 est un numero sept.
 "This will be an easy afternoon, hein?"
  "Oui, but watch that you do not lose him. I don't want to write that kind
  of report."
 "D'accord. "
  The taxi headed into the city at a high rate of speed on the Autoroute
  Nord, turning onto Paris's ring road, the Pdriphdrique, and turning again
  onto the Avenue De Saint-Ouen.
  "Well, at least we're not going to have to chase the bastard into the Left
  Bank."
  Thiers shot his partner a sour look. He'd been a cop all his adult life,
  and now at forty-three he took the business very seriously. In his
  twenty-one-year career he'd lost five partners: one in a fiery auto crash,
  one stabbed to death in a dark corridor of a whorehouse, of all places, and
  the other three shot to death on the streets of Paris. In each case the
  accidents were clearly attributable to laxity.
  "This bastard, as you call him, is a German. And you know what the Germans
  did to us at Chartres. So just watch your step, Paul."
  "What's he doing here in the first place? That's all I'm asking. We go
  along for months without his kind coming over. But Chartres was practically
  an invasion. What I mean is that he's on the red list, even if he's only a
  seven. He knows what happened last week. So why has he come to Paris now,
  of all times?"
 282 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Do you think there may be a connection? Something we should call in?"
  "When you think about it, maybe we should get some help. Look what Bruno
  Mueller did to us down there. Made us all look like fools. The salopard
  mec hid in the attic while we were traipsing around the house. He must
  have had a good laugh listening to us bumping into each other. And then
  he kills one of our men right there in the house, has Gisgard fly him to
  the border, and shoots him in the head."
 "What's your point?" Thiers prompted.
  "We've not heard the last of Colonel Mueller. Everybody agrees to that.
  But the colonel has gone to ground. Now this one shows up. He's only a
  seven, so maybe he figures that he won't attract much attention. Maybe
  he's come here to set something up for Mueller."
  Thiers had learned to trust a cop's instincts. This time, however, he
  didn't believe they had enough to go on.
  "We'll just wait to make that call," he said. "First let's see where this
  one settles in. See if he meets anyone. Maybe he's here on business, or
  maybe on vacation."
  The taxi turned on the Rue D'Amsterdam toward La Madeleine, and Falli&es
  concentrated on his driving as Thiers worked at the idea like a dog
  worried a bone. Mueller wasn't through; he did agree with that. But the
  man would have to be a raving lunatic to think that he could try anything
  so soon on French soil. Every cop in the country was looking for the
  German, and there wasn't one of them who would hesitate to shoot given
  the chance. There'd be a promotion, a pay raise, and a commendation for
  the lucky bastard who gunned the terrorist down.
  Mueller had lost the last of his gang in France, and he had very nearly
  lost his own life. He would seek revenge. If not now sometime in the
  future. It wasn't very likely that Karl Schey had come here to front for
  Mueller. But then again why nQt? It would be interesting to know if any
  others left on the red list had recently crossed into France. Say, within
  the past twenty-four to forty-eight
                HIGH FLIGHT 283

 hours. Paris, like any capital city in the free world, was no fortress.
 The city, and all who lived in her, were vulnerable to attack.
  Service 5 had an enviable record. When there was trouble it was taken
  care of immediately with dispatch and efficiency. Its officers were
  enthused about what they were doing. France was a relatively small nation
  but shared borders with Spain, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy.
  In addition she had, in effect, three separate seacoasts: the
  Mediterranean, the Bay of Biscay, and the English Channel. It was a lot
  of territory to cover, but bad people who tried to operate in France were
  dealt with.
  Thiers had lost his last partner three years ago. Ever since then he'd
  held a pact with himself that he would not lose another. He would
  accomplish this by being very careful.
  The taxi turned east on Rue Saint-Honor6 and circled the block to the Rue
  De Castiglione, stopping in front of the elegant old Hotel
  Inter-Continental around the corner from the Tuileries gardens. A doorman
  helped Schey out of the cab and took his bag. Together they went into the
  hotel. A half-minute later the cab took off. Falli&es had waited in front
  of the Godiva chocolate shop next door, and as soon as the cab was gone
  he pulled ahead to the hotel. Thiers got out and went inside.
  Three stairs up, a broad hall led to the right into the long, narrow,
  ornately decorated lobby. Thiers waited before he approached the desk
  until the German registered and left with a bellman. He showed the clerk
  his SDECE identification card.
  "What is the name of the gentleman who just now registered, please?"
 "Karl Schey. Is there a problem, Monsieur?"
 "What room did you give him?"
 "Four-oh-five."
  "I will require the use of an adjacent room. Left or right, it makes no
  difference. But not across the corridor."
 284 DAVID HAGBERG

  The clerk quickly checked the register. "I am sorry, Monsieur, but three
  and seven are both currently occupied."
 "Empty one of those rooms," Thiers said.
  "Of course," the clerk said, his thin lips compressing. He checked the
  register again. "You may have four-ohseven. Do you wish it to be made up?"
 :'That won't be necessary."
  'It'll be just a few minutes. Can you say how long you will need use of the
  room?"
 "How long is Herr Schey staying with you?"
 :'Two days."
 Jhen we will need the room for two days."
  Can you tell me, Monsieur, if there is a danger to our guests?" the clerk
  asked quietly.
  "Absolutely no danger. The Service simply has an interest in Herr Schey's
  movements while he is in Paris. Nothing more. Give me the key, if you
  please, and I will wait five minutes before I ascend."
  The clerk handed over a key, and Thiers went back to Falli~res waiting in
  the car. "We have an adjacent room. Four-oh-seven."
  "Let's call Lebrun and tell him what we are doing here," Falli&es
  suggested. "I don't know about you, but suddenly I have a chill about this
  one."
  "Use the radio and then come up." Thiers went back into the hotel, where he
  waited unobtrusively in the lobby until the clerk nodded to him that it was
  clear to go upstairs.
  The room was small but very nicely decorated with an antique armoire and a
  modern, well-equipped bathroom. It looked down into a cours, which in
  summer was alive with flowers and fountains. Peaceful.
  Thiers carefully opened his side of the connecting door to four-oh-five and
  listened. At first he could hear nothing, but then a toilet was flushed. An
  old man's bladder, he thought irreverently. The room fell silent again for
  a minute or two, until Schey began to speak. Thiers strained to catch the
  words, but he could make
                HIGH FLIGHT 285

 out nothing, except that the German was probably talking to someone on the
 telephone.
  Falli&es knocked at the hall door, and Thiers let him in.
  ,, Schey is speaking on the telephone. Call downstairs and see if you can
  find out if he is connected to someone inside the hotel or to a number
  outside."
  Falli&es got on the telephone, and Thiers listened again at the connecting
  door. Schey spoke a single word, that sounded to Thiers like oui, and the
  room was silent until there was another sound, metallic. The security chain
  on Schey's door.
  Thiers hastily closed the connecting door and opened the hall door a crack
  in time to see the German heading down the corridor.
 "It was an outside call," Falli&es said, hanging up.
 "He's on the move!"
 "Merde. "
  Schey disappeared around the comer, and Thiers rushed out into the
  corridor. "We'll take the stairs." He headed in a dead run down the hall to
  the SORTIE sign. Thank God the German hadn't taken a room on one of the
  upper floors. He frankly didn't know if his legs would be capable of
  descending ten or fifteen stories.
  They reached the ground floor as Schey crossed the lobby. A corridor to the
  right went past the hotel bar and restaurant and then to the street doors,
  bypassing the lobby. Thiers and Falli6res took that route.
  Advertising posters were placed behind glass display units on the corridor
  walls. At the comer they watched Schey's reflection in the Moulin Rouge
  announcement go down the stairs and turn left outside toward the Place de
  Vend6me.
  "I'll cross the street and double-tail him from the front," Thiers said as
  they hurried downstairs. "Keep your distance in the rear, but don't lose
  him."
  'Vaccord, " Falli6res agreed, and outside they immediately separated.
 Schey was already twenty-five meters ahead of them.
 286 DAVID HAGBERG

 At the comer he turned left on the much wider Rue Saint-Honor6. He moved
 as if he were a man in no particular hurry, heading to no particular
 destination. Nevertheless, Thiers had to hustle to cross the broad street
 then go left across the avenue to maintain his position. It became.
 evident almost immediately that the old man was a professional- He varied
 his pace, he stopped at the odd moment to look at something in a shop
 window, sometimes he got ahead of a fellow pedestrian and remained there
 for a dozen meters, at other times he remained behind another for a like
 distance, and once he even stopped in his tracks, turned back as if he had
 forgotten something, pondered it for a moment, then decided against
 retracing his steps, turned back, and continued his stroll.
  What was not immediately evident, however, to either Thiers or Falli~res,
  was whether the German suspected that he was being followed, or if these
  were the normal precautions of an old field man. But an old field man
  from what service? Did the Action Service suspect that this might be one
  of the moles in the BND? Schey was an old man. Very probably he was
  retired, which might explain his low rating on the red list. But then
  what the hell was he doing practicing his tradecraft here in Paris?
 The German reached a small caf6 and went inside.
  Thiers was across the street and three doors away. He motioned for
  Fallii-res to follow the German inside, then waited for a break in
  traffic so he could cross over.
  The interval between the time Schey entered the caf6 and the time Thiers
  got there was less than one minute, but already the old man was seated
  with a man of similar age at a small table near the back. Falli~res stood
  at the end of the bar nearest the door. The barman poured him a glass of
  white wine. Thiers took the place next to him, from where he could get
  a good look at Schey and the man he'd come to meet.
 "Monsieur?" the barman asked.
 " Un caf6, s'il vous plait."
 "Un espres?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 287

 "Oui, - Thiers said, and the barman left.
  "That one with the German, I have seen his face," Falli~res said softly.
 "Yes, who is he?"
  "His name is tduoard Capet. Until very recently he was the number three or
  four man with Airbus Industrie here in Paris."
 "How do you know this, Paul?"
  "He was on television last week. It was his retirement. He said the airline
  company would fail unless the Germans were given a much bigger part. It
  made me think at the time that the bastard should have been with our
  compatriots at Chartres if he was so much in love with the G6rmans."
  Thiers watched the two old men for a few moments. Capet was a Frenchman. It
  made Thiers sick to see him sucking up to the German that way.
  "What did Lebrun say?" Thiers asked. Louis Lebrun was their division
  supervisor.
 "Nothing. Just tail and report."
  "Call him again, Paul. This time I think we need help. I want to know why
  this bastard is here."

 Lduoard Capet was saying something, and Schey was listening, but his
 attention was drawn to the two men at the end of the bar near the door. They
 looked as if they did not belong. He hadn't noticed them when he'd come in,
 but then he hadn't been on his guard. Not really. And now, was he simply
 being paranoid?
  Since Mueller's visit, Schey had done a lot of serious thinking. Whatever
  Edward Reid was involved with was very large. Talking to his old friend
  some months ago he'd been struck by how excited the American had been.
  The fact was that they were old men. Time now to retire from a business
  that was, in any event, all but played out. No enemies left these days. No
  causes to struggle for. Nothing to be gained by spying, except ... what?
  Excitemf.-nt? Money? Schey supposed he'd had enough of both in his
  lifetime. Yet something in Reid's
 288 DAVID HAGBERG

 voice, in his eyes had been stimulating, portending something important.
 Capet had confirmed Schey's suspicions that whatever was afoot might
 involve Guerin Airplane Company. The Japanese were on the verge of making
 a move against the firm. And considering what had happened last week in
 the Tatar Strait, Reid might be in over his head and might need help.
  One of the two men at the end of the bar left while the other sipped his
  coffee. They were nobody.

 Falli~res came back from using the telephone in the tobacco shop next
 door. He sipped his white wine. "We have two teams on their way here for
 backup, a third on the way to see what secrets the old man may have
 stashed in his room, and the fourth to the telephone junction box beneath
 the street."
  "Not bad for a seven," Thiers replied. The German had looked over as Paul
  was leaving, and again just now when he'd returned. Was there an
  awareness there, or simply idle curiosity?
  "I got their attention because of Airbus Industrie. Louis says they're
  practically shitting in their pants at the Elysde Palace. Any connection
  with those salaud Germans and they want to know all about it immedi-
  ately."
 "Who is this German, did they say?"
 "A BND general," Falli~res said. "But he is retired."
  "Maybe not," Thiers said absently. Something here, or were they chasing
  butterflies?

 Schey headed back to his hotel. The day was mild and the sun quite
 pleasant. Capet was a fool, but he had provided a valuable insight about
 the international commercial airplane industry that had never occurred to
 Schey. There were only four companies in the world that designed and built
 the big jets, and all of them were in one sort of trouble or another
 because the international airline industry was in trouble. It wasn't as
 if the entire industry were going to fall apart tomorrow, but the
                 HIGH FLIGHT 289

 correct nudge-it would not have to be a very big nudge-at the correct time
 could bring down even the largest of the players. If Reid were involved in
 such a scheme, Schey wanted to be a part of it. One last fling.
  They would have to move with care. Capet had provided another insight as
  well. The air-plane industry was so big that entire national governments
  were heavily involved. Fighting Guerin would involve fighting Washington.
  Capet, who had risen so well within the Airbus Industrie based in part on
  intelligence that Schey had provided him, had been more than happy to
  cooperate. " Whatever you are involved with these days, my old friend, move
  with caution. My fellow Frenchmen are just now very wary of anything
  German."
  Schey stopped in front of a small shop selling men's accessories and peered
  in the window at a display of brightly colored neckties. The sidewalk and
  street behind him were reflected in the glass. The two men from ,the end of
  the bar were nowhere in sight. There was nothing behind him but normal
  traffic, and yet Schey was spooked. What the hell was it?
  Turning abruptly on his heel, he crossed to the other side of the street
  and continued at a brisk pace the last couple of blocks back toward the
  hotel. At the comer of the Rue De Castiglione, he stopped again and looked
  in a shop window. Still nothing seemed suspicious behind him.
  The hotel was barely a half-block away. Two gaudily uniformed doormen stood
  talking at the curb. A taxicab was pulled up in the front, and the street
  was partially blocked by a City Engineering truck. Hazard cones were placed
  around an open manhole cover. Sewer problems? Paris was famous for them.
  Schey hesitated a few moments longer, then turned, crossed the street, and
  entered a phone booth. He slid his credit card into the slot, and as he
  waited for the dial tone he watched the city truck. There were no workers
  in sight. They were probably beneath the street. Like moles
 290 DAVID HAGBERG

 burrowing into their tunnels, The French were basically nothing more than
 animals. Subhuman, at best.

 "He's in the phone box across the street from you," Louis Lebrun radioed.
 "Stand by for the locator code."
  "He is not calling from the hotel," tmile Pepin relayed the message to his
  fellow technician, CIdment Deschanel. They were in the tunnel beneath the
  street. The hotel's telephone junction box was open. "It's the phone booth
  across the street."
  "Shit," Deschanel swore. "What's the number?" He unscrewed the six
  fasteners that held the adjacent junction-box cover in place. Several
  hundred telephones connected to the trunk line from the one box.
  "Just a second, it's coming," Pepin said. He was a short, slightly built,
  nervous man. He looked like a ferret.
  Deschanel set the j unction-box cover aside and moved his test set over
  from the hotel's connector board. Leads connected the monitor set to a
  two-way radio that would send anything picked up to a tape recorder above
  in the truck.
  Pepin relayed the telephone box number. His partner quickly found the two
  terminals and connected his leads. Immediately they could hear telephone
  conversation between Schey and another man.
 "Who am I speaking with?" Schey asked.
 "I am a friend of Mr. R. Who are you?"
  "I am also a friend of Mr. Reid. When will he be available?"
 "How do I know who you are?"
  "The fact I know this number should be proof enough for you," Schey said,
  obviously irritated. "Tell him an old Luger friend from Munich has called
  to ask about Bruno. Is he there with you?"
  The line was dead for several moments, and Deschanel pressed the earphones
  closer to his ears. He could still hear the hiss of the long-distance
  connection. The two men spoke English. He was betting Schey was talking
  with someone in the United States.
                HIGH FLIGHT 291

 "He's not here. He left last night."
  "I see," Schey said. "Now tell me, please, when Mr. Reid will be
  available at this number?"
  "He's i n the city now, but he should be coming back out here tonight."
 "Tell h I m . . ." Schey said, but then he stoppod.
  Again Deschanel held the earphones closer, and he thought he was hearing
  the sounds of a computer printer in the background. Not above in the
  telephone box, but at the distant number.
  "Tell Mr. Reid that I will come there to see him. Tell him to make the
  usual arrangements."
 "When are you coming?"
 "Soon, but I'm not sure. I may have picked up a tail."
  "Don't come here!" the younger man said. He was suddenly extremely
  agitated. "Don't lead anyone here! Are you calling from a secure number?"
  "Yes," Schey said. "And do not worry. I will lead no one to you. Talk to
  Mr. Reid. He will tell you."
 "Jesus," the younger man said. "What do you want?"
  "To help with ... the project. It sounds to me as if you need help."
  "Jesus," the American said again, and the connection was broken.

 Action Service Colonel Phillipe Marquand met with Tom Lynch, chief of the
 Paris CIA station, shortly after 6:00 P.m. at a caf6 on the Left Bank near
 the Sorbonne. Lynch was a much smaller, fairer man, who'd lived in Paris
 nearly four years yet could not speak decent French. Marquand didn't have
 much respect for the man, only for his position.
  "We need some help from Langley, possibly from the FBI," Marquand said.
  "Is this a formal request, Colonel?" Lynch asked. Ifso, why not go
  through proper channels?
 . "Yes, it is. A German we have been following may be preparing to travel
 to Washington. He is, or was, in the business, and he may believe that his
 movements are being monitored."
 292 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Who is this man?"
  "His name is Karl Schey. Until recently he worked for the West German
  Secret Service. But we have reason to believe that the man in actuality
  worked for the Stasi as an undercover agent."
  Lynch glanced toward the front of the restaurant where his bodyguard was
  waiting. "Has this, by chance, anything to do with the incident last week
  at Chartres?"
  11 There is a possible connection," Marquand said. He passed a small
  package to the American. "We monitored a portion of a telephone call that
  Monsieur Schey made to the United States. As near as we were able to
  determine, the call was placed to a number somewhere in the vicinity of
  Washington, D.C. In the conversation he speaks two names. One is Mr.
  Reid, and the other is Bruno."
 "Bruno Mueller?" Lynch asked.
  Marquand shrugged. "We do not know, but it is possible that Schey is
  somehow connected with Mueller. And now there may be a connection between
  Mueller and Schey with Mr. Reid. Do you know this last name?"
  " No," Lynch admitted. "But Schey could be innocent, and therefore his
  call harmless."
  11 1 lost some good men at Chartres. If Mueller is in the United States
  working on a project, I can guarantee it will be big and splashy."
 "Our FBI is on the ball, Colonel."
  Marquand nodded. "Please pass along my request to your director of
  operations. It is our understanding that Monsieur Schey will be making
  his move soon."
  "Why don't you hand this over to your Washington bureau?"
 "We don't spy in your country, Mr. Lynch."
  Lynch picked up the package and pocketed it. "Is this a tape of the
  telephone conversation?"
 :'Yes."
 'I'll see what we can do for you."
  "Merci, " Marquand said. He watched as Lynch got up and left the caf6.
  The man was a buffoon. He hoped that whoever came over next would be
  better.
 THIRTEEN

 The meeting is set for 5:00 this afternoon," Dominique Kilbourne said on the
 telephone.
 "Where?" McGarvey asked. He was at his hotel across the street from the
 Watergate.
  "Japan Air Lines. On Connecticut Avenue, not far from my office."
 "Who will I be meeting?"
  Dominique hesitated a moment. She was under a strain. McGarvey heard it in
  her voice. He'd telephoned Kennedy and warned the airline executive what he
  was going to do. Kennedy had not been happy, but he agreed to go along with
  whatever McGarvey asked.-Since the crash everybody from Portland had become
  desperate for a solution. Any solution.
  "I spoke with David this morning," she said. "He told me to give you
  anything you needed."
 "But?"
 "It's so goddamned futile."
  "Why don't you tell me what happened that night at your apartment,
  Dominique?" McGarvey said. "I could come over now. Or we could go someplace
  where we could talk."
  "You'll be meeting with Arimoto Yamagata, a special representative from the
  airline. He arrived from Tokyo a few days ago."
 "What did you tell him?"
  "That you are a special assistant to Mr. Vasilanti, and that you wished to
  speak with someone in authority from JAL."
 "What else?"
 "Nothing else. I was put through to Mr. Yamagata. It
 294 DAVID HAGBERG

 almost seemed like he was expecting the call. He agreed without discussion."
 "What do you know about him?"
  "Not a thing," Dominique admitted. "I asked a few friends in the business,
  but all they could tell me is that he showed up at JAL sometime last week,
  apparently to open up new North American markets and discuss an equipment
  acquisition plan. No one at Guerin, or at Boeing or McDonnell Douglas, has
  heard from him so far."
 "Who else will be at the meeting?"
  "His English sounded perfect, so I'm not expecting a translator. But it's
  anyone's guess. After what's been happening in Tokyo this week, and the
  Prime Minister's announcement, the Japanese have become even more difficult
  to read than they usually are."
 "I'd like to see you afterward," McGarvey said.
 "I'll see you at the meeting."
 "I don't think so."
  "It's part of the deal. Yamagata is expecting me. If I don't show up he'll
  want to know why."
 "He would be too polite to ask."
 "But he would want to know why.,,
  She had developed a real case for the Japanese, and she was putting herself
  into the middle of something she could not fully understand. He decided
  that it was coming time to get her out of the way.

 "Guerin has a great security setup, Mr. R.," Glen Zerkel said. "But with
 eighty thousand employees in a halfdozen sites, even the best security is
 loose."
 "Can you get in without detection?" Reid asked.
  "No problem. I can think of several ways of doing it. I could apply for a
  job, and there's a good chance I'd get one. Word is out that they're
  hiring. Or I could have a plant security badge made up. Or, hell, I could
  sneak under the fence practically day or night."
 "What's your question?"
  Zerkel shrugged his narrow shoulders. His hair was getting long already,
  and his moustache was coming
 HIGH FLIGHT 295

 back. Reid thought he looked like a street bum, or like a goddamned hippie.
  "I understand what Louis is doing, and what you want Bruno to do for us,
  but what I don't understand is why I'm screwing around Portland. Every day
  I'm out there means I'm a day closer to arrest. You gotta know, man, that
  sooner or later my luck is going to run out. Mr. R., I've been a damned
  good soldier. Don't use me as cannon fodder. Tell me what you want, and
  I'll figure out a way of doing it."
 "Are you losing your nerve?"
  Zerkel smiled wanly. "No, Mr. R., the reason I came back is because I
  wanted to get from you what I'm supposed to be doing. Mueller is a pro, but
  I can't get inside his skull. I don't know where he's coming from. He's not
  ... American, do you know what I mean?"
  "Of course I do, Glen. And it's my fault that you're not clear on what your
  role is. And it's important. We could not hope to have any success without
  you."
 "Don't stroke me."
  Reid looked over the rim of his glass at the younger man. The past
  twenty-four hours had been difficult. First Mueller's unexpected appearance
  at the Georgetown house, then Glen's return, and finally Karl's enigmatic
  telephone call from Paris had all served to put him off balance. It was far
  too late for second thoughts, but despite his excitement about what the
  Japanese were doing to themselves, he was frightened.
 "I want you to return to Portland."
 "To do what?"
  "We'll need photographs of Guerin's installations. All of them, including
  their Gales Creek Research Facility. We're going to need maps, floor plans
  if you can come up with them safely, and shift-change schedules, security
  measures, vendor deliveries
 stand what we're after?"
 "Knowledge," Zerkel said.
  "That's right. The more we know about them, the easier it'll be for us to
  strike if my first plan doesn't work out."

 . all of it. Do you under- 296 DAVID HAGBERG

  "And get away," Zerkel said. "Let's not forget that part, Mr. R."

 San Francisco held the key to unlocking the connection between the
 Japanese group targeting Guerin and the technical device that they'd
 designed to do the job. But San Francisco was also at the center of the
 search for the murderer of Dr. Jeanne Shepard. Mueller's plan was to move
 with extreme caution, as far as this was possible traveling with Louis,
 by minimizing their exposure to the city. Louis needed information, and
 Mueller was going to get it for him as quickly and as efficiently as
 possible.
  They'd flown to Reno via Denver where Mueller rented a Ford Thunderbird.
  He traveled under the Michael Larsen identification Reid had supplied.
  Louis used papers his brother gave him under the name David Wolff. With
  his hair cut and bleached, glasses perched on the end of his nose, and
  a sport coat and properly knotted tie, Zerkel was a new man
  -unrecognizable. Mueller could almost forget the man's eccentricities.
  On the flight west, and then the two-hundred-mile drive up to San
  Francisco, Zerkel was mostly silent, either dozing or watching out the
  window or reading the more than a dozen magazines and newsletters he'd
  brought along.
  Mueller took Interstate 880 into Oakland, exiting a few blocks from the
  Convention Center, and drove back to a Holiday Inn near the airport. He
  rented one of the suites for seven days, paying for it with a Michael
  Larsen Visa card. The hotel was exactly what he wanted: plastic, modern,
  indifferent, thoroughly American, and there-fore anonymous. They were a
  pair of businessmen from out of town who enjoyed their privacy in a bit
  of modest luxury. No one paid them the slightest attention.
  "We're about fifteen miles from the Alameda office," Zerkel told Mueller
  when they got up to their room.
 "When can you get into the computer?"
  "Soon as I'm set up. But I'm going to have to take it slow. There'll be
  alarms now."
                HIGH FLIGHT 297

 "Alarms?"
  Zerkel looked up, an odd, resigned expression on his face. "Yeah." He
  snatched a copy of Newsweek from his briefcase and tossed it over. "Page
  thirty-eight," he said, and he turned back to his laptop computer, his
  fingers flying over the keyboard.
  The article about Dr. Jeanne Shepard's brutal rape and murder was included
  in a series of brief news clips under the heading "The Nation." Police were
  searching for Louis Zerkel, who was described as a troubled computer
  genius. Photographs of Dr. Shepard and Zerkel ran side by side.
  "The doctor's elimination was necessary," Mueller said indifferently. It
  didn't make much difference to him. If Zerkel continued to work out, he
  would live. If he did not, his body would be found in the morning.
  "You have my cooperation, Herr Mueller," Zerkel said. "But you are crude.
  Killing me won't be quite so easy, you know. What do you think about that?"
  "Nobody has any intention of killing you. We need your services."
 "Yes, you do. Even more than you think."
 "You have a built-in safeguard somewhere?"
  Zerkel smiled. "Of course. Don't you?" Zerkel went back to his computer.
  Mueller wasn't surprised, though he supposed he should warn Reid. But
  whatever Zerkel had set up could only harm the others. They had everything
  to lose, whereas he had nothing. He could contemplate his own death with
  almost as much indifference as he could another's. That fatalism had always
  been his main strength, which, combined with his tradecraft, made him very
  good.
  If this project could be taken to a successful conclusion, and if Reid made
  good on his promise, then retirement was possible, perhaps in the South
  Pacific. If not, he would see just how far it could play. The thought of
  many airplanes, each carrying dozens, perhaps hundreds of innocent
  passengers going down on the same
 298 DAVID HAGBERG

 day stirred the edge of his emotions with an erotic promise.
  "Take care then, with what you are doing," Mueller said, but Zerkel had
  connected his computer to the telephone and was lost in the data stream
  flowing across his screen.
  Mueller went into the bathroom where he stripped and showered. The hot
  water relaxed his muscles after the long trip from Washington, and when
  he turned the stream to all cold, his body screamed in the joy of agony.
  He was alive. The French had not been worthy opponents. All of his adult
  life he'd been trained to take the fight to America. He was here now, and
  he was finally taking it to them. He was going to enjoy every moment of
  it.
  When he'd dressed in fresh clothes, Mueller went back into the sitting
  room. Zerkel was staring at the blank computer screen, his lips pursed.
 "Did you find what you needed?"
  "No," Zerkel replied absently. "InterTech's mainframe is alarmed, just
  like I thought it would be. But it's different."
 "What do you mean?"
  Zerkel shook his head. "Just different. Better than I thought,but ... I
  don't know." He was grappling for a word.
 "Foreign?" Mueller prompted.
 The younger man looked up.
 "Japanese?"
  "Yes. That's it. The Japs are in. It must be something they cooked up."
  "It might mean that you are on the right track after all."
  "There was never any doubt of it," Zerkel said. "They're running scared.
  What do you think about that?"
  "What do you need from the company?" Mueller asked.
 "The schematic for that module."
 "How about the actual unit itself?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 299

  This time Zerkel looked up with interest. "What do you mean?"
  "Wouldn't it be better if you had one of the subassemblies? The entire
  unit?"
 "Of course."
  "If you are having trouble getting into the computer, which is what they
  expect, maybe getting into the warehouse would be easier."
 "I wouldn't know where to look."
 "Who would?" Mueller asked.
  Zerkel shrugged. "My boss, Bob Sutherland. He'd know."
 "Do you know where he lives?"
  "Yeah," Zerkel said. "As a matter of fact I do. But he won't tell us
  anything. I know him. He's definitely management. He'd turn me over to the
  cops in a New York minute."
  "Allow me to worry about that aspect, Louis. Tell me, how big is this
  device, whatever it is? Do you know?"
 "No.,,
  "Would it weigh hundreds of kilos? Would it be difficult for us to pick up
  and carry?"
  "Nothing like that," Zerkel said. "The CPU and its associated circuitry
  probably fit inside an inch-and-ahalf rack. Like a drawer on slides
  eighteen inches on a side and an inch-and-a-half tall. We may or may not
  supply the cable harness that would lead out, to the sensors on the
  engines, which in turn would be mounted on some sort of lightweight frame.
  The whole enchilada-the processor, the harness, and the sensor frame-would
  probably fit into a medium-size suitcase. Maybe weigh eight or ten kilos."
  "Then we will ask Mr. Sutherland to help us acquire the device."
  Zerkel looked at him owlishly. "You will have to kill him afterward."
 Mueller shrugged.
  "He has a wife and children. They would have to be killed if they got in
  the way."
 "Do you have a problem with that, Louis?"
 300 DAVID HAGBERG

  Zerkel thought about it for a moment, then shook his head, the expression
  on his face serious, but boyish. "No, I've got no problem with that."

 It was obvious to McGarvey that Dominique Kilbourne was even more strained
 than she had sounded on the telephone this morning. Her complexion was
 sallow and her eyes were red-rimmed even behind makeup. McGarvey had spoken
 again about her with David Kennedy, but with everything going on the
 airplane executive left the decision of what to do about her up to McGarvey.
 The crash and subsequent grinding investigation, under the glare of the
 media spotlight, had pushed everything else into the background, including,
 for the moment, Guerin's deal with the Russians, McGarvey's investigation,
 and Dominique's fears.
  "Everyone has a job to do" were Kennedy's parting words. "Get on with it."
  "You don't have to come to this meeting, Dominique," McGarvey said.
  "It's what I'm paid to do. I said it before, and I'll say it again-a lot of
  companies besides Guerin depend on me to keep their best interests at
  heart."
  "This has nothing to do with your work. I'm looking for reactions, nothing
  more." She was brittle, McGarvey thought. Like a porcelain doll with stress
  fractures. "I'll send you back in the cab."
 "Don't you do it!"
 "You don't belong in this fight."
  "I'm already in too deep," Dominique said carefully. She was holding her
  emotions in check. Nothing like an hysterical female to turn off her
  warrior. McGarvey could almost see her head working. .
  "That's my point. If you can't give me the truth, then you're less than
  worthless to me. In fact you're dangerous."
  "It's the same in my business. The people I have to deal with on the Hill
  sometimes don't know the meaning of the word."
                HIGH FLIGHT 301

 "Tell me about that night at your apartment."
  Dominique looked at him through lidded eyes. "Later," she said. "After
  we meet with Yamagata I'll tell you everything you want to know."
  The cabby let them off in front of the Japan Air Lines offices on
  Connecticut Avenue near St. Matthew's Cathedral. It was dusk and
  rush-hour traffic was getting into full swing. The new Congress had been
  in session for less than a month, and a muted hum seemed to permeate the
  atmosphere in the capital city. The United States was the only remaining
  superpower, which seemed to give the rest of the world sniping rights.
  Most of official Washington was kept very busy because of it.
  They were directed to a third-floor reception area that was stunningly
  decorated in a mix of Japanese traditional and stark Western modem.
  Chrome and glass intermingled with lacquered wood and rice-paper screens
  gave a surprisingly peaceful feel to the offices and open areas. Indirect
  lighting simulated sunlight, which heightened the pleasant effect.
  A tall, very handsome Japanese man, dressed impeccably in a well-tailored
  Italian silk suit, came down a broad corridor to them. He was smiling.
  "Good afternoon, Mr. McGarvey, Ms. Kilbourne. Welcome to Japan Air Lines.
  My name is Arimoto Yamagata."
  "Good afternoon. Thank you for seeing us on such short notice," Dominique
  said stiffly. She handed the Japanese her business card. "As I explained
  to you on the telephone, Mr. McGarvey is here as a spokesperson for
  Guerin Airplane Company."
  Yamagata shook hands with Dominique and then with McGarvey and handed
  them both his business card. It identified him as a special
  representative of the president of JAL. "We are in similar positions, Mr.
  McGarvey." His English was perfect.
 "Harvard or Yale?" McGarvey asked.
  Yamagata smiled. "Harvard actually," he said. "Class of eighty."
 302 DAVID HAGBERG

 "You don't look that old."
  The Japanese chuckled. "Thanks for that. I am, but I work at it."
 "What brings you to America just now?"
  "To meet with people such as yourself, Mr. McGarvey. You jumped the gun on
  me, I wasn't quite ready to set up shop. But I'm happy to start with you.
  Guerin is a fine company with an outstanding record."
 "Yes, it is."
  Yamagata's expression darkened. "If you will permit me to be un-Japanese
  for a moment, I will express my sorrow at your unfortunate loss. It was the
  hand of God, and everyone at JAL shares my condolences to you."
  The man was a fool or very intelligent. Either way, McGarvey figured he was
  potentially dangerous. "Our engineers are working on the possibility that
  our aircraft was sabotaged."
 "God in heaven," Yamagata said softly.
  "One of the passengers may have been carrying a bomb."
 "One of your own people?"
  "Perhaps a Russian. The flight originated in Moscow."
  The Japanese was shaking his head. "What would they have to gain?"
  "We don't know, Mr. Yamagata. No demands were made. Nor has anyone made
  contact with us to admit responsibility."
 Dominique stood still, a blank expression on her face.
  "When we heard that you were in Washington I was instructed to meet with
  you as quickly as possible and convey two messages, the first of which
  concerned the crash.
  "You knew that I had come to Washington, as well as my purpose in coming?"
  "Everybody in the industry knows, Mr. Yamagata. It's become a small
  planet."
  "Indeed," the Japanese replied, his expression unreadable. "What of the
  second message?"
 Two men who sat together in deep discussion across
                HIGH FLIGHT 303

 the large reception room glanced toward them. "Could we go someplace more
 private?"
  "Of course. Forgive me. I was about to invite you to have something to
  drink and then bring you back to my office. But what you have told me has
  caught me off balance."
  I'll bet it has, MeGarvey thought. "Nothing to drink for us. Just a few
  moments of your time in private, Mr. Yamagata. Then we have another
  appointment to keep. You understand how it is."
  "Certainly," the Japanese said. He led them out of the reception area to an
  expansive comer office with large windows that looked down Connecticut
  Avenue toward the White House. Photographs on the broad desk showed a
  pretty woman and three children.
 "Your family?" McGarvey asked, as they sat down.
  Yamagata glanced at the photos. "Actually this is our Washington director's
  office. The photographs are his."
  "Pretty," McGarvey said, and he caught the slight look of irritation that
  crossed Yamagata's face.
 "Yes, they are."
  "The second message is a difficult one, Mr. Yamagata. Difficult for us as
  well as, for you. We're asking that you keep what I'm about to tell you in
  strict confidence."
 "Naturally."
  "If it were to be known publicly, it could create additional trouble for
  us. Something we don't need at this point."
 "I understand. Please continue."
  McGarvey glanced at Dominique for effect, then smiled ingratiatingly. "The
  thing is we believe that a group of Japanese businessmen are getting ready
  to take us over. To buy us out."
  Yamagata's eyes narrowed. "I can't imagine why you are telling me this, Mr.
  McGarvey, but do you know who these men are?"
  "The Mintori Assurance Corporation." McGarvey watched the man's eyes, but
  there was no reaction.
 "What is it you are asking us?"
 "For help," McGarvey said.
 304 DAVID HAGBERG

 "With what?"
  Again McGarvey glanced over at Dominique as if he were looking for
  reassurances, but she said nothing. Her lack of reaction couldn't have
  been better if they rehearsed it. He was in trouble and on his own.
  "Japan Air Lines is in a very strong position, unlike so many of our own
  carriers. We would like to explore the possibilities of what we might
  call a silent partnership."
  "JAL's cash or loan guarantees to keep the Mintori group at bay, in
  return for what?"
  "The first crack at our P/C2622, with a healthy share of stock options
  for a delivery guarantee at a favorable price we could both live with."
  "You want to sell us some airplanes that for a time will not be offered
  for sale to any other airline?"
  "That is the possibility my company would like to explore."
  The Japanese looked at McGarvey with disdain. "The rumor is that Guerin
  Airplane Company has made an offer to the Russian government."
  "To build a component assembly facility in Moscow," McGarvey said. "I
  must compliment you on your source of intelligence."
 "The Russian government is unstable."
  "We would save a very significant portion of the cost per aircraft if the
  Moscow facility works out."
  Yarnagata fell silent for a long moment, his expression unchanging. "What
  specifically are you asking me today?"
  "is JAL interested in principle in opening such a dialogue?"
  "Frankly I don't know," the Japanese said. He sat forward slightly.
  "Would Guerin be interested, in principle, in the same sort of dialogue
  with a group other than JALT'
  "I don't know," McGarvey replied carefully. "Would this group have any
  connection with Mintori?"
 "None."
 "Who are they?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 305

 "The Kobe Bank."
  Gotcha, you bastard, McGarvey thought. "I'll take your offer back to my
  people in Portland, Mr. Yamagata."
 "I will be waiting to hear from you, Mr. McGarvey."

 Bob Sutherland lived in a well-maintained Spanish-style house in San
 Leandro, about twenty miles from the Oakland Holiday Inn. Mueller had
 Zerkel rent a Chevrolet Lumina from the Budget counter at the airport, and
 they drove out in two cars, parking the Thunderbird in the parking lot of
 an all-night supermarket on 14th Street.
  A plain-looking woman dressed in blue jeans and a sweatshirt answered the
  door. A television was playing inside. Mueller smiled pleasantly.
  "Mrs. Sutherland, I'm Michael Larsen with the FBI. I really hate to
  bother you at this hour, but could we have a word with your husband? He's
  at home this evening?"
  She looked over her shoulder at Zerkel standing by the car. "One more
  time won't matter, I suppose."
 "Who's at the door?" her husband called from inside.
  "It's the FBI again," she answered, and she stepped back. "Come on in.
  No use giving the neighbors a show."
  Bob Sutherland, looking as if he'd just stepped out of a heath spa in
  gray sweats, came around the corner at about the same moment Mueller
  shoved the man's wife back, stepped into the hall, and closed the door.
 "What the fuck . . ." Sutherland said.
  Mueller pulled out the silenced 9 mm Beretta Reid had supplied him with
  and pointed it at the woman.
 Sutherland was struck dumb.
  "I have come for some information for my friend Louis Zerkel. If you
  cooperate with me, Mr. Sutherland, I will not kill your wife."
  Sutherland was shaking his head, and his mouth was moving, but no words
  were coming out. He brought his hands together as he looked at his wife.
 306 DAVID HAGBERG

 "There is very little time," Mueller said.
  Sutherland looked at him, incomprehension on his face. "Why?" he asked.
 "We need information."
 "But, God in heaven, who are you?"
  "I will kill your children, as well, Mr. Sutherland. Are they dressed for
  bed?"
  Sutherland looked again at his wife, and he took a half-step forward but
  then stopped. "What do you want from me? I'll tell you and then you can
  leave. My God, I don't understand."
  Mueller reached back and opened the front door. A few seconds later Zerkel
  slipped inside and closed the door. Sutherland stared at him for a long
  time before recognition dawned in his eyes.
  Zerkel carefully avoided looking at the man or his wife.
 "What do you want?" Sutherland asked.
 It seemed as if Zerkel had not heard him.
 "Louis," Mueller prompted.
  "I need the PE 171 subassembly. The one we supply to Guerin."
 Sutherland shook his head. "The heat monitor?"
  "I need both ends, including the harness if we supply it."
 Sutherland was still shaking his head. "Is that what it's
 all about? The fucking Jap subcontract. Are you fucking
 people out of yo ' ur minds?"
  "Where do we find it, Mr. Sutherland?" Mueller asked.
  Sutherland looked at him. "Shipping and receiving. The first fourteen of
  the new order for eighty are going out the day after tomorrow."
 "Can you find that?"
  "I think so," Zerkel said. "Is there anything else going to Guerin in this
  cycle?" he asked Sutherland.
 "No.,'
 "I can find them."
 "What about security?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 307

  "A night watchman," Sutherland said. "Take my card. It'll get you through
  the gate. Just get out of here now."
  Mueller nodded. "Very well," he said. He shot the man in the face, then
  he shot the woman in the forehead. "What do you think about that?" he
  said,
  A small child cried something from the back of the house, and Zerkel
  flinched.
  "Wait outside in the car, Louis," Mueller said. "I'll be right out."

 "You can't fight them by yourself," McGarvey said.
  It was late. They'd come back to her apartment where she made them a
  steak and salad. Afterward they'd talked about her past, about growing
  up in Detroit, being raised by her brother Newton, about coming into the
  airline industry with him, about her brief affair with David Kennedy, and
  finally about the night her apartment had been broken into.
  "It has nothing to do with personalities," McGarvey said.
 "What then?"
  "They don't care who or what you are. At this point there's little or
  nothing you could do to hurt them. But if you got in their way they'd
  destroy you as easily as they would swat a fly."
  "They came in here and violated my life. It was the same thing as rape.
  According to you, they're responsible for the crash in '90 and now this
  one. All those people dead. Are we supposed to forget them?" She looked
  tired, used up, washed out, and very vulnerable.
 "That's why I was hired," McGarvey said.
 "I don't know if I can accept that."
 "I could have you arrested."
 "You've said that before."
 "I could call your brother and ask for his help."
  "Don't threaten me," she said tiredly. Her hand shook as she raised the
  wine glass to her lips. "I'm not going to listen to you any longer. Leave
  me alone."
 "I can't," McGarvey said.
 308 DAVID HAGBERG

  Dominique looked out the windows at the Kennedy Center, her profile
  toward McGarvey. She turned her head to look at him. Her skin glowed as
  if she were caught in subtle stage lighting. "Why?"
  This moment had been coming since the first day he'd met her. "Because
  I care what happens to you."
  She wanted to laugh. He could see it in the expression on her face. "What
  are you talking about?"
 "I want to keep you out of harm's way."
 "A great movie title," she said.
  McGarvey went to her, took the wine glass and set it aside, and held her
  in his arms. For just a second she stiffened, but then she folded against
  him.
  "Do you have someplace to go?" he asked. "Someplace where no one would
  think to look?"
  She looked up at him and nodded. "But I don't know if I can just walk
  away from this."
  He kissed her. This time there was no hesitation, no holding back. She
  responded as if she were a starving woman at a banquet table, her entire
  body shivering with need.
  They undressed each other where they stood in front of the tall windows,
  and he lifted her up and entered her, her legs wrapped around his waist,
  her breasts crushed against his chest, her lips kissing his mouth, his
  face, his neck.
  She was tight, her body compact and in perfect proportion, a dancer's
  physique, and they fit together well. He stepped back and lowered her to
  the carpet, their movements against each other in unison.
 "I wanted you from the start," she said.

 Getting inside InterTech's sprawling facility was easier than Mueller
 thought it would be. They drove through the unattended rear gate that
 opened with Sutherland's security card and parked in the shadows a few
 yards east of the loading dock.
  Almost all of the company's sensitive work involved advanced computer
  programming and applications. As a
                HIGH FLIGHT 309

 result its most sophisticated security measures were geared toward
 protecting its computer system from unauthorized incursions. The company's
 mainframe was protected around the clock with armed guards, advanced
 electronic locks, and high-resolution, low-lux, closed-circuit television
 monitors. Shipping and receiving, however, was protected only by
 security-cardoperated locks and an armed night watchman, unless Sutherland
 had been lying and Zerkel mistaken.
  They purchased a plastic five-gallon gas can from a truck stop north of
  San Leandro, and in Oakland Mueller sent Zerkel on foot to get the
  container filled.
  With the car windows down Mueller listened for several seconds, but there
  wasn't much to be heard except for traffic sounds from nearby Central
  Avenue. "Give me a minute to get inside and take care of the guard, then
  bring the gasoline."
  Zerkel's head bobbed once. He was nervous but holding together. Both
  brothers had a surprising tenacity.
  Mueller mounted the loading dock, and with the silenced automatic in one
  hand used Sutherland's card to open the steel security door. He left it
  ajar. A narrow vestibule opened to a small office with a couple of desks,
  beyond which was the shipping and receiving warehouse. A large black man,
  dressed in a security guard's uniform, came from the back.
  "What're you doing here tonight?" the guard said, but when he realized
  that Mueller wasn't the person he thought he was he grabbed for his gun.
  Mueller shot the man in the chest, knocking him down but not killing him.
  "Shit, shit." The guard frantically grappled with his holster, trying to
  get the pistol loose. He looked up as Mueller loomed overhead, and his
  eyes bulged.
  Mueller shot the man once in the forehead, then clicked the safety on his
  pistol and stuffed it in his belt. He took the guard's flashlight, and
  by the time Zerkel came in he'd found what he took to be the fourteen
  heat monitor/alarm subassemblies. They were loaded on a
 310 DAVID HAGBERG

 pallet near the service door, each packed in a cardboard box about thirty
 inches long and wide and about eight inches deep.
  "Is this what we're looking for?" he asked when Zerkel joined him.
 "It looks like it."
  "Make sure," Mueller said. He opened the gas can and, starting in one
  corner, splashed gasoline over everything- cardboard cartons of parts,
  drums of cleaning and etching chemicals, the office area, and the guard's
  body.
  "This is part of it," Zerkel called out. He had one of the boxes open.
 "What's missing?"
  "The harness and frame. They must be assembled elsewhere. This is just
  the monitor. But it'll do for now.
 "Put it in the trunk of the car and start the engine.'
  Zerkel left, and Mueller splashed the last of the gasoline over the
  pallet, holding the remaining thirteen heat monitor subassemblies,
  dribbling a trail back to the door.
  He waited until Zerkel had the car started and turned around, then lit
  a book of paper matches, tossed them in the warehouse, and slammed the
  door.

 FOURTEEN

 The extraordinary events of the past few days were testament to the power
 of Sokichi Kamiya.
 Lieutenant Commander Seiji Kiyoda, dressed in an immaculate white kimono,
 sat cross-legged on a raised teak platform in the sleeping quarters of his
 home. The night was quiet. The children were gone, and yesterday he'd sent
 Moriko and the house staff away.
                HIGH FLIGHT 311

 Better to be alone now. Moriko was a traditional wife. She understood
 things without lengthy explanations.
  From where he sat, Kiyoda could see the Yokosuka harbor, the Samisho,
  still at her berth, still bathed in harsh lights, still guarded around
  the clock.
  Forty-eight hours ago he'd been quietly released from prison where he
  awaited trial on a charge of treason. The charge stood, but he was an
  honorable man who would be allowed to take his confinement at home where
  he was to consider himself under house arrest.
  For the first twenty-four hours armed guards were posted at his front
  gate. Last night a car had come for them, and no replacements had been
  sent.
  Since the riots downtown and in Tokyo, his story had been dropped from
  the newspapers and television. It was as if the incident in the Tatar
  Strait had never happened. As if he had simply dropped off the face of
  the earth. Or, as if he had never existed. All of it was utterly
  fantastic, leaving him with a feeling of fatalism. He wanted his sensei.
  He wanted his boat and his crew, and he wanted the freedom of the sea.
  More than anything he wanted to press the fight for Nippon's rightful
  place in the new world order.
  But he needed patience. Kamiya had many plans, many purposes. Kiyoda felt
  a sense of awe, thinking about his mentor. Kamiya-san was probably the
  most important man for Japan's future since Mishima, and since the
  Emperor Hirohito himself. He had brought Kiyoda this far, and he would
  not forget his faithful.
  For now, Kiyoda would remain here, at peace with himself in the struggle.
  Content in the knowledge that forces beyond his meager understanding were
  at work. Content to sit in the still of an evening and watch over his
  boat.
  It was difficult, Kiyoda decided. Almost impossible not to act. At times
  it was as if a billion points of light danced in his head, creating a
  pressure so intense, so unbearable that he could not stand it any longer.
  But each time he found himself at the brink of some irration-
   312 DAVID HAGBERG

 al act, he stepped away from the precipice, all the stronger for it.
  Something moved on the quay where the Samisho was berthed. Kiyoda slowly
  came out of his contemplative state and focused on what was happening. Two
  pairs of headlights moved away from the submarine. As the first vehicle
  passed under the streetlights he could see that it was a truck, possibly a
  troop transport. Moments later the second truck passed beneath the lights.
  Kiyoda got to his feet and stepped outside to the broad balcony. Something
  was going on.
  The strong lights that bathed the Samisho were suddenly extinguished. In
  one moment the submarine and the dock at which she was secured were
  visible, in the next they had disappeared.
  A signal? Was it possible? Kiyoda crossed his sleeping chamber and in the
  corridor lifted the telephone to his ear. As before there was no dial tone.
  It was part of hl s isolation. But something was happening to his boat and
  her crew.
  Returning to his sleeping quarters, he threw off his kimono and got dressed
  in winter blues. He contemplated the American military Beretta 9 mm
  automatic in its leather holster and web belt, safe in its drawer. A weapon
  is only as deadly as the man's will to use it.
  Looking over his shoulder he could see out the broad sliding doors. The
  Samisho was still lost in darkness, while all around her the city of
  Yokosuka sparkled and lived. The U.S. Seventh Fleet went about its business
  as conqueror. No matter what colored glasses were used to look at the
  American naval presence here, no mistake could be made about its purpose.
  It was to keep Japan in her place of subservience. More specifically to
  keep the MSDF at bay.
  Kiyoda strapped the pistol on his hip and hurried down the corridor to the
  entry hall. His XO Lieutenant Minori appeared out of the darkness in the
  front courtyard.
  "Kan-cho, we have come for you. It is time to go," Minori called urgently.
                HIGH FLIGHT 313

  Kiyoda's heart hammered as if he had just run up ten flights of stairs.
  "What is happening to my boat, Ikuo?" he said, joining his officer.
  "I have a car. I'll brief you on the way. But she's ours again."
 "Are we ready for sea?"
 "Hai, kan-cho. We have need of only one thing."
  "What is that?" Kiyoda asked as they hurried out to the car.
 "Our captain," Minori said.
  Kiyoda's heart wanted to burst with pride. With a crew like his, he could
  go anywhere in the world, vanquish any foe, meet any challenge. And they
  would. Starting this night.

 "Is that Sam Varelis?" McGarvey asked.
  The NTSB investigator he'd been talking to glanced over at a bull-necked
  man standing alone by the outline of the port wing chalked on the hangar
  floor. There was a small but growing array of parts laid out within the
  lines.
  "That's right. He's chief investigating officer on this incident. Know
  him?"
  "Sure do," McGarvey said, and he walked over. Varelis had his
  ever-present unlit cigar clamped at the comer of his mouth. McGarvey had
  never seen him light up, and once when he'd asked about it, Sam
  growled-that only idiots smoked. He'd been senior to McGarvey in
  operations at Langley, and his had been one of the few voices raised in
  protest when McGarvey had been fired.
  Varelis turned. "I wondered when you were going to say hello."
  McGarvey shook his hand. "Long time, Sam. How's Washington treating you?"
 "Tolerably. You?"
  McGarvey shrugged. "I'll live." He motioned toward the wing outline. "Any
  early conclusions?"
  "Overheat busted up Rolls's ceramic blades and the engine disintegrated."
 "Same as '90?"
 314 DAVID HAGBERG

 "That's what my people tell me."
  "Any consideration being given to the possibility of sabotage?"
  Varelis eyed MeGarvey thoughtfully. "When I heard that Guerin had hired
  you, I was a little surprised, Mac. I couldn't imagine what the hell they
  needed your services for."
 "How about now?"
 "I still can't think what you're doing here."
  McGarvey glanced at the wing outline. "Not much left."
  "No blast marks, no external damage, nothing on the flight recorders to
  indicate anything malfunctioned. Every system aboard this airplane was
  working within its parameters."
 "But it went down."
  "Rolls is sending one of its engines directly off the line for us to
  test. We'll know better then."
  "Rolls did that in '90, and Guerin's planning on sending AOG teams out
  to every P522 in service to replace every single engine."
 "Something will show up."
 "It didn't seven years ago."
 "Our methods are more sophisticated now."
  "By any chance was there an extra passenger aboard this flight?"
  Varelis looked sharply at him. "That was a fatality on the ground, Mac.
  But to answer your question, no, we found no extra body parts this time.
  Now, if you've got something to say, say it and let me do my job. I'm
  busy."
 "I think both planes were sabotaged."
 "By whom, and for what reason?"
 "By the Japanese to ruin Guerin."
  Varelis nodded tightly. "There've been a few rumors floating around. For
  what it's worth, I hope you're wrong, because if you are right we're all
  going to be in deep shit."
 "I think we already are, Sam."
 "Watch yourself. There's a lot of money involved
                HIGH FLIGHT 315

 here. Serious international money. National debt, balance of trade, all
 that."
 "Have you heard something?"
 Varelis shook his head. "Not a thing."
 "I'd like to keep on top of this."
 "It's a two-way street."
  "That it is," McGarvey said, and he walked back to the office trailer set
  up in the hangar. Kennedy and Socrates were coming out.
  "We're leaving for Portland this afternoon at three," Kennedy said. "Al
  flew back last night. Do you have anything for me to tell him?"
 "Maybe this afternoon. Can I hitch a ride with you?"
  "Of course," Kennedy said. "How did your meeting with JAL go yesterday?"
  His patience was worn thin. He looked haggard. They all did.
  "It went okay. Does Vasilanti still want to press the fight?"
 Kennedy nodded.
  "I have a couple of things to take care of in town before we leave. I'll
  brief you on the way out."
  "Better yet, I'll arrange a meeting in Portland. I think it's time that we
  lay all the cards on the table."
  "That might not be a bad idea, because you people are going to have to make
  some hard decisions."
 "Don't I know it," Kennedy said glumly.

 On the way back to his hotel, McGarvey stopped at a gas station outside
 Arlington and telephoned Dominique's office. The secretary told him that Ms.
 Kilbourne was out of the city for several days and perhaps as long as a
 week. No, she did not know where Ms. Kilbourne could be reached, but she did
 leave a message that Mr. McGarvey was to contact Mr. Arimoto Yamagata at
 Japan Air Lines as soon as possible.
  As a precaution, McGarvey called Dominique's apartment and left a message
  on her machine that he would be in Portland sometime this evening. "If
  anything comes up, give me a call."
 316 DAVID HAGBERG

  Next, he telephoned Phil Carrara at CIA headquarters, catching the DDO just
  as he was heading upstairs to lunch with Lawrence Danielle.
  "I'm leaving for Portland this afternoon, but in the meantime I need some
  information about a Japanese national working for Japan Air Lines here in
  Washington."
 "I don't know if I can help, Kirk."
  "His name is Arimoto Yamagata. He claims to be a special representative of
  JAL's president, but he was a little vague about what he was doing here in
  the States."
 "The name doesn't ring a bell. Have you met him?"
  "I asked for a loan in exchange for exclusive purchase rights to some
  airplanes. He didn't turn me down, but my guess is that he either works for
  MITI or for an organization called Mintori Assurance."
 "Jesus," Carrara said.
  "Check with your friends at the Bureau. See if he shows up on any of their
  lists."
  "I'll see what I can do," the DDO said. "But something else has come up. Do
  you remember Phillipe Marquand, Paris?"
 "Action Service."
 :'That's right.'He's asked for help."
 'Is it related? '
  "No reason to think so, Kirk, but your name came to mind. A former Stasi
  officer who was involved a few years ago in Paris when the Swissair flight
  was brought down might be here in the Washington area."
  McGarvey's grip tightened on the telephone. He still carried a lot of
  painful memories. "Who?"
 "Bruno Mueller. What can you tell me about him?"
  "He was a mechanic. One of the best. He worked for the BND for a few years,
  and even came to Langley for a few months. He should be in your files."
  "He is," Carrara said. "Did you ever come up against him?"
  "No. But I'm reasonably sure he's heard of me. Has he come to settle old
  scores?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 317

  "Unknown, Kirk. Marquand's people picked up the trail of someone who
  might be an old friend not only of Mueller, but also of Edward R. Reid."
 "Should I know that name?"
  "He's a Washington insider. Former deputy undersecretary of state for
  economic affairs. He puts out a newsletter called the Lamplighter that
  at the moment is calling for the disarmament of Japanese military forces
  before we get into another war with them. Makes you wonder why Reid is
  connecting with Bruno Mueller and getting help from a former BND general
  whom the French think might have worked for the Stasi."
  "It wouldn't be pleasant," McGarvey said, a part of his mind reaching for
  something, some memory, some bit of forgotten information.
 "No," Carrara said.
 "Anything else?"
  "Not for now, compar, but as soon as I come up with something I'll call.
  How long will you be in Portland?"
 "I don't know. I'll keep in touch."
 "Do that," Carrara said.
  Finally, McGarvey telephoned Yamagata at JAL and was put through
  immediately. "I just got your message. Has there been a response
  already?"
  "As a matter of fact there has, in a manner of speaking," the Japanese
  said. "Are you and Ms. Kilbourne free for a late lunch?"
  "Unfortunately no. Ms. Kilbourne is out of town on business, and I'm
  leaving within the hour for Portland. Have you anything for me that I can
  take back to my people?"
  "I spoke with my principals last night, and they might be interested."
 "JAL, or the other party?"
  Yamagata hesitated. "A fourth group, not connected with JAL, Mintori, or
  Kobe Bank."
 "You get around, Mr. Yamagata."
 "Yes, thank you, I do."
  "We would be interested in moving quite quickly on this," MeGarvey said.
 318 DAVID HAGOERG

  "My principals understand. Would you be willing to come to Tokyo to speak
  with them?"
 "Who would I be meeting with?"
  Again Yamagata hesitated. "It may be premature to name specific names."
 "But they would like me to come to see them?"
 "At their expense, of course, Mr. McGarvey."
 "When?"
 "At your convenience."
  "I'll telephone you from Portland, Mr. Yamagata," McGarvey said.
 "Until then," the Japanese replied.

 "How long will these tests take you?" Reid asked.
  "A few days maybe," Louis Zerkel said. "This is the actual working
  mechanism, not some mockup or computer-generated circuit. I have to make
  sure that my code generator unlocks the final switch on this unit and
  that my audio pulse fires the circuit."
 "You've already knocked down an airplane."
  "We might have been lucky. Could have been a fluke. Could be other
  codes." Zerkel ran his hand across the monitor. "I need to make a Faraday
  cage."
 "What's that?" Reid asked.
  "It blocks electromagnetic and electrostatic radiation. When I say the
  word, the spike will show up here, but it won't go any farther. What do
  you think about that?"
  "I think you are a brilliant man," Reid answered. "And I think that you
  are finally using your head."
 "Use it or lose it."
 "Will you need more equipment to build this device?"
  "Yes, but not much. A few square meters of fine-mesh copper screening and
  maybe a hundred feet of grounding strap. For the rest I think I can make
  do with what I've got here."
 "Shouldn't be too difficult to obtain," Reid said.
  Zerkel turned away without a word, picked up a screwdriver, and began
  removing the fasteners holding the heat monitor/sensor's front panel in
  place.
                HIGH FLIGHT 319

  Mueller was downstairs in the kitchen making a cup of tea. Reid poured a
  stiff drink and joined the German at the table.
  "When will he be ready for operation?" Mueller asked.
  "'A couple of days. He has some tests to perform." Reid watched the
  German's movements. Everything the man did was precise, with an economy of
  motion and the same smoothness and grace that a jungle cat on the hunt
  displayed.
 "How is Glen doing in Portland?"
  "There's been no word as yet, but he's competent, and well motivated."
  "They're brilliant, but unstable. They'll both have to be killed."
 Reid nodded. "We may have additional help," he said.
  Mueller was at the counter. He turned. "What do you mean?"
  "The man who arranged for you to come here is joining us."
 "The general is coming here?"
 "Yes," Reid said. "He called from Paris."
  Mueller thought about it. "You and Karl go back a long way together, is
  that correct?"
 "Since the fifties."
  "You know his situation in Munich? His house, his staff, his ... friends?"
 "Yes. 11
 "It is a good life."
 Reid's eyes narrowed. "What are you driving at?"
  "He would come here only if all of that was gone, or was about to be taken
  away from him. He would not take the risk otherwise."
 Reid saw it at once. "Damn."
  "I don't think you should stop him from coming here," Mueller said. He
  sipped his tea. "But make different arrangements, if that is possible, to
  get him here in a very roundabout manner."
 "Do you think he may be followed?"
 320 DAVID HAGBERG

 "It's a possibility."
 "When he gets here, then what?"
  Mueller looked over the rim of his cup at Reid. "I'll take care of it,"
  he said, his voice as gentle as a funeral director's.

 McGarvey packed his single bag, checked out of the hotel, and arrived back
 at the TWA hangar well before 3:00 P.m. Kennedy, Socrates, and Sir Malcolm
 O'Toole were in deep conversation on the floor, so without bothering them
 McGarvey went aboard the company P522 that had been brought around to the
 ramp. The stewardess stowed his bag and brought him a drink. Three minutes
 later a subdued Kennedy and Socrates came aboard, and within ten minutes
 they were airborne, climbing to the west.
  Socrates stretched out on one of the couches in back, and Kennedy sat
  down beside McGarvey. "Did you finish your business in town?"
 "All of it that was important," McGarvey said.
  "I tried to call Dominique, but her office said she was out of the city."
  "I sent her away. I think with what's been happening, and with what's
  likely to happen, she's better off out of the way."
  "I suppose you're right." Kennedy looked toward the open door to the
  flight deck. "Sir Malcolm is worried that the sabotage might be directed
  at Rolls. He wants to put a hold on our engine orders."
 "Eventhe hydrogen burner?"
  "Especially the new one. That, alone would be devastating to us. And he
  knows it."
 "He's trying to save his company's skin."
  "Can't say as I blame him," Kennedy admitted. "But all of this will be
  over, one way or the other, soon, won't it?"
  "I think so," McGarvey answered. "I spoke with Yamagata again. He's
  invited me to Tokyo to discuss my offer."
                 HIGH FLIGHT 321

  Kennedy looked at him blankly. "What could you possibly say to them?
  They'll realize immediately that you aren't making a legitimate offer."
  "That's the point, David. But let's wait until we get to Portland so we
  don't have to go over the same ground twice."
  "We should be touching down around six, Pacific time. We'll meet at my
  house for dinner. You'll stay with us. 11
 "That's not a very good idea," McGarvey said.
  "As you wish." Kennedy stifled a yawn. "It's going to be a long night. I'm
  going to try to get some rest."
  When Kennedy was gone, McGarvey motioned the stew for another drink.
  There'd be plenty of time to sleep later. He was too keyed up now. In any
  event he'd been fearful of sleep for a long time. He'd fought it ever since
  his parents died, possibly murdered, though there'd never been any proof,
  or suspects, and he'd inadvertently learned the truth about their lives. It
  was a revelation that had shaken him to the core; one he'd shared with no
  one, not his sister, not his wives, and especially not the Company. There
  was no one left from the old days, so he supposed it didn't really matter
  who knew, although Howard Ryan and his type would probably try to use the
  information against him. If that were ever to happen, he told himself, if
  Ryan were ever to cross swords with him in that manner, he would almost
  certainly kill the man.
 "Sir, here's your drink."
  McGarvey looked up into the young stew's pretty face. Her name tag read
  LINDA. "A few more and I might be able to get some rest, Linda."
  She smiled. "I know what you mean, Mr. McGarvey. I get nervous flying
  sometimes too."

 Chief Signalman Joseph Woodmark punched the fivebell designator and
 immediately transmitted the FLASHpriority message that had just been hand
 delivered from HQ and logged in two minutes ago.
 322 DAVID HAGBERG

 Z201223ZJAN

 TOP SECRET

 FM: CINC 7TH FLEET

 TO: CINCPACOM

 SUBJECT: STATUS CHRYSANTHEMUM

1.CHRYSANTHEMUM SAILED, PRESUMABLY WITH FULL CREW AND STORES AT
 APPROXIMATELY 190OZ. A RELIABLE SOURCE REPORTED SEEING LT. CMDR. SEIJI
 KIYODA BOARDING WITH HIS XO LT. IKURO MINORI. THE BOAT WAS TRACKED OUT OF
 TOKYO BAY WHERE SHE SUBMERGED. HER LAST KNOWN COURSE WAS 2 1 O-DEGS.

 THE 24-HOIJR GUARD WAS REMOVED ONE HOUR EARLIER FROM CHRYSANTHEMUM'S
 BERTH. MSDF ISSUED NO SAILING ANNOUNCEMENT AS IT USUALLY DOES.

3REQUEST SOONEST POSSIBLE FLEET DISSEMINATION OF THIS INFORMATION. ALSO
 REQUEST THAT CHRYSANTHEMUM IS TO BE CONSIDERED HOSTILE XX RPT XX REQUEST
 THAT CHRYSANTHEMUM BE CONSIDERED HOSTILE.
 EOM

  That would certainly heat things up, Woodmark thought. The bastards on
  the other side of the harbor were apparently starting to stretch their
  muscles. Chrysanthemum was the code name for the MSDF submarine Samisho
  whose captain had been charged with treason. The boat was off and sailing
  again. This time on a course just west of south
 on Okinawa.

 . directly toward our forces

 "I can't sleep," Kennedy said, slumping into the seat next to McGarvey.
 "I don't know where the hell we're heading. I no longer have a handle on
 it, you know what I mean?"
 "That's why you came to me in the first place."
  McGarvey felt mean around the edges. It was tiredness, in part. And in
  part because Dominique had
                HIGH FLIGHT 323

 followed his suggestion and had gotten out of the city. It was bothersome,
 however, that she had not confided in him. McGarvey was beginning to have
 his fill of amateurs.
  "It's the crash. It's taken a lot out of us. We lost some damned fine
  people."
  McGarvey thought about Mati who'd died in the Paris Airbus crash. He'd
  lost some damned fine people in his time too. "I know what you mean."
  Kennedy looked at him. "It's different than I thought it would be. You're
  different."
 "I don't build airplanes."
  "And I've never killed a person. I have no idea how to relate to you.
  What to say."
 "Are you firing me?"
  Kennedy shook his head and looked away momentarily. "We're in too deep
  now. It's too late. Maybe it was too late even before we came to you, I
  don't know. But I'm fairly certain that whether Guerin survives or not
  will depend upon whether or not you succeed."
  "Not too late to step away from the plate, David," McGarvey said, giving
  the airline executive a way out. "You use Rolls-Royce engines. You're
  going to subcontract wing panels to the Russians. So make a deal with the
  Japanese. Boeing has had success with them."
 "They're murderers."
 "You might save lives."
  "Never," Kennedy said with feeling. "Not now, not after what they've done
  to us."
  "Do you want me to kill them for you? Fight fire with fire?"
  "You told Dominique that your job was saving lives, not taking them. She
  believes you, and so do U'
  McGarvey looked out the window. It would be getting dark in Washington,
  but they were flying west, chasing the sun, so they would have a few
  hours reprieve from the night. He'd once asked Phil Carrara if anything
  they had done in the past ten years had had any effect on how the world
  had turned out. Carrara's reply had been bothersome. The DDO had told
  McGarvey that he
 324 DAVID HAGBERG

 hoped they'd made a difference, because if he believed for one minute that
 they had not, it would mean their lives had been terrible wastes. McGarvey
 had hoped for a little more assurance and a little less sincerity.
  "You tell me, Mac. You're the expert. Do we back away from this one? Do
  we give you severance pay, and then kiss and make up with the Japanese?
  Do we say fuck those people in '90, and poor goddamned Jeff Soderstrom
  and the others?"
  Kennedy was a good man, McGarvey thought. He had the right stuff. His
  sense of justice was as clearly defined as the edge on a razor. No
  mistaking his loyalties.
  "Well, I'm not turning my back on them. Neither is Al Vasilanti nor
  anyone else in this company. What about you? Are you still with us?"
  "For the duration," McGarvey said. What other choice did he have?

 Newton Kilbourne was the kid born on the wrong side of the tracks who made
 good. He stood on the engineers' gallery gazing at the P/C2622 on the
 prototype assembly floor. Building airplanes-had been nearly the same as
 building automobiles, until this one. Time magazine said that this
 airplane was the most sophisticated and most complicated machine ever
 built. She was on this week's cover, her variable geometry wings fully ex-
 tended, hanging in space, nose high, the curvature of the earth visible
 beneath her sonic nose baffles that looked like drooping walrus
 moustaches. Even on the floor, surrounded by scaffolding and platforms,
 workers scrambling in, around, and over her like ants at a picnic feast,
 she looked as if she were flying at supersonic speeds, and Kilbourne was
 proud. But they were trying to kill her, and it was as if someone were
 trying to rip out his heart. The pain could have been no worse.
  He was a large man, with a thick torso, a massive head set on a
  twenty-one-inch neck, and huge, rock-hard fists. As a young man he'd been
  a street scrapper. In the navy, he'd held the fleet boxing championship.
  Middle age and
                HIGH FLIGHT 325

 a desk job had done little to diminish his powers. But this time there was
 no clear target to hit, no ugly face to smash, no kidneys to punch. Only
 sneaking around and spying. And sabotaging, he thought sadly. The
 bastards.
  Al Vasilanti came onto the hangar floor, walked around to the front of
  the futuristic-looking airplane, and stood gazing up at her.
  Kilbourne walked to the end of the gallery and took the stairs down. The
  bulk of the engineering was completed. Only the flight-readiness people
  were left on the project. The gallery seemed empty.
  "When did you get back, Al?" Kilbourne asked as he approached, but he was
  stopped in his tracks when he got close enough to see what condition
  Vasilanti was in. The old man looked old. His body seemed to have shrunk
  inward, and his face had sagged and wrinkled. The sparkle had faded from
  his eyes.
  "She's a beautiful machine, Newt. You've done a magnificent job. The
  board didn't want me to hire you, but I told them to go to hell."
  Vasilanti chuckled, the sound dry, like corn stalks rustling in a breeze.
 "There's more to be done."
 "You'll do it."
 "If they'll leave us alone."
  Vasilanti tore his eyes away from the airplane and looked bleakly at
  Kilbourne. His expression was cold, his entire posture changed, as if he
  were an animal about to strike. "It'll be their mistake if they don't
  back away."
 "Maybe we need help from Washington."
  "Fuck them," Vasilanti said. "This airplane will fly, Newton. Any man
  gets in my way will die. If need be I'll kill him myself."
 "Whatever it takes, I'm with you, Al."
  "Of course you are," Vasilanti said. "McGarvey will do it for us."
  "I don't trust him," Kilbourne said, but Vasilanti turned away and looked
  up at the airplane again.
 "There's never been anything like this. Never."
 "No, sir."
 326 DAVID HAGOERG

  "We'll call her'America,"' Vasilanti said. "And screw all the
  sonsabitches who'll think that's comy. I want the name painted on both
  sides of her fuselage, and the flag painted on her tail feathers."
  Kilbourne didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "At least it's better than
  'Savior."'
  "She'll be that, too," Vasilanti said. "But she's 'America,' and
  everything that means. Hope, promise for the future, fair play, honesty."
  Vasilanti was of another era, Kilbourne thought sadly. But maybe it was
  time, after all, to bring back a little of the old to mix with the new.
  America. He smiled, the first time in weeks. "I'll have it done by
  morning, Al."
 "See that you do," Vasilanti said.

 "By going to Japan I'll be stirring up a homet's nest," McGarvey said.
  "Al Vasilanti did the same thing by showing off the P/C2622," Kennedy
  replied.
 "They'll react. You'll have to handle it."
  "I'm not sure that we're up to it. But as I said we don't have the
  choice."
  "More airplanes could fall out of the sky. Maybe it'd be better if you
  did give up."
  "We've covered that, Mac. Now, if you're going to work for me I don't
  want to hear that kind of shit again. Clear?"
  "Clear," McGarvey said, and he felt like a heel for maneuvering the man
  the way he had.

 Technically their patrol should have been on the homeward stretch,
 Commander Michael Hanrahan told himself. By now the USS Thorn should have
 been heading for the barn at Yokosuka for some much needed R&R, although
 with the trouble up there he figured he'd have to wrangle transportation
 for his people to Seoul or maybe even down to Taipei. Yokosuka wasn't
 safe.
  After this one he was due to be rotated stateside for Pentagon duty.
  Rumor had it that he was being looked at
                HIGH FLIGHT 327

 for his eagle, which, considering how little time in grade he had as
 commander, would put him on the fast track for his first star. Maybe three
 years, tops four or five. Not bad for a thirty-eight-year-old mick who'd
 graduated from the Academy at the bottom of the heap. But in the ensuing
 sixteen years he had busted his hump. Except for flattops, there wasn't
 a ship or boat in the navy that he didn't know inside and out. From
 submarines to captain's gigs, Hanrahan had gone to school on design,
 construction, and operational techniques so that he could recite page and
 verse from just about every manual in current use. His friends sometimes
 called him "Professor," and so far as he knew his men liked and trusted
 him, which in itself wasn't bad in the modem navy.
  The only problem was he'd never fired a shot in anger in his career. He'd
  missed Vietnam, and he'd not participated in the Gulf War. And frankly
  he didn't know how he would react under fire. Well, he hoped.
  You couldn't ask for a better ship under you than the Thorn, he assured
  himself for the tenth time this moming. She was a Spruance-class
  destroyer laid down in the late seventies and retrofitted with new
  weapons and electronics systems numerous times in her eighteen-year life.
  At a little over 560 feet, her four General Electric LM2500 gas turbine
  engines could push her 7,800 tons through the water at speeds in excess
  of thirty knots.
  In addition to the Sea Sparrow Improved Point Defense Management System
  (IPDMS) and Harpoon antiship missiles, the Thorn carried Phalanx Close
  In Weapons Systems (CIWS) cannons that fired radar-aimed 20 mm Mk 149
  depleted-uranium sub-caliber ammunition at burst rates of over four
  thousand rounds a minute, five-inch deck mounted guns, Mk32 torpedoes,
  Tomahawk cruise missiles, and the Mk4l Vertical Launch Anti-submarine
  Rocket System. Some of her ASW rounds were loaded with one kiloton
  nuclear warheads. Combined with the sophisticated SOS-53C bow sonar
  system, towed arrays, numerous radars, and a pair of
 328 DAVID HAGBERG

 SH-60F LAMPS III ASW helicopters, no submarine currently operated by any
 navy in the world was completely safe from the Thorn and her crew of two
 hundred ninety-six men and officers.
  The legend over the door to the ship's Combat Information Center below
  decks was simple and to the point: "Find 'em, shoot 'em, kill 'em."
  "Let me see that message again, Red," Hanrahan said. "Maybe we can get
  out of it after all."
  The Thorn's executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Willis Ryder-Red to
  his friends-handed over the flimsy that comms had sent up less than ten
  minutes ago. "Looks airtight to me, skipper."
 "Nothing's that black and white."
  The message from Seventh Fleet Operations was simple and direct. It
  ordered the Thorn, which was 250 nautical miles south of Tokyo Bay,
  inbound for Yokosuka, to intercept the Yuushio-class MSDF submarine
  Samisho, submerged and possibly heading south. Absolutely no loopholes.
  But the third, fourth, and fifth paragraphs were the most disturbing to
  Hanrahan.

3.IT IS BELIEVED THAT THE SAMISHO WAS THE MSDF SUBMARINE INVOLVED IN THE
 TATAR STRAIT SINKING OF THE RUSSIAN NAVY FRIGATE MENSHINKSKY. THEREFORE
 THE SAMISHO IS TO BE CONSIDERED POSSIBLY HOSTILE XX RPT XX THE SAMISHO IS
 TO BE CONSIDERED POSSIBLY HOSTILE.

4.ONCE YOU HAVE INTERCEPTED THE SAMISHO YOU WILL FOLLOW HER UNTIL
 OTHERWISE DIRECTED.

5.YOU ARE TO MAINTAIN A DEFENSIVE POSTURE AT ALL TIMES. YOU WILL RETURN
 FIRE ONLY IF FIRST FIRED UPON XX RPT XX YOU ARE AUTHORIZED TO RETURN FIRE
 ONLY IF FIRST FIRED UPON.
  GOOD LUCK MIKE XX TOM SENDS XX EOM

 "I'm not going to get into a shooting match with the Japanese Navy,"
 Hanrahan said.
                HIGH FLIGHT 329

 "Skipper, I don't think anybody wants that."
  "You read the brief. Unless Intel screwed up the sequence of events, the
  Samisho tricked the Russians into taking the first shot. That will not
  happen to us."
  "We've got the advantage. The Russians had no idea that he might try
  something funny. All we have to do is find him and stalk him."
  "That's right, Red," Hanrahan said distantly. He was rereading the
  message.
  He and Ryder could have been brothers. Both men were husky, both had red
  hair-though Ryder's was a thicker, brighter red-both had freckles, and
  both were very bright. The main difference between them was that Hanrahan
  was sometimes indecisive while Ryder was sometimes too quick. Together
  they made a good team.
  Hanrahan looked up, a sly grin twisting the corners of his mouth. "If I
  read this correctly, we're supposed to find the Samisho and stick with
  her wherever she goes until we're relieved. Seventh says she sailed with
  full stores, which means we could be out here for another ninety days."
 "They won't keep us out here that long, Captain."
  "Doesn't matter, because I have no intention of chasing that boat all
  over the Pacific."
 "Sir?"
  "Red, it's my intention to be back in Yokosuka within forty-eight hours,
  mission accomplished."
  "Captain, I'm one hundred percent behind you. But I will not participate
  in a sham search. If I'm ordered to find the Samisho I'll do everything
  within my power to do it. Otherwise I'd just be wasting your time, my
  time, and the time of a damned fine crew."
  "That was a pretty speech, X," Hanrahan said frostily. It pissed him off
  that his executive officer didn't have more trust in him. They'd sailed
  together long enough.
  "I'm sorry, sir. Tell me what you want, and I'll get to it."
  "We're going to find the Samisho, Red, as rapidly as we can. And then
  we're going to herd her back to port."
 330 DAVID HAGBERG

  "She might not want to turn tail," Ryder sal d. "She's a quiet boat. She
  could try to sneak around us."
  "I don't think so," Hanrahan said. He picked up the growler phone, and
  punched the number for the Combat Information Center. "This is the
  Commanding Officer. Sonar picking up anything yet on passive?"
 "Negative, sir."
 "Let me talk to Don."
 "Aye, aye, Captain."
  Lieutenant Donald Sattler was CIC officer. He was an Annapolis graduate
  and a fine man. They didn't come much better in Hanrahan's book.
  "Good morning, Skipper. Sonar's picked up nothing yet, but we just
  started."
 "I want both choppers up as soon as possible."
 "They'll be airborne within five minutes."
 "How's it look out there?"
  "Surface conditions are good, and there's very little traffic, which
  means our search pattern won't be cluttered. The sharp thermoclines are
  below eight hundred feet, so unless that sub-driver has gone deep, or has
  decided for some reason to run silent, we'll have a pretty good chance
  of nailing him."
 "In passive mode."
 "That's right, Captain," Sattler said.
  "As soon as the choppers are up and on station I want sonar to go active.
  I want to find the bastard and I don't want to screw around doing it."
 Ryder raised his eyebrows.
  "He'll not only know that we're up here, Skipper, he'll know that we're
  looking for him," the CIC officer said.
  "That he will, Don. I want this mission brought to termination as
  expeditiously as possible. Do I make myself clear?"
  "Yes, sir," Sattler replied. "If he's out there, we'll know it real
  quick."

 "Conn, sonar."
 Lieutenant Minori answered the comms. "Conn, hai.
 "I have sonar contact, range fifteen thousand meters
                HIGH FLIGHT 331

 and closing. It's an American war ship. They're pinging US. 11
  "On the way." Minori hit the ship's intercom. "Captain to sonar on the
  double."
  Kiyoda reached sonar just behind Minori, his uniform blouse unbuttoned,
  his eyes still bleary from sleep.
 "What is it?" he asked.
  "It's an American Spruance-class destroyer, kan-chodono, " Chief Sonarman
  Tsutomu Nakayama said. "Bearing zero-five-five, and closing. Under
  fourteen thousand meters now."
 "Still pinging?" Minori asked.
 "Hai. But I don't think she has us yet."
 "What's our depth, Ikuo?" Kiyoda asked.
  "Seventy meters. We have a sharp thermocline about two hundred meters
  under our keel. We could make a try for it."
  Kiyoda shook his head. He was watching the display on the screen. "Too
  late for that. Reduce speed to four knots, turn left to new course
  one-seven-five."
  Minori picked up the growler and relayed the order to the helm. The left
  turn put them at right angles to the oncoming destroyer, but it would get
  them out of the way in the minimum time.
  "Designate contact as sierra-zero-nine. Sonar conditions good, topsides
  fairly flat," Nakayama said. "There's a better than even chance he'll
  find us, kancho. "
  This was too close to home waters for Kiyoda's liking. If he instigated
  another incident now the MSDF would know his location and would send a
  chopper with a dipping buoy to order him home. They would come after him
  if he did not comply, but he was not going to run away from a challenge
  without some response. Finesse, he thought, was everything.
  "We're on new course one-seven-five. Recommend we begin a slow dive to
  three hundred meters," Minori said. "With all that noise they won't hear
  us blowing our tanks."
 "Matte, kan-cho, " the sonarman said, holding up a
 332 DAVID HAGBERG

 hand for Kiyoda to wait. He jabbed a finger at a spike on the screen.
  "They have us, kan-cho. His blade count is increasing."

 "It's him and he knows we've got a lock," Sattler reported, from CIC.
  Within two minutes Able chopper would be directly above the submarine and
  would drop a dunking sonar, which would make ID and location one-hundred
  percent certain.
 "What's he doing?" Ryder asked.
  "He turned beam on and slowed down. Probably trying to sneak off."
  "We're bringing in more resources. The skipper wants him boxed in and
  respectful."
 "I hear you," Sattler replied.

 "Conn, sonar. They've placed a sonobuoy in the water, range about five
 hundred meters, bearing one-eightzero," Nakayama said.
  "They will have launched one or both of their LAMPS III helicopters,"
  Minori told Kiyoda. They were forward in the attack center.
  "Very well, Ikuo. Bring the boat to battle stations," Kiyoda replied
  calmly. He buttoned his uniform blouse and accepted a cup of tea from the
  steward.
  Minori relayed the order, and a Klaxon sounded through the sub. Within
  moments every watertight hatch in the boat was closed and dogged.
 "Report battle stations ready," Minori said.
  Kiyoda picked up the ship's comms. "Weapons, conn. Load tubes one, two,
  and three with standard HE torpedoes, and load tube four with a Harpoon."
  Weapons Control Officer Lieutenant Shuichiyo Takasaki repeated the order.
  "Yo-so-ro. "
  Kiyoda turned and smiled. His officers were watching him expectantly.
  "Now let's see what the Americans are made of," he said. "Come right
  nine-zero degrees to new course two-
                  HIGH FLIGHT 333

 six-five. Make our speed two-five knots. Give me a continuous firing
 solution on the target."
 "Hai, kan-cho, " Minori said, his eyes glittering.

 Two thousand five hundred feet above the surface, the Lockheed P-3C Orion
 ASW patrol aircraft was flying a grid pattern at one hundred eighty knots.
 She'd been in the vicinity at the beginning of her patrol when the Thorn
 asked for help.
 "Have you got him yet?" the pilot asked.
  "I can count her rivets," the ELINT officer, Ensign Carl Gifford, reported.
  "We picked her out with the MAD on the first pass. Very clear picture.
  She's about two hundred feet down, but she's accelerating and turning
  inboard toward the Thorn. Skipper, unless I miss my guess, that sub-driver
  is setting up for an attack."
  MAD was their Magnetic Anomaly Detector, which never missed. It was one of
  the more powerful ASW tools aboard the Orion.
  "Their chopper should have it," the pilot, Lieutenant Fred White, said. He
  hauled the big plane around for another pass. "Call the Thorn and tell them
  what we're showing. Recommend that they break off until we can get a
  reading from Fleet."
 "Aye, aye, Skipper."
  White turned to his co-pilot, Lieutenant j.g. John Littlemore. "Call
  Operations and lay it in their laps. I for one don't want to get into a
  shooting match with the Japs. I think that sub-driver is nuts."

 Seventh Fleet Northern Patrol Duty Officer Captain Walt Townsend put down
 his telephone and studied the big board across the room. An electronic map
 showed an area twelve hundred miles in diameter with Yokosuka at the center
 and Okinawa at the extreme south. For some reason the crazy bastard conning
 the Sarnisho wanted to prove a point by heading south. MSDF Submarine Fleet
 HQ was silent, and the buck had been passed back to Operations.
 Was it worth an incident like the one up in the strait
 334 DAVID HAGBERG

 with the Russians, he asked himselP Not likely. Leastways not just yet.
  He called Communications. "Send a flash designated message to Mike
  Hanrahan aboard the Thorn. Tell him to break off immediately. He's to
  follow the Samisho and report her movements. Nothing more."

 "Come left to new course two-one-zero. Make our speed ten knots."
  "Smart move, Captain," Ryder said after he'd relayed the orders. "He'll
  know that we no longer want to provoke him but that our intention is to
  follow him if he wants to continue south."
  Hanrahan shook his head in irritation. "Ninety days, Red. That's how long
  we could be playing cat and mouse with that bastard."
 "Never happen."
  "You're damned right it won't, because every chance I get I'm going to
  lean on him."
  Ryder started to object, but Hanrahan held him off with a scowl.
 "I'll expect your support, X. Completely."
  The comment stung, but Ryder nodded tightly. "You've got it, Skipper."
  He didn't add You've always had it.

 "He's turning away, and his blade count is coming down."
  Minori keyed the comms. "Which way did he turn, Nakayama?"
  "Tori-kaji, " to port, the sonarman reported. He sounded excited. "Yes,
  his new course is two-one-zero. I'm estimating he's making turns for ten
  knots."
  Minori turned to Kiyoda. "Kan-cho, it looks as if they do not wish to
  take the bait."
  "Very well, secure from battle stations. Make our course two-one-zero,
  our speed eleven knots."
  "I suggest we initiate a shallow-angle dive to three hundred meters,"
  Minori said.
 "Negative," Kiyoda replied mildly. "That destroyer
                HIGH FLIGHT 335

 was inbound to Yokosuka. My guess is that her patrol was complete and she
 was going home. But now she has had a change of orders. She will follow
 us, and I have no wish to lose her." In one respect Kiyoda was almost
 sorry that the American warship had broken off the engagement. The Russian
 frigate had been easy, but a Spruance-class destroyer was a far more
 sophisticated weapons system. The challenge would have been interesting.
 And if he had sunk or damaged the American vessel the reliercussions
 Kamiya-san had predicted would certainly have come to pass. But much
 sooner than he thought. So it was better that no shots had been fired. But
 for more than one reason. This was neither the time nor the place, and the
 American captain was too fresh, too alert, too much in control. In the
 right waters, at the right time, and after repeated provocations, the
 situation would be different.
  "Shall we unload the torpedoes from one, two, and three, and the missile
  from four?"
  "No," Kiyoda said. He felt dreamy, as if he could envision everything
  that would occur over the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours. He felt
  as if by dreaming the future he could make it so. It was powerful.
 "Hai, kan-cho, " Minori said.
  Kiyoda focused on his executive officer. "The weapons will remain in
  place."
 "Very well.'
 "We are not finished, Ikuo. We have only just begun."

 "I'll need to present a good front when I get to Tokyo," McGarvey said.
 "I'll have to do my homework."
  "The sooner you make your move the sooner they'll react," Kennedy replied
  tiredly. They were a few minutes from Portland International Airport.
  Socrates was sound asleep, and McGarvey envied the man for it.
 "I'll need a carte blanche from you."
  "I think the only thing you don't know about us yet is our bathroom
  habits."
  "I need to know everything there is to know about the 2622."
 336 DAVID HAGBERG

  Kennedy managed to smile. "Maybe you can sell a few for us while you're
  at it."
  Linda went back to wake Socrates so that the engineer could strap in for
  landing. McGarvey watched her lithe movements. She reminded him of his
  daughter Elizabeth. Maybe after this was over he would retire.
  The world had indeed changed. And, he supposed, in some measure he'd been
  and continued to be an instrument of that change. The fact was such
  thoughts did nothing to dispel his bleak mood. What was he looking for,
  he asked himself? What?

 FIFTEEN

 Let me introduce you to Arimoto Yamagata."
 Kennedy shook hands with the Japanese. "You're with JAL, aren't you?"
  "That's right," Yamagata said. "I've spoken with Mr. McGarvey. A very
  sharp individual. I thought I'd come out here to see Portland for
  myself."
  Their host, Marvin Saunders, was one of the heavyhitters in real estate
  development in the PortlandVancouver area. He'd put up two major downtown
  office buildings with mostly Japanese money. He'd been involved with the
  Japanese businessman who'd tried to buy into the San Francisco Giants.
  And he'd built four separate neighborhoods in and around the city that
  catered to Guerin middle- and upper-level managers. He'd invited the
  Kennedys and a dozen others to his palatial Lake Oswego home to meet
  someone he said was interesting. Given Saunders's connections with the
  Japanese, MeGarvey thought it would be worthwhile for Kennedy to accept,
  but Yamagata had come as a surprise.
 "I wonder if you know that David was one of our top
                HIGH FLIGHT 337

 astronauts before Al Vasilanti lured him out here to build airplanes?"
 Saunders said.
  "Yes, of course." Yamagata smiled. "In addition to baseball cards, Japanese
  schoolchildren collect astronaut cards. Yours is still a favorite."
 "I didn't know that," Kennedy's wife Chance said.
  "And this lovely lady is David's wife, Chance Kennedy."
  Yamagata turned his complete attention to her, his smile softening. "I'm
  very pleased to meet you. Your name is rare, isn't it?"
  "My mother wasn't supposed to have children. So when I came along my father
  said I was 'one chance in a million."'
  "Charming," the Japanese said. "Do you work in the industry alongside your
  husband?"
  Chance shook her head. "No." She was a slightly built woman with large
  round eyes and a lot of blonde hair. She looked unhappy.
 "One in the family is enough," Kennedy said.
  "Perhaps that's wisest," Yamagata said. "Did Mr. McGarvey come with you?"
 "No," Kennedy said.
 "Will you be sending him to Tokyo after all?"
  The question was startling because of its directness. "Yes, we think so.
  But it may not be for another day or so. We're a little busy at the moment
  because of the crash."
 "I understand."
  "Don't tell me that Guerin is finally going to start selling in Japan,"
  Saunders said. "Move over Boeing."
  "Something like that," Yamagata replied before Kennedy could say anything.
  "Which is why I'm in Portland. I was told to come here and be charming-"
  Saunders laughed. "He wasn't here fifteen minutes and my wife wanted to run
  away with him. I'm going to have to watch her like a hawk. But seriously,
  I think it's a damned good idea that's been on the back burner too long.
  We're in a global economy whether we like it or not. And with the Japanese
  offer of a free trade
 338 DAVID HAGBERG *

 agreement-hell, I don't see any other choice for Guerin except to expand
 to the east. It'd be a great partnership."
  "We think so," Yamagata said. "At least in principle. Of course there
  would be many obstacles to overcome."
 "How do you see that?" Saunders asked.
  "It's a matter of trust-on both sides of the Pacific. After the
  unfortunate incident a few days ago in Yokosuka, and the demonstrations
  in Tokyo, I'm told that antiJapanese sentiment is building in America."
  "Not in this house," Saunders said heartily. A few of his other guests
  gathered closer. They nodded their approval. The Kennedys were the only
  Guerin executives here tonight, but the other guests were influential in
  Portland's business community.
  "The American Northwest has traditionally understood Japan," Yamagata
  said. "It is why so many Japanese emigrate to this region. But that
  understanding may not be entirely shared in New York or Washington."
  "I think the attitude in the White House will change after the Tokyo
  Economic Summit next month. This President seems to be committed to
  working with your government." Saunders turned to Kennedy. "The big
  surprise is Al Vasilanti's about-face. About time, I'd say."
  "It may be premature to talk about any sort of a deal between us,"
  Yarnagata cautioned. "We're still in the very early exploratory stage."
  "Mr. Yamagata is right," Kennedy said tightly. "It's too early to be
  making any announcements."
  "Not to worry, David. You know the house rules: No journalists allowed
  within a hundred yards, and absolutely nothing said here gets repeated
  outside."
  "A sensible set of rules," Yamagata said, smiling directly at Chance.

 The Faraday cage was completed and in place around the heat monitor/alarm
 subassembly. No stray electrical or electromagnetic impulses would emanate
 from the device, nor would any-signal from outside penetrate the
 protective screen. Louis Zerkel had studied the connec-
                 HIGH FLIGHT 339

 tions for the engine mount for several hours, trying to puzzle out what
 he was seeing with his own two eyes versus what he knew he should be
 seeing,
  "Something's wrong," he muttered. A second supposedly spare pin on the
  replacement module in the subassembly was connected through a small
  amplifying circuit not to one of the engine-frame sensor plugs but to the
  frame ground. It made no sense. A signal was spit out by the module, its
  strength amplified, and it led to ground.
  "is something the matter with the unit?" Mueller asked.
  "No," Zerkel said, looking up, "I don't know. Something doesn't add up."
 "A manufacturing mistake?"
  Zerkel interrupted. "Not likely. InterTech doesn't work that sloppy. This
  was designed this way. But I don't know what they meant by it. Could be
  crucial, but maybe not. Perhaps if the output signal were modulated maybe
  the frame itself could turn out to be resonant. But again, for what
  purpose? Why energize the frame?
  "If it were possible to get the frame and harness I could isolate the
  module and pull it apart to see just what they were aiming for. Either
  that or run it through the mainframe circuit analyzer. But there's no
  going back. I haven't looked at the television all day, but I'm pretty
  sure that my face is plastered over every newscast as a killer and
  saboteur. The question is are they making the connection between me and
  the crash right here in our backyard? Because if they are then it's going
  to get real hot around here." Zerkel looked up at Mueller. "And you know
  what? If none of that part has hit the news then we're in even bigger
  trouble than I thought. Because it'll mean that the Japs are looking for
  me.
  "The real problem here is that I don't know diddly squat about
  Rolls-Royce jet engines. The board says an overheat caused the fan blades
  to disintegrate, which means they're homing in on Rolls. But in order for
  me to understand what they're talking about I have to know
 340 DAVID HAGBERG

 engines, and that's not possible, So I'm going to come up with another
 approach.
  11 The idea is to bring down a bunch of airplanes all at the same time,
  or near enough the same time so there's no chance the fleet will be
  grounded before we're done. But if they're guarding the back door as well
  as the front, and you really don't know what's inside, then there's only
  one thing left to do, and that's tear the house down. What do you think
  about that?"
  "I don't understand you," Mueller said. "Can you do this thing or not?"
  Zerkel grinned, his eyes wild. "Hell, yes, I can do it. But it's going
  to be crude, nowhere near as sophisticated as I wanted it to be. It's
  simple lack of data, or even access to data. I could get into the Rolls
  engineering computer, but I'd have to educate myself on engine design
  parameters. Not that I couldn't do it, but it would take time. I don't
  think we've got much time."
 "What is it you're going to do?" Mueller asked.
  "I'm pretty sure that there's nothing wrong with the jet engines on those
  airplanes. The triggering device is definitely integral to the heat
  monitor system. But until I understand completely what's going on, I'm
  going to back off from trying to trigger it. It's -lust a feeling, but
  for now I've got something else to do ' "
 "Distributing the trigger signals?" Mueller prompted.
  "Right on." Zerkel keyed up a map of the United States on one of the
  computer monitors. The areas around most of the major metropolitan
  centers were shaded in red. "Washington, New York, Atlanta, Chicago,
  Denver, Los Angeles, they're all designated TCAsTerminal Control Areas-by
  the FAA. Any airplane flying under a certain altitude within those TCAs
  must be equipped with a transponder and an encoding altimeter."
 "Continue."
  "When an airplane shows up on an Air Traffic Control radar screen, its
  transponder sends an identifying signal to the ground that tells ATC its
  exact type and tail
                HIGH FLIGHT 341

 number. The encoding altimeter tells the scope dope the airplane's exact
 altitude."
  "Yes, I know this," Mueller said. It was the same in Europe.
  "That means ATC computers and airplanes within every Terminal Control
  Area in this country talk to each other electronically," Zerkel said
  brightly. "What do you think about that?"
 "The signals go both ways?"
  "Exactly. When the time comes for us to strike, the triggering signals
  will be sent out by the Air Traffic Control centers on orders from
  InterTech's mainframe."
 I 'How?"
  "It'll be up to Mr. Reid how many centers you want to hit. But in each
  Terminal Control Area's ATC facility someone is going to have to install
  a repeater."
  "There'll be risks," Mueller said softly. He didn't like what he was
  hearing.
  "There are risks for all of us, but I'll make it easy. The repeaters that
  I'll build will be about the size of a package of cigarettes. You won't
  have to make any electrical connections, or anything like that. Just hide
  the units behind the computers or radar consoles. When they receive the
  signals from InterTech, my repeaters will pass them through to the
  outgoing radar signals. Every airplane within the TCA will get the extra
  spike, but only Guerin's airplanes will know what to do with it." Zerkel
  chuckled.
  "But this has to be blamed on the Japanese," Mueller said.
  Zerkel's grin broadened. '-'InterTech will send out the trigger pulse on
  electronic orders from Tokyo Bank's computer center."

 "Will he continue to follow us?" Lieutenant Minori asked. He and his
 captain were hunched over the chart table at the forward end of the
 cramped attack center.
  In the past thirty-six hours since they'd made contact with the American
  destroyer they had varied their speed
 342 DAVID HAGSERG

 from eleven knots to twenty-two knots and their depth from seventy meters
 to two hundred meters, careful not to show the Americans the Samisho's
 true best speed submerged nor dip below the thermocline. They wanted to
 make sure the American skipper would stick with them. But like all
 submarines they were blind aft when underway. Cavitation' noises made by
 the propeller drowned out all passive sonar sounds behind them. Therefore
 they had turned inboard twice in the past twenty hours and stopped their
 motors so they could listen. Both times the destroyer had been behind them
 on the same course and speed. And both times the American captain had
 turned inboard and had reduced hi s speed in response.
  "By now he has to know where we're heading," Kiyoda said. He stabbed a
  blunt finger at a point on the chart just south of Kyushu where the
  Takara Strait connected the Pacific Ocean to the East China Sea. It was
  one region of the world's oceans that the MSDF knew much better than the
  American navy. Once through the strait the advantage would belong to the
  Samisho, something the destroyer's captain had to know. And once in the
  East China Sea Kiyoda could take his boat to Okinawa's back door.
  It would make for some interesting choices on the surface, Kiyoda
  thought. These were Japanese home waters, but the destroyer captain would
  know that the submarine he was tracking was the same one that had sunk
  the Russian frigate. If Seventh Fleet Intelligence was any good it would
  have informed its ships at sea that the Samisho had slipped out of
  Yokosuka with its captain and -full stores aboard.
  "He'll have to make his move within the next few hours," Minori said.
  "Maybe he has called for help."
  Kiyoda looked up at his XO. "What is your thinking, Ikuo? What will he
  do? Shoot?"
  Minori studied the chart. "He has superior speed. He might try to block
  our passage through the strait. The deepest channel is quite narrow."
                HIGH FLIGHT 343

  "It would still put him in a position where he would have to shoot or
  lose."
  "The thermocline is holding at about three hundred meters. We could fool
  him by heading south, on the outside, and once he took our bait we could
  dive deep and circle back."
  Kiyoda smiled. "Admirable. If I wanted to lose him it is exactly what I
  would do. But that is not what I wish. We're not here for that purpose."
  "If we sink this one our homecoming will not be so benign as it was
  before."
  When-not if-that American warship goes to the bottom in Japanese
  territorial waters the circle will be complete. Kamiya-san's Morning Star
  will begin.
  "Only if we fire first," Kiyoda said. "Come left to three-one-five."
  "Hai, turning left to three-one-five degrees," Minori repeated the order.
 "Come to all-ahead stop."
 "Yo-so-ro, kan-cho!"

 "Target has turned inboard again and is fading, new course
 three-one-five," Don Sattler, the Thorn's Combat Information Officer said.
  "Bridge, aye," Ryder replied. He put down the growler. "He's stopping for
  another look, skipper. New course three-one-five."
  Hanrahan studied the chart. "He'll try for the strait this time. I can
  feel it."
  Ryder joined the captain. "He'd be a fool to go for it out in the open
  like this. All he has to do is duck below the thermocline where'd we'd
  lose him, and the option would be his. Wouldn't be a damned thing we
  could do to stop him. If we hung around the narrows he might continue
  south and pop inside someplace else. If we took the bait he'd switch back
  and sneak under us."
  "He's not going to do that, Red," Hanrahan said. "Because I'm going to
  lean on him again."
 "Still might force him to duck and run."
 344 DAVID HAGBERG

  Hanrahan looked up. "Then our assets coming from Okinawa will handle it.
  But it's not going to happen that way. He wants to confront us. Maybe
  here, maybe farther south. But I'm getting a definite feeling that the
  crazy sonofabitch wants to have it out with us."
 "Seventh will be on our ass."
  "I'm not going to shoot unless I'm shot at first," Hanrahan said. "But
  we're damned well going to be ready for it, and we're going to let him
  know that we are."
 "Let's put the choppers up again, Skipper."
  "Do it now, X. And call the Orion back. I want as much help as possible."
 "Aye, aye, Skipper."
  "Helm, come right to three-one-five," Hanrahan said. "Give me turns for
  thirty knots."
  "Coming right to three-one-five, aye," the helmsman responded.
  "Engineering answering for speed of thirty knots, aye."
  Hanrahan got Sattler on the growler. "Don, I think he's going to try for
  the strait this time. I'm going to endrun him and try to get at least ten
  thousand yards out front."
  "That'll give him a pretty good firing solution on us if he wants to take
  it, Skipper."
  "I know that. So I want no mistakes here. The choppers are going up
  again, and I've called for an Orion, so we'll have backup. In the
  meantime, I want sonar to go active. I want to know exactly what he's
  doing and how he's doing it."
  Sattler lowered his voice. "Mike, that's an MSDF sub out there. We're
  allies, not enemies. Have you thought this out?"
 "All the way, Don. Keep me posted."
 "Will do, Captain."

 The American destroyer was so close that when her sonar went active
 everybody aboard the Samisho could hear it. Kiyoda watched his
 attack-center crewmen. All of them, including Minori, looked up as if they
 could see
                HIGH FLIGHT 345

 through the skin of the hull and through eighty meters of water.
 "Conn, sonar."
  Kiyoda answered the comms. "This is your captain. We hear it, Nakayama." He
  felt a sense of well-being.
  "Hai, kan-cho, but she's making turns for thirty knots, on a new course of
  three-one-five."
  Kiyoda brought the data up on his command console and overlaid a chart
  outline showing the Takara Strait, Tanegashima and Yaku islands to the
  north, and the tiny rock, Kuchino, to the south. The target designated
  slerra-zero-nine was running directly for the entry to the strait, and
  within minutes she would be well out ahead of the Samisho.
  "It's what you thought he would do, kan-cho, " his XO said.
  Kiyoda nodded. "A little sooner than I thought. It would appear that he has
  concerns about us roaming the East China Sea."
  "He has made his intentions very clear to us. Once he's in the strait he'll
  turn back and confront us bow on.
 "Pinging us continuously."
  "Hai, kan-cho. He'll want to know exactly what we're doing, and he'll want
  us to understand his interest. No mistakes."
  Kiyoda keyed the comms. "Sonar, conn. What's his range and bearing?"
  "Range five thousand meters, and now his bearing is changing. Estimate his
  new course two-nine-five."
  The data was showing up on the command screen. "He's turned twenty degrees
  inboard," Minori observed.
  "Still running around us. But on that course he'll cross our bows." Kiyoda
  smiled cruelly. It was for this moment, and the subsequent moments of
  strategy and battle, that he had been born. It was for this task that he'd
  been selected by Kamiya-san, and for which he had picked and trained his
  fine crew.
  "We can help him, kan-cho, if it is still your desire to confront that
  destroyer captain," Minori said.
 346 DAVID HAGBERG

  'Continue."
  "I recommend that we come to fifteen knots and turn right seventy
  degrees-which will place us perpendicular to his port flank-while we make
  our depth twenty meters."
  "Do it now," Kiyoda said, and he turned to his weapons control officer.
  "Flood tubes one, two, three, and four."
  Minori turned back. "With their sonar active they might not catch it."
  "I hope they do not," Kiyoda said. "When we are in position and have a
  firing solution, we need only open our doors and fire. But they will not
  expect such fast action. They will be waiting for flooding noises, and
  if need be we shall catch them by surprise."
 "Hai, kan-cho, it will catch them by surprise."

 The weather over Yokosuka was gray overcast, windy, and chilly, which
 suited the dark mood of Seventh Fleet Commander-in-Chief Vice Admiral
 Albert Ryland. He stepped out of his staff car in front of fleet HQ and
 sniffed the air. It smelled of the sea, and tidal flats, and of other
 mostly oriental odors: fermenting soya beans perhaps, raw fish, ginger.
 A foreign place that had always been a mystery to Westerners. Americans
 no longer belonged here, and yet he told himself a hundred times over that
 had the U.S. had a bigger presence in Japan in the 1930s maybe Pearl would
 never have happened. A lot of very intelligent people were predicting an
 all-out war with the Japanese within the next fifteen years. Ryland for
 one was a nonbeliever, yet he felt in his military gut that a
 confrontation between the U.S. and Japan was inevitable. Not an all-out
 war-the incident would fall far short of such insanity. But people would
 get killed. Of that he had absolutely no doubt. But was it happening now?
 Was that MSDF sub-driver getting into position to take the opening shots?
  The weather was developing from the south. It meant that for now the
  tactical advantage lay slightly in favor of
                HIGH FLIGHT 347

 the submarine. Surface conditions would make operations aboard the Thorn
 difficult in the narrow strait where seas could build up rapidly. And
 these were Japanese waters that the MSDF knew a lot better than we did.
  "We're supposed to get some rain, Admiral," Ryland's driver said.
  "Don't I know it, Chief Don't bother waiting. This one looks like an
  all-nighter."
 "Yes, sir."
  Ryland went in and took the elevator up to Operations on the fifth floor.
  It was 3:00 P.m. When he'd been recalled to headquarters, he'd been at
  a meeting with the mayor of Yokosuka about the recent trouble between
  U.S. Navy personnel and Japanese nationals. The Samisho was apparently
  heading into the East China Sea, the Thorn riglit on her tail. Some hard
  decisions were going to have to be made, and made soon.
  His Operations Officer, Captain Thomas Byrne, was waiting for him. "We're
  running a three-way link between Mike Hanrahan aboard the Thorn and Fred
  White in one of our Orions. It looks as if that sub-driver wants to force
  the issue."
  Byrne was a big, tall black man who'd played defensive end for Navy and
  who'd graduated number six in his class. Ryland, who was from Birmingham,
  Alabama, initially had some difficulty accepting a black man as his Ops
  officer. But that trouble had lasted only one day. Since that time Byrne
  was, in the admiral's book, one of the best officers in the navy.
 "Nobody's fired any shots yet, I hope."
  "No. But Mike is blocking the entrance to the strait, and the Samisho is
  on the way up."
  They went down into the pit together where Seventh played its war games,
  and where search-and-rescue operations were conducted. Byrne had brought
  in some of his staffers, and by the looks on their faces they were dug
  in for the duration. The activity was centered on the area south of the
  Japanese rocket-launching facility on Taneg-
   348 DAVID HAGBERG

 ashima Island. Sensitive waters. But nothing on the display indicated that
 the MSDF or the Japanese Air Self Defense Force was involved in the
 unfolding drama. That didn't make sense to Ryland. If somebody were
 screwing around off Florida's Cape Kennedy, the U.S. Navy, Air Force, and
 Coast Guard would sure as hell be interested.
  "Get me Hanrahan on the phone," Ryland said. He took off his coat and
  traded it to one of the ratings for a cup of strong, black coffee. Ships
  at sea ran on nuclear fuel or bunker oil. Admirals ran on coffee.
 A half-minute later Byme handed him the phone.
  "Mike, this is Al Ryland. How's it looking down there?"
  "Admiral, you know that we've been following Chrysanthemum, and now it
  looks as if she wants to get through the strait. I'm blocking the
  deepLwater passage, and she's on the way up."
 "Has she flooded her tubes?"
  "We've been pinging her continuously to let her know what we're doing,
  but my chief sonarman thinks he might have heard flooding noises. Hard
  to tell for certain, sir."
  "If you are fired upon, you can defend yourself, Mike. Do you
  understand?"
 "Yes, sir."
  "In the meantime I'm going to see if I can get you some relief down
  there. But Mike, whatever happens I want you to stick with that sub until
  you're told otherwise."
 "Aye, aye, Admiral."
  Ryland looked at the situation board. It just didn't make sense. "Get me
  Vice Admiral Shimakaze. Tell him it's urgent."
  "Yes, sir," Byrne said. Ikuro Shimakaze was CINC of the Japanese Maritime
  Self Defense Force fleet.

 Glen Zerkel stood on the floor of Prototype Assembly Hangar One at
 Guerin's Gales Creek facility, his mouth
                HIGH FLIGHT 349

 open. He was hidden in the shadows beneath a gallery of offices that ran
 the width of the huge building. Filling the vast hangar was the most
 fantastic airplane he'd ever seen. The word America was painted on her
 fuselage, and the American flag appeared on both of her two vertical
 stabilizers that towered a hundred feet off the floor. She was brightly
 lit by dozens of spotlights from above and below and from all sides.
 Scaffolding rose around both swept-back wings, where the cowlings had been
 removed from her engines. Even sitting like that, parts of her missing,
 parts of her imprisoned inside cages, the hypersonic airliner looked as
 if she were flying. As if she were climbing straight up into a blue-black
 sky, stars faintly visible even though it was bright daylight. She was
 Star Trek's Enterprise, only more sexy and fantastic because she was real.
  Getting into Guerin's facilities, including this one, had been easy. The
  company was so vast that tight security was nearly impossible to
  maintain. It was simply too expensive. The Pantex nuclear assembly plant
  in Texas, for instance, was much smaller yet spent millions each year on
  security. Zerkel had penetrated that facility's outer perimeter several
  years ago but had to get out when he'd stupidly tripped an alarm. This
  place was much easier. He just didn't want to get careless. Too much was
  at stake. If he screwed it up he had no doubt that Mueller would kill
  him.
  Zerkel took several photographs of the fantastic airplane. He wanted to
  show his brother what they were working on out here. He'd already seen
  Guerin's warehousing and parts distribution system, which included a vast
  depot that accommodated incoming shipments to Guerin by air, by truck,
  by rail, and even by sea. Tomorrow he would tackle Guerin's headquarters
  and main engineering facility at Portland's airport.
  "Just who the hell are you?" someone demanded from behind him.
  Zerkel pocketed his miniature camera and turned around calmly, although
  his heart was hammering
 350 DAVID HAGBERG

 wildly. He'd been in situations like this one before. Panic and you got
 busted. The guard was a man in his late forties or early fifties. He was
 armed with a pistol, but he'd not drawn it.
  "I had to come down and sneak a look," Zerkel said. He turned back to the
  airplane. "She's beautiful."
  "She sure is something," the guard agreed. "Now don't tell me that you
  left your badge upstairs. Let me see some ID.-
 "I got my wallet," Zerkel said, turning back.
  The guard came within arm's reach. "You engineers are all alike . . ."
  Zerkel grabbed the man's jacket front in both hands and yanked him
  sharply forward, driving his forehead into the guard's forehead. The man
  went limp, and Zerkel eased him to the floor.
  It was bad luck. Zerkel hesitated for a second or two before he stomped
  on the guard's throat with the heel of his shoe, crushing the man's
  windpipe. He stomped a second time and then a third, the guard's face
  puffing up and turning purple. After a few moments the guard's body went
  completely limp. He was dead.
  Bad luck, Zerkel told himself. The guard had seen his face.

 Karl Schey showed up at the Sterling, Virginia, farmhouse around 10:00
 P.m. He'd been picked up from his New York hotel and driven up to the
 airport at Bridgeport, Connecticut, where he'd been flown by private plane
 to Washington's National Airport. A Lamplighter staffer picked him up and
 drove him out.
  "I approve of the precautions," he told Reid in the stair hall.
  Mueller watched from the darkness in the dining room as the two men
  embraced.
  "You look tired, my old friend," Reid said. "The journey must have been
  long. I assume you took care not to be followed."
  "Yes, I am tired. And no, I was not followed. Of that you can rest
  assured, Edward. But what about you and
                HIGH FLIGHT 351

 your fantastic plans? Did Bruno arrive? Have you put him to work?"
  "Yes, to your last two questions. And as for my fantastic plans, well, I'm
  glad that you're here to share them with me, Karl. We'll talk. But would
  you like to go up to your room to rest? We can talk in the morning."
  "I'm too keyed up to sleep now. Perhaps I can have a glass of cognac and we
  can sit by the fire. It's good to be here."
  Reid hung the older man's coat in the hall closet, and they went into the
  living room where he poured them both a drink. Once they were seated in
  front of the fireplace, their backs to the door, Mueller slipped out of the
  dining room and silently searched Schey's coat and his leather bag at the
  foot of the stairs. There were no weapons, only clothing, toiletries, and
  an envelope containing several thousand American dollars. If he'd left
  Germany for good, he'd left light and apparently in a hurry. A man like
  Schey, however, would certainly have secure access to a considerable amount
  of money. Enough so that no matter what happened, he could insulate himself
  from arrest.
  Mueller turned and looked up. Louis Zerkel stood at the head of the stairs
  watching him. He held a batch of computer printouts, and he'd evidently
  been on his way down to talk to Reid about something. Mueller waved him
  back. The younger man stood his ground, but finally he turned and
  disappeared down the hall.
  Reid and Schey were talking in low tones when Mueller went to the door. He
  could just make out what they were saying, but if there was any desperation
  in Schey's sudden appearance here it was not evident in his voice. He was
  the Karl Schey that Mueller had always known: strong, certain, and
  definitely in control.
  "It is an ambitious undertaking, my friend," he said. "But will it work,
  and will you be able to extricate yourself when the time comes?"
  "Nothing is foolproof, but just now the Japanese seem to be cooperating
  with us, and I do have some capable men working for me."
 352 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Bruno is unstable, you know. But he can be useful this one last time.
  Never again."
 "What do you mean?"
  "Interpol knows his name and face, and it's possible they know or suspect
  that he is here in the United States. Which means the FBI has been alerted.
  Once you are finished with him I would suggest that he be eliminated."
 "Thank you for the suggestion."
  "We have worked well together for a great many years," Schey said
  conversationally. "In all that time I have found you to be an engaging,
  enterprising man. Our little projects have always been interesting, and
  certainly profitable for both of us."
 "Beginning with those pistols."
  Schey chuckled, the sound dry in his throat. "Yes, the Lugers. They wound
  up in Moscow, you know. The Russians paid very well. No telling how many
  pompous old men showed their subordinates a Luger and told how the pistol
  was taken from an unwilling Nazi in the Great Patriotic War."
  " I think you sold them for more than a hundred dollars each."
  Again Schey chuckled. "Of course. I did all the work, took all the risks."
  " The Stasi would have bailed you out had you been caught," Reid said
  evenly.
  Schey hesitated for a beat. "How long have you known?" he asked cautiously.
  " I've suspected for a long time that you were a double agent. Bruno
  confirmed it for me."
 :'Is he here now?"
  'I don't know exactly where he is, Karl. He is a difficultman to control.
  He was concerned that you were in some sort of trouble in Germany, so you
  were coming here to escape. You've left much behind."
  11 Is that why you went to such extraordinary lengths to cover my tracks to
  this place?"
  " Yes, it was," Reid admitted. "Are you in trouble in Europe? Are the
  police searching for you?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 353

  "No one is looking for me, Edward. I swear it. But if they were this
  would be the last place I would come. At this moment I would be enjoying
  the summer sun on a certain island where I am well known-by another name
  of course-and well respected."
  Reid looked up as Mueller silently entered the living room and came up
  behind Schey.
  "Maybe you should have gone to your island after all, Karl."
  Schey, sensing at the last moment that he might be in mortal danger,
  started to turn around, but he was too late. Mueller clamped his powerful
  hands around the old man's throat and squeezed. Schey came half up out
  of the chair, thrashing and fighting with every ounce of his strength,
  but it was no use, and in under a minute and a half he was unconscious,
  and four minutes later his heart stopped.
  "You can bury his body in the garbage pit behind the barn," Reid said,
  shakily.

 Louis Zerkel stood in the relative darkness of the stair hall. He'd seen
 and heard everything, and whatever lingering doubts he might have had
 about Reid's plans for him and his brother were dispelled. At the end
 everyone would be eliminated except for Reid.
  He backed away, and stopped at the foot of the stairs as he tried to
  catch his breath, slow his heart. Glen would have to be warned. In the
  past days working together he had come to appreciate his brother. It was
  blood. Even though they had different mothers, they shared their father's
  genes.
  There was no safe way for them to get out of this project now, he told
  himself as he went silently up the stairs. But there could be a way for
  them to come out on top. To profit by it, while at the same time saving
  their own lives.
  For the first time in many years, he felt as if he did not need Dr.
  Shepard. He was free.
 "What do you think about that?" he muttered.
 SIXTEEN

 Reid knew that his ratl onalizing was over. He
     could put the murders of hundreds or thousands
     of people in the airliners he would cause to crash
 in a compartment of his mind where his ideals lived. It
 was a war he was waging. In war a lot of people got
 killed. But in war grand issues were at the center of the
 struggle. Freedom from oppression. The saving of a
 nation                            or a religion or a way of life. In
 this case the
 saving of the United States from the Japanese. He could
 also put                          the murders of Tallerico and Dr.
 Shepard at the
 back of                           his mind because he never really knew
 either of
 them. In any event they had been soldiers as well. But
 the killing of Karl Schey was completely different. He
 had known and worked with the man for more than fifty
 years. In a strange way he had trusted the German
 through                           all those years, because Schey had it
 within his
 power to bring Reid's career crashing down. Now the
 man was dead, and his body would be buried here.
 There was no way of rationalizing himself out of that
 simple                            fact.
  "I'll take his body out now," Mueller said. "You can bring his coat and
  overnight bag."
  "No." Reid stood by the fireplace, looking at Schey's body.
 "Why not?"
 "We go back too many years together, Karl and L"
  "Alive he would have created problems for us. It is better that he is
  dead. Do you see this?"
  Reid nodded. "He should have stayed in Germany, or gone to his southern
  island to enjoy his retirement. He could have died at peace."
 "Do not grieve for this one, Reid. In his long, distin-                HIGH FLIGHT 355

 guished service, he was the direct cause of a great many deaths."
 "So were you."
 Mueller smiled faintly. "It's what I do. What he did."
 "Get rid of his body," Reid ordered. "Bury it deep."
  "I'll take care of it. But check with the FBI or Interpol. If he was
  traced here to this country, then we will have to take measures to
  further mask his coming to this house."
 "I'll see what I can do," Reid said.
  Mueller gathered up the old man's body as if it were nothing more than
  a bundle of clothes. "I told you that if I were to be cornered I would
  take out a lot of people. You included. I'm here to do a job for you. See
  that you hold up your end of the operation."
 Reid said nothing. He felt flushed.
  "In the meantime, our strange friend upstairs has something for you, I
  think. See what he wants."
  Reid waited until Mueller was gone and then went upstairs. Zerkel was
  seated at one of the computer terminals, his fingers-flying over the
  keys, a dense stream of binary figures scrolling in broad columns up the
  orange-lit screen.
  "Do you have something to tell me, Louis?" Reid asked from the doorway.
  Zerkel looked up guiltily, then plucked a few sheets of computer printout
  from the table. "I need these parts for the repeaters."
 "Anything difficult?" Reid asked, taking the sheets.
  "No," Zerkel said. He typed something else, looked up again at Reid, this
  time with a sly grin, and hit ENTER, then the print command. The big
  laser printer began spewing out copy.
  Reid watched. Something about Zerkel was different, disturbing. "Is it
  something more for me?"
  "As soon as it finishes printing out," Zerkel said. He nodded toward the
  door. "Is Bruno burying your friend's body?"
 Reid was taken aback. "You saw . .
 "And heard everything." - 356 DAVID HAGBERG

  "What have you done, you fool?" Reid demanded. He went to the laser
  printer and pulled the first section of printout from the tray. "What is
  this?"
  "Insurance," Zerkel said. "Names, dates, places, murders, plans ...
  everything."
  Reid looked up hardly believing what he was reading, what he was being
  told.
  "All of it is buried now inside the FBI's computerized finger-print
  records. It'll pop up in the clear all over the place unless I feed it
  a code word every twelve hours." Zerkel smiled smugly. "What do you think
  about that?"

 "Report tubes one, two, three, and four are flooded," the growler in the
 Samisho's attack center rattled.
 "Confirm visually," Minori ordered.
  A few moments later the forward torpedo room watch officer came back.
  "Visuals of one, two, three, and four confirm weapons in place and tubes
  flooded."
  Captain Kiyoda stood at the periscope ready to raise it the moment they
  came to depth. He looked across at his weapons control officer,
  Lieutenant Takasaki. "No mistakes, Shuichiyo. Only on my orders will you
  open all four doors. And you will do it smartly."
 "Hai, kan-cho. "
  "And only on my orders will there be a weapons launch. Is that clear?"
 "Hai, " Takasaki replied crisply.
  Minori was bringing the boat up slowly, so as not to spook the captain
  of the American destroyer into doing something rash. If the confrontation
  were going to come here-which Kiyoda did not think it would-then so be
  it. But he preferred to push the Americans a little farther if possible.
  Into the East China Sea, and hopefully to within spitting distance of
  Okinawa.
  After the destroyer was sent to the bottom there would be other American
  sub-hunters in the vicinity, which would make for interesting targets.
  Kiyoda closed his eyes for a moment, and a billion fireflies fluttered
  in front of him. He had met with
                HIGH FLIGHT 357

 Kami.va-san several years ago at a house in the peaceful mountains outside
 Tokyo. They'd sat on tatamis on the veranda listening to the gurgle of water
 and the tinkling of a windchime. It was not Kamiya's house, but, as the old
 man explained, it was an oasis of peace and hope in a world that had somehow
 gone terribly mad.
  It was then that Kamiya-san had assigned Captain Kiyoda a sensei to begin
  his instructions. Since then Kiyoda had barely been able to contain himself
  waiting for this day. One year ago the fireflies had come to him, and at
  first he had been disturbed. But his sensei explained that what Kiyoda was
  seeing was in fact a window into the universe. Fireflies or stars, they
  were of no consequence except that they represented the correct path. They
  were, in effect, guiding lights.
 Kiyoda opened his eyes. His XO was looking at him.
 "Our depth is twenty meters, kan-cho. "
  "Up periscope," Kiyoda ordered. "Stand by weapons control."
 "Hai, " Takasaki responded eagerly.
  Kiyoda squatted to rise with the periscope, and he smiled inwardly. With
  this boat and this crew he was invincible.

 "Port wing lookout has a periscope directly off our quarter," Lieutenant
 Commander Ryder said.
  Captain Hanrahan stepped over to that side of the bridge and raised his
  binoculars.
  "Bridge, sonar. The target has leveled off at six-zero feet, inbound
  relative bearing two-seven-zero, range two thousand yards." The comms had
  been put on loudspeaker.
  "I have the periscope wake abaft our beam," Hanrahan said. "Secure from
  active sonar. Listen for tube flooding noises."
  "Bridge, sonar, he's opening his doors!" the chief sonarman reported
  excitedly. "I'm getting four transients. He's definitely opening his
  doors."
 "Stand by to launch ASROC tubes one through four
 358 DAVID HAGBERG

 on my command," Hanrahan ordered calmly. He watched the wake the Samisho's
 periscope made in the rising seas. "Have the choppers converge and prepare
 to launch on my command. Tell the Orion driver what we're doing, and get me
 Seventh HQ on the secure phone."

 "Thanks for coming up on the double, Don," Admiral Ryland said. "We're in
 trouble, and I want your input."
  "I'd say we are at that, sir." Captain Donald Moody, Jr., Chief of Seventh
  Fleet Intelligence, took his place next to Ryland at the situation board.
  "Mike's going to have to back off, and do it now. We don't want to get into
  a shooting match, even by mistake, with the MSDF."
  "If the sub-driver fires first, Mike will have to defend himself."
  "If he gets in the Samisho's way, Admiral," Moody said without hesitation.
  The intelligence chief had worked for the CIA and National Security Agency
  as well as naval intelligence. He knew the business backward and forward.
  Which meant he knew when to tell it exactly like it was no matter the
  fallout.
  "That particular submarine has no business at our back door in the East
  China Sea. Not after its performance in the Tatar Strait."
  "Are you willing to kill that boat in order to stop it from getting past
  the Thorn?"
  "You know as well as I do, Don, that it'll come," Ryland said. "Either here
  and now, or later farther south where he'll be in a position to pose a
  greater threat. The man is crazy."
  "We're talking about our allies, Admiral," Moody said.
  "Don't I know it," Ryland admitted darkly. "I'm getting no answer from MSDF
  Fleet Headquarters. Admiral Shimakaze is not available for my call. The
  Sarnisho may not be operating under direct MSDF orders, but at least it has
  tacit approval."
 "We'll never be able to prove that. And now's not the
                HIGH FLIGHT 359

 time for us to be taking a stand out here. Christ, Admiral, you know what
 Washington would do to us. Especially after what happened last week."
  "The Thorn is my boat, my crew. Means I'm responsible until I'm ordered
  off the job."
  "You're paying me for intelligence estimates and advice. If the Samisho
  wants to bull its way into the East China Sea, let it go. It'll take at
  least forty-eight hours, maybe longer, for that submarine to get into a
  position dangerous to us. But that gives us the time to make it an issue
  with MSDF command and bounce it back to the Pentagon, or at the very
  least bring up more assets from Okinawa. But goddammit, Admiral, these
  are Japanese home waters. And they have the right to come and go as they
  please."
  Ryland's XO, Captain Tom Byrne, had been on the phone with MSDF
  headquarters. He hung up and shook his head. "Admiral Higashi is in
  conference," he said. Higashi was CINC of the MSDF Submarine Fleet.
  "Don thinks Mike Hanrahan should back off," Ryland said.
  Byrne eyed the intelligence officer and nodded slowly. "I agree with him,
  sir. It would give us a little breathing room. Time to press the issue."
 "There's always Subic Bay to consider," Moody said.
  "I am," Ryland said. "Once they're back on the Philippines and well
  established we'd have our hands full out here." No matter what the Thorn
  did we were going to come out the losers. If Hanrahan engaged the
  submarine and sank or damaged it, the Japanese government would be all
  over the U.S. Navy. These were Japanese home waters. If the Sarnisho got
  lucky and sent a U.S. destroyer to the bottom, Japan would apologize for
  another dreadful mistake and offer to make reparations to the families
  of the victims. And if he ordered Mike Hanrahan to step aside, the MSDF
  would have won a moral victory over the U.S. Navy, which was coming under
  increasing pressure to get its bases off Japanese soil and its ships out
  of Japanese waters.
 360 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Get Hanrahan on the scrambler," Ryland said. "Tell him to back off and
  allow the Samisho through the strait."
 "Yes, sir," Byrne said.
  "Tell him that I want him to stick on that sub wherever she goes,
  whatever she does, and I don't care what he has to do to accomplish that
  mission. Clear?"
  "Aye, aye, Admiral," Byrne replied crisply. He picked up the encrypted
  phone at the same moment Hanrahan's call from the Thorn came in.

 "Bring me up to date," SUR Director Aleksandr Karyagin said. "Our Tokyo
 Station cannot be so weak that after all this time nothing has been
 learned."
  "Mintori Assurance is definitely behind the attack on Guerin," General
  Polunin replied. He'd been called upstairs to have lunch with the
  director. From the Lubyanka's ninth-floor dining room he could see that
  this morning's snowstorm had increased in intensity. Coming in from
  Mar'ina Roshcha traffic had been snarled up, and he'd been late, but not
  so late he didn't have time to prepare for the director's summons. "There
  is some question about the Dulles accident, however. From what Abunai is
  giving us, Mintori was just as surprised and shocked as Guerin was."
 "The timing seems odd."
  "Yes, sir, considering all that has been happening recently. It would
  have done them no good to engineer such an accident now. They would stand
  to lose much more than they could gain."
  "How does Abunai see that?" Karyagin asked. "How do you see it, General?"
  Once again the director had put him on the spot. "Basically Mintori, like
  too many other corporations within that zaibatsu, is an
  information-driven industry whose sole purpose for existence is to make
  money. It does this by minimizing its risks and exposure. In order to do
  that, and still get on with the business of manufacturing, or research
  and development-or in the case of
                HIGH FLIGHT 361

 the Kobe banking zaibatsu, provide developmental capital-it actively gathers
 intelligence. As a whole the Japanese have been engaging in industrial
 espionage since before the Great War," Polumn added. "The entire nation must
 continue to manufacture at ever-increasing levels or die. Which means they
 must know what their market competitors are doing and devise strategies to
 either better them, or destroy them."
 "The ultimate capitalists," Karyagin said dryly.
  "Every Japanese businessperson who meets with a foreigner is a spy for his
  country. Whatever information is gathered goes back to the individual
  companies, which in turn share significant details with their individual
  zaibatsus, which in a final turn share with the government. Specifically
  the Ministry for International Trade and Industry-MITI. It's as close as we
  can get to identifying any centralized Japanese intelligence agency, and of
  course its primary involvement is business."
  "I will suffer your lengthy explanations, General, because I am no expert
  on Japan. But get on, with it."
  "Simply put, Mr. Director, Abunai believes that Mintori does not have
  enough information to make its final move against Guerin at this time."
  Karyagin raised an eyebrow. "Abunai is a network of people, or one
  individual?"
  Polunin had anticipated the question. There was no reason for the SUR
  director not to know that information; it was just that all good
  intelligence organizations understood the guiding principle of "need to
  know." There was no reason, until now, for the director to be told the
  specifics. Polunin took a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it
  across the table. The director read what it contained and looked up.
  "I see," he said. He handed the slip back and Polunin pocketed it.
  "The sinking of the Menshinsky shook the Japanese government as much or
  more than it did us."
 "Tell that at the Kremlin."
 "It shook the Japanese government, Mr. Director,"
 362 DAVID HAGBERG

 Polunin made his point again. "But Abunai believes that Minton -specifically
 its director, Sokichi Kamiya, and the director of the Kobe Bank zaibatsu,
 Hiroshi Kobayashi-may have had previous contact with the captain of the
 submarine, the Samisho. His name is Seiji Kiyoda, and he comes from a very
 old, very venerable family. He has apparently fashioned himself and his crew
 after Yukio Mishima's Shield Society."
  "They are using this submarine commander as a too]?"
  "A similar incident seems to be developing between this submarine and an
  American destroyer in the Tokara Strait at the entrance to the East China
  Sea."
 Karyagin sat forward. "Have shots been fired?"
  "Not yet. We have a RORSAT due to pass over the region within the hour. If
  we get a break in the weather we might see something. Short of that,
  infrared sensors will at least tell us if there has recently been a
  battle."
  "Why, General? If what Abunai tells us is valid, if Mintori and Kobe are
  targeting Guerin, why engineer attacks on our navy and on the Americans? To
  what end?"
  "We cannot answer that yet, Mr. Director. But it's my guess that these
  naval confrontations may be an effort at misdirection that somehow may help
  them in their run on Guerin. There is some logic in the idea, especially if
  it is considered against the Japanese Prime Minister's free trade proposal.
  But there is another, much darker possibility that would reduce the naval
  attacks and the bid for Guerin to individual elements of a larger plan."
 "What are you thinking?"
  "A brief, very intense little war for economic control of the Western
  Pacific basin. The Japanese desperately need guaranteed supplies of oil and
  minerals from the region, and a constantly growing market for their manu-
  factured goods. The same things the new American economy is scrambling
  for."
 "Subic Bay comes to mind," Karyagin suggested.
 "I'm sure it's foremost in many Americans' minds. As
                HIGH FLIGHT 363

 are the growing anti-American sentiments in Tokyo and Yokosuka-home base
 to the U.S. Seventh Fleet and home port of the Samisho. "
  "The Japanese are a sophisticated people. It would be suicide for them.
  They are America's allies. As you said of Mintori's timing, Japan would
  have everything to lose and nothing to gain."
  "A view widely held, Mr. Director," Polunin replied, masking an inward
  smile. The bastard didn't know his way around as well as he thought he
  did. "MITI is almost certainly spying on the United States, and Abunai
  believes that a top MITI operative may have been sent to Washington to
  specifically target Guerin for information."
 "Is this surprising?"
  "In itself, no, Mr. Director. But this operative was observed meeting
  with Mr. McGarvey on at least one occasion. Interesting, wouldn't you
  say, in light of what he told us?"
  "Are you saying that Guerin's offer to build an assembly factory here is
  false?"
  "I don't know. In my gut I think the offer is legitimate. But I don't
  think McGarvey is. In fact it's very likely that he is working on direct
  orders from the CIA, something Guerin's chief executives might not know.
  He may even have somehow maneuvered the airplane company into offering
  us the factory."
 "Make your point."
  Polunin sat back and rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and
  forefinger. It was time for caution, very big issues were at stake.
  Career-breaking or career-making issues. Unlike a lot of people on his
  staff, Polunin did not pine for the old regime. But he did miss its
  stability. Russia and the entire world had become politically liquid. It
  was very much like the Weimar Republic days of Germany. Worldwide, the
  setup seemed chillingly similar.
  "McGarvey offers us a billion dollar factory if we will help him spy in
  Japan. He's killing two birds with one
 364 DAVID HAGBERG

 stone. First he puts us in a position where any retaliation against the
 Japanese for sinking the Menshinsky would be difficult if not impossible,
 and second gets us to share intelligence data. Something in both cases
 that Washington may want very desperately. They are in trouble in Japan,
 and they'll take all the help they can, because if the United States and
 Japan do go to war over the Western Pacific rim, the United States will
 lose."
 "Preposterous."
  "No, Mr. Director, it's likely. Within hours after the first shots are
  fired, Washington would call an immediate halt to all hostilities. Japan
  is, after all, its ally and major trading partner. Washington will demand
  they talk and not shoot. At the end of the ... peace conference, if you
  will ... the Japanese will get what they want. The Western Pacific basin
  is vital for Japan's survival, but not for America's."
 "Keeping us out of it would not help them."
  "On the contrary. If we move against Japan, it will give them the
  legitimate excuse to mobilize, with if not the full approval of the U.S.,
  at least with its understanding."
 "Because of one submarine."
  "No, Mr. Director, because of two very powerful and important zaibatsus
  that may be maneuvering an unwilling Japanese government into the
  confrontation."
  "Then we must help McGarvey. But you say the man has met with the
  Japanese spy."
  "How better to find out what a government's intentions are than to find
  out what its spies are up to?"
  "Has this information been passed to McGarvey yet?" Karyagin asked.
 6 'No. 11

 "What are you recommending, General?"
  "Abunai is trying to penetrate Mintori or Kobe or both, but it is very
  difficult. I recommend that we give Tokyo Station all the support we can.
  But McGarvey is going to have to be watched very closely. I would like
  to determine if indeed he is working for the CIA, and what his exact
  mission might be."
                HIGH FLIGHT 365

 "How would you go about that?"
  "By trying to penetrate his cover. If his work for Guerin is legitimate,
  he'll bleed a little. If not he'll sidestep it."
 "But then he won't cooperate with us."
  "Yes he will, because he won't know who is after him or why."
  "He is an intelligent, capable man, General," Karyagin warned. "Move with
  care. And do it quickly. The Kremlin is pressing very hard to retaliate
  for the Menshinsky. "
  The situation was exactly as Polunin thought it would be. With proper
  timing and luck, Karyagin would hang at the end of his own rope.

 "It wasn't a very smart thing to do. It jeopardizes all of us," Reid told
 Louis Zerkel.
  "It was the only thing he could do," Mueller contradicted.
  "What are you talking about? Do you understand the consequences? Our
  lives are inside the FBI's mainframe. One mistake on Louis's part, one
  glitch in the system across the river, one careless flick of a key by
  some bored data-entry clerk, and we're finished."
  "It can't happen that way, Mr. Reid," Louis said. He sat at his computer
  terminal, the screen blank. "I've built in a virus against snoopers.
  There are only two ways for that information to be accessed. By me, if
  and when I decide to retrieve it. And also by me, if I don't plug in the
  proper code twice a day. In that case the entire file will be plastered
  across nearly every terminal in the headquarters."
  "You can get the information from him," Reid said to Mueller.
  The German shook his head. "We wouldn't know if he was telling the truth
  until it was too late."
 "You two are forgetting something else," Louis said.
  "No," Mueller replied, a slight smile creasing the corners of his mouth.
  "We need you to build the repeaters, and to test the heat monitor to make
  sure
 366 DAVID HAGBERG

 everything will work. We also need you to somehow generate the signal in
 Tokyo so that InterTech in San Francisco will send out the firing pulses. I
 think it will take a genius to figure that out, but I have no doubt that you
 are up to the task."
 "Jesus," Reid said.
  Mueller turned to him. "It's life insurance for him. He is afraid that I
  will kill him the moment his usefulness is at an end."
 "Damned right," Zerkel said.
  Mueller looked at him. "But you have forgotten something in your haste,
  Louis. If someone were to go snooping within the FBI's system, your virus
  would wipe out the material. I think Mr. Reid could come up with someone
  who would be willing to do a little snooping for us. What do you think
  about that?"
  It dawned on Louis in one fell swoop that the German was absolutely
  correct. He had been stupid, blinded by his own cleverness. Christ. Christ.
  It wasn't fair. He turned back to his terminal and brought up the compli-
  cated entry system that would get him back into the FBI's system, when the
  muzzle of a pistol was placed against his temple.
  "One keystroke and I will kill you," Mueller said, his voice gentle, as if
  he were talking to a spooked animal.
  Zerkel's fingers were poised over his keyboard as he thought it out. He
  hardly dared to breathe. "If you kill me now, your plan dies with me," he
  said very carefully.
  "I will kill you only if you attempt to reveal our names and this
  location."
 "I could do it later, while you're out of the room."
  "The moment I found out what you'd done, I would kill you, your brother,
  and Mr. Reid, and make my escape. I am very good at it."
  Zerkel took great pains to keep his voice even, as if he were simply
  discussing the weather. "You'll kill me at the end."
 "We'll construct a safeguard against that."
 "How?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 367

  "I don't know yet, Louis. But between the three of us we will come to a
  mutual agreement."
  It was always the sly ones, the crafty people who came out on top, not the
  intellectuals. Most often the men of true genius were left behind, trampled
  in the dust. It made no sense, nor was it fair. But Louis did understand
  that it was the way of things in the world. The usual way of things. But he
  wanted to finish this project. Now that he'd come this far, he wanted to
  see how it turned out. And he wanted to see about it in the journals and
  periodicals and especially in the analytical newsletters. He wanted to read
  the studies that would be done. The psychological profiles of the
  perpetrators, and especially of the genius who had figured out how to beat
  the system.
 He had to survive.
  Slowly he brought his hands back from the keyboard and laid them on his
  lap, then he turned against the pressure of the gun barrel and looked up
  into Mueller's eyes.
  "Yes, Herr Mueller, we will construct a safeguard that we all can live
  with. In the meantime please leave me now. I have to get back to work on my
  signal system design. It is at a very delicate stage."
  Mueller drew back after a beat, safetied the Luger, and headed out of the
  room. "What do you think about that?" he said as he passed a stunned Reid.

 Chance Kennedy spotted Arimoto Yamagata at a window table. She headed across
 the elegant old Columbia Gorge Hotel dining room aware that it was unlikely
 anyone here would know her. The hotel was fifty miles east of Portland, and
 it was frequented mostly by tourists. She'd been here only once, and that
 had been years ago. Still, she rightly remembered how beautiful the place
 was with its gardens, stone bridges, and waterfall. But Yamagata's call this
 morning inviting her to lunch had come out of the blue. Her immediate
 reaction had been to turn him down. She'd only met the man
 368 DAVID HAGBERG

 once, casually, and had barely spoken ten words with him. Although she'd
 never thought of herself as having sharp prejudices, the man was Japanese.
 He was of a different race. His skin color was different, and his eyes were
 not Western.
  Too, he was here to do business with Guerin, so by taking the wife of the
  commercial airplane division's president to lunch he might feel as if he
  would find an opening. Every company had its secrets. Who better to tell
  him than a top executive's wife?
  But to understand the risks was to be prepared. The Japanese might be using
  her, but the fact of the matter was that she was bored out of her skull.
  David was gone most of the time, and the rare moments he was at home he was
  barricaded in his study reading stacks of arcane reports on everything from
  the global economy to the stress points of hybrid ceramics.
  Besides, she told herself, the game Yarnagata was probably playing slid
  both ways. While he was trying to get information from her, she could be
  doing the same to him. If she were able to bring some juicy little tidbit
  of information about the Japanese home with her, David would certainly sit
  up and take notice for a change.
  Yarnagata rose as she approached. "Hello again," he said, his voice
  pleasant, with no trace of an accent. He held out his hand, and Chance
  shook it.
  "Your call this morning came as a surprise," she said. His grip was gentle,
  his palm warm and dry.
 "A pleasant one, I hope."
  She looked into his eyes, but there was nothing in them except warmth and
  a friendly good humor. "Frankly it made me nervous. How'd you ever find
  this place?"
  " The Japanese are inveterate tourists, didn't you know? We go nowhere
  without a camera and a guidebook."
  He helped with her chair, and their waiter came over with menus. Chance
  ordered a dry vodka martini on the rocks with a twist, and Yarnagata
  ordered another white wine.
                HIGH FLIGHT 369

  "I guess I deserved that," Chance said. She smiled. She felt like a fool.
  Yamagata returned her smile. "You were being candid-may I call you
  Chance?"
 "Please do."
  "Let me be equally candid. I came to Portland to explore the possibility
  of doing business with Guerin. But I would like to find out the kinds of
  things that do not ordinarily show up on an annual report. The sort of
  things that men sitting across a conference table from one another rarely
  bring up, or are reluctant to discuss. I felt that you might be able to
  help me."
  Chance could hardly believe what she was hearing. Either the man was a
  raging idiot or he thought she was. "Like who is sleeping with whom?"
  For an instant Yamagata looked startled, but then he threw back his head
  and laughed, the gesture without guile. He'd heard something funny, and
  he'd responded.
  "My dear lady, what do you take me for?" he asked, when he recovered.
  Chance was confused. "I know nothing about you. Nothing at all, except
  that by your own admission you're some sort of a spy."
  "That's exactly what I am. And let me tell you the kind of information
  I'm looking for. Great corporations, like great nations, often rise and
  fall not only because of economics but because of an esprit de corps,
  some inner drive or purpose. If its leaders and its workers are excited
  then good things usually follow. Strength. Clearmindedness. Fairness."
  Yamagata lowered his eyes for a moment. "If the esprit de corps is lost,
  for whatever reason, the future of a great corporation such as Guerin may
  not be so clear."
 Chance did understand. She nodded. "I know."
  "It's hardly a subject I could bring up at a Guerin board meeting, you
  know. 'Gentlemen, accept my condolences for your recent loss at Dulles
  Airport, but can you tell me if your mood has been permanently damaged?
  Are you crying tears of sadness? Has the joy gone out of your soul?"'
 370 DAVID HAGOERG

  Chance could not envision Al Vasilanti shedding tears about anything.
  She'd attended his wife's funeral four years ago, and the old bastard had
  sat through the entire ceremony at the church and at the cemetery
  completely dry-eyed. As if he were attending a stranger's funeral.
 "Do you catch my meaning?"
  "Yes, I certainly do. But so far as I can tell it's business as usual.
  It's the new airplane everybody's been talking about. It's the holy grail
  for all of them-my husband included. And it's the same with every new
  project. They're in their own little worlds. It's a wonder to a lot of
  us why the divorce rate'among airplane executives isn't higher than it
  is."
  Yamagata shook his head wanly. "Forgive me for saying this, Chance, but
  if Western men could have the feminine quality of understand ing-just
  that one characteristic-America would be a million times greater than it
  already is."
  "It's called empathy," Chance said, and she felt stupid. The man was
  obviously using her. It was so flagrant she almost wanted to laugh. And
  yet there was a quality about him, about his face, the way he held
  himself, about his eyes, and the set of his mouth, his lips, that was
  intriguing.
  "That's a good word," Yamagata said, studying her face.
  She raised her eyes and looked frankly into his. "Do you think so?"

 SEVENTEEN

 He came through the fence at West Thirteen," Guerin's chief of security
 William Lisch told the Portland Police detective. "But like I said we
 didn't catch it until first light this morning."
                HIGH FLIGHT 371

  "Camera troubles out there?" Lieutenant Peter Geiger asked. He was just
  going through the motions until the feds showed up.
  "We maintain sixty-seven miles of fence line, some of it through pretty
  rough terrain. We always have troubles somewhere. But he was a pro, I can
  tell you that much. He didn't take any unnecessary chances. The camera was
  moved a quarter-inch, which gave him about fifteen feet of dead zone to
  work in, and he shunted the outer fence before cutting a hole in it so
  nothing showed up on our monitors. When he was done he closed the hole,
  removed the shunt, and took off. Our first team didn't catch it last night.
  We had to wait till daybreak."
  The Oregon Bureau of Criminal Investigation van had arrived the first thing
  this morning, along with the medical examiner and a team of forensics
  experts. It was their responsibility to secure the crime scene, making sure
  no one inadvertently trampled over some evidence.
  "So, he's through the fence. How do you see it from there?" Geiger asked.
  "It's about three-quarters of a mile, as the crow flies, from there to
  Hangar One. I'm guessing he came behind us, across to the operations
  building, then into One. Would have kept him in the shadows."
 "Anything missing? Sabotaged?"
  "There's a hundred million dollars worth of parts and equipment lying
  around here that could be easily sold on the open market. It'll take time
  to inventory it all."
 "He carried it out himself, if he was alone."
  "Any one of a half-million sensitive parts would bring that bird down. It's
  going to take an even longer time to complete that inventory. After Dulles
  we're all gun-shy."
  Geiger looked up, his interest suddenly piqued. "Are you saying that the
  two incidents are related?"
  They stepped into Lisch's office to look at the perimeter map on the wall.
  The security officer closed the door.
  "A lot of strange things have happened around here in the past six months
  or so, Geiger. You've heard the rumors ... everyone in Portland has ...
  about what the Japanese are trying to do to us. One of our foremen
 372       DAVID HAGBERG

 was killed in Portland a few weeks ago. We had the Dulles crash. And now
 this."
 "Anyone have a grudge against your man?"
  Lisch'shook his head. "So far as I know he was well liked. With us for
  thirteen years. Wife, three kids. Helped run our softball league. Perfect
  record."
 "Gambling, drinking, another woman?"
  "I don't think a jealous husband would have broken in here to kill him."
  "Unless it was one of your security people. Could have covered his tracks
  with the trick in the fence."
  "Not a chance. Whoever it was came here looking for something, or looking
  to do something to us."
  "And they were willing to kill for it," Geiger replied. "Who? If you had
  to guess. The Japanese?"
  Lisch's eyebrows narrowed. "That'd be my guess," he said. "But if you
  claim I told you that, I'll call you a liar to your face."
 "The Bureau will ask the same questions."
 "Don't I know it," Lisch said heavily.

 Special agents Albert McLaren and Phillip Joyce arrived from Washington
 at six sharp at the Air National Guard hangar, where they were met by the
 FBI's Portland field office A-S-A-C Edward Judge. The weather had turned
 mild, but they did not linger on the apron, instead they hurried directly
 to the waiting automobile and headed into the city. During the
 twenty-minute drive McLaren and Joyce flipped through the package of
 material assembled for them.
  "Anything new since this was put together?" McLaren asked when he was
  finished.
  "The coroner's report came over just as I was leaving for the airport,
  but nothing's changed. A broad hematoma at the right temple area might
  have caused unconsciousness. But what killed him was respiratory failure
  due to massive injuries to his trachea."
  "The perp hit him on the head with something, and when the man was down
  he stomped him on the throat," Joyce commented dryly. "Nice."
                HIGH FLIGHT 373

  "That's how it looks," Judp said. He was a big man, In his thirties, with
  wide, serious eyes.
  "Anything missing or tampered with9" McLaren asked.
  "To this point the Guerin people have found nothing, but it'll take a few
  days. It's a big place."
 "Nobody saw or heard a thing?"
 "No. Whoever it was knew his way around."
  McLaren looked up at that. "Are you saying it was an inside job? A Guerin
  employee?"
  "Probably not. What I mean to say is that whoever got through the fence
  and killed the guard was a pro. He had the layout of the place down pat.
  But that's easy information to come by."
  "He did his homework, gained entry to the hangar, for whatever reason,
  and left," McLaren summed it up. "Killing the guard was happenstance. It
  wasn't planned."
  "No argument," Judge said. "The question is, did he accomplish what he
  set out to do? Could be the guard interrupted him before he got to it.
  Might have shaken him enough to make him run."
  Joyce shook his head. "If he was on the run he wouldn't have taken the
  time to put the fence back together. He would have just shagged ass."
  "Right," Judge agreed. "So what words of wisdom are you bringing from
  Washington? Or are you just here to help out?"
  "Neither, actually. We're following up a murder investigation in
  Washington and several more in the San Francisco area that might be
  related to what happened here."
 "Anything to do with the Dulles crash last week?"
  "Not so far as we know," McLaren said. "Have you come up with something?"
  "The Portland cop who was the investigating officer in charge out there
  until we showed up said that Guerin's chief of security mentioned the two
  incidents along with another, apparently an accidental death recently."
 "What's the connection?"
 374 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Guerin has been having trouble with a Japanese group gearing up for some
  sort of a hostile takeover attempt. Off the record the chief of security
  thinks the Japanese might be involved with the crash, with the accidental
  death, and with last night's incident."
 "That's not the company's official position?"
 "No.,,
  "Can we bring this chief of security in for an interview tonight?"
  "His name is Bill Lisch, and he'll cooperate to a point. But we're told
  that he'll deny ever saying anything about the Japanese."
 "I think we can get it on the table," McLaren said.
  They parked behind the Federal Building and went upstairs. Special Agent
  in Charge Jack Franson was waiting for them in his office. He was ten
  years older than Judge and fifty pounds lighter. His hair was already
  starting to go gray. He looked like a banker, or a college professor.
  "Your boss wasn't very specific about what you're looking for, but he
  asked for my complete cooperation," Franson told them. "You have it."
  "Thank you, sir," McLaren replied. "What we need is the short course on
  Guerin Airplane Company so that when we go out there in the morning we
  won't be going blind."
  "Are you taking over this investigation of last night's murder?"
  "No, sir. That's still in your ball park. But we'd like to tag along and
  maybe point you in some directions you might not have come up with on
  your own."
 "I told them what Geiger told us," Judge said.
  "There are a lot of rumors floating around Portland just now," Franson
  said, clearly not happy with his number two. "That statement might have
  been made in the heat of the moment. First lesson about Guerin: The
  company is very big, the biggest thing in Portland. So whatever happens
  over there affects the entire region. It's just like Boeing up in
  Seattle."
                HIGH FLIGHT 375

  "Yes, sir, we understand. But last night's incident may have some
  connection to our investigation."
 "I'm listening."
  "We've brought a summary file for you, but very briefly we started out
  on an industrial espionage case involving a man named Benjamin Tallerico.
  In the middle of our investigation he was murdered. The two men we think
  did it-they're still at large-are Bruno Mueller, who was, until '89, a
  colonel in the East German Secret Service, and an environmental terrorist
  by the name of Glen Zerkel."
  "That Idaho ski resort incident-what, five years ago?" Judge said.
  "He's on the hit list," McLaren confirmed. "Glen Zerkel's brother, Louis,
  worked for'a company in San Francisco called InterTech, which among other
  things designs and manufactures electronic subassemblies for Guerin. By
  the time we got out there to ask him about his brother, he'd skipped. But
  not before murdering his psychologist and raping her corpse."
  "Quite the pair," Franson said. "Are you saying that Louis Zerkel might
  have sabotaged something InterTech was supplying Guerin?"
  "That was our first thought. But as it turns out Zerkel never worked on
  anything even remotely connected with the devices InterTech built for
  Guerin."
  "I'm assuming that in any event InterTech has been checked out."
  "Top to bottom, and they come out clean. Zerkel's behavior is just as big
  a mystery to them. According to them he might have a grudge against the
  company. Last week there was a fire in the shipping and receiving area.
  One of the night watchmen was killed. That same night, Louis Zerkel's
  supervisor and his wife and children were also killed."
 "Anything missing from InterTech?" Judge asked.
 "The company says no," McLaren answered.
  "If I'm following you the only connection you've come up with between
  your case and last night's incident
 376 DAVID HAGBERG

 is the fact that InterTech is a Guerin subcontractor," Franson said.
 "That's thin."
  "Yes, sir, it is. But the break-in and murder last night do have some
  similarities with what happened at InterTech. We're just trying to cover
  all our bases."

 Assistant FBI Director Kenneth Wood looked up from his reading when John
 Whitman showed up at his door. "Come in, John."
  "I think I might be getting in over my head," Whitman said. "if you have
  a minute I'd like to bounce this off YOU."
 "Is it the InterTech case?"
  "That's the one. I'm going around in circles, but I keep coming up with
  the same two names: Kirk McGarvey and Edward R. Reid."
  "Close the door, will you, John?" Wood said. He dialed his secretary. "No
  calls until John and I are finished. And if the director has already left
  for the day, have Marjorie pencil me in with him for tomorrow, eight
  sharp."
  Whitman sat down across from his boss, his ears still ringing from the
  conversation he'd had with Colonel Marquand. The man was insistent.
  "I'm going to tell you right off that your surveillance request on Reid
  will be denied," Wood said. "So unless you've come up with something rock
  solid to nail him with, don't even ask."
  "I don't know what I've got, Ken, but it's big. What's the deal with
  Reid?"
 "Is he crucial to your case?"
 "He could be."
  "Are you talking about the French thing? Has the SDECE been pressing?"
  "I talked with Marquand a half-hour ago," Whitman said. "He made his
  position clear. He says he's talked to the CIA as Well."
  "Reid has been agitating a lot of people about the Japanese with his
  newsletter. The State Department
                HIGH FLIGHT 377

 asked us to back off for the moment because of the Tokyo Summit. And from
 what I understand, that has the backing of the White House."
  "Back off from what?" Whitman asked. "Who said anything about
  investigating Reid?"
  "I don't know, John. I'm guessing a leak somewhere. Reid knows everyone
  in Washington, including Director Harding. So unless you've come up with
  something very big there's nothing I can or will do for you, except put
  Internal Affairs on it if you want to make waves."
  "We'll keep IA out of it for the moment, but without Reid I don't know
  where I'm at."
  Wood leaned forward. "Let me make something perfectly clear, John. I'm
  saying that if you can come up with probable cause, a strong probability
  of cause, then we'll go after him no matter what State tells us."
  "Four points, not necessarily in any order," Whitman said. "The crash at
  Dulles last week. That flight was returning from Moscow, where we believe
  Guerin Airplane Company brass were trying to sell the Russians on some
  sort of a joint project. Best word I've got is that it involves a
  significant amount of money that would have to be given to Russia in the
  form of loan guarantees. The man at the middle is Kirk McGarvey, who
  Guerin hired to check out a rumor that a Japanese consortium might be
  trying to buy out Guerin."
 "Where'd that come from?"
  "An old friend over at Langley. But some of that is guesswork."
 "Was the crash an accident?"
  "NTSB is still working on it, but there are some similarities to a crash
  in 1990, same type of Guerin airplane, same type of malfunction. Nothing
  was found at that time."
 "Go on.,,
  "A night watchman was killed last night at Guerin's research and
  development facility outside Portland. The chief of security for the
  company thinks the Japanese might have had something to do. with it."
 378 DAVID HAGBERG

 :'The Japanese again," Wood said.
  'The French have asked for help finding Bruno Mueller and Karl Schey,
  both of whom probably worked for the East German Secret ~Service. There
  is a possible connection between them and Reid, and a definite connection
  between Mueller and McGarvey."
  Wood was silent for a moment. "Our initial pass showed Reid was clean."
  "Except that he may have been seen having drinks and dinner with Benjamin
  Tallerico before Tallerico was murdered."
 "Where's that connection, John?"
  "Tallerico may have been buying industrial secrets from a San Francisco
  psychologist named Jeanne Shepard, who was the psychologist for an
  engineer by the name of Louis Zerkel. Zerkel worked for InterTech until
  he disappeared. Point is InterTech builds some electronic components for
  Guerin airplanes. The company may have a connection with a Japanese
  microchip supplier. But Zerkel's psychologist and his immediate
  supervisor and the man's family were all murdered, and an InterTech
  facility was broken into, a night watchman killed, and the place set on
  fire."
 "Through Tallerico another possible tie with Reid."
  Whitman nodded. "Louis Zerkel's brother, Glen, is an environmental
  terrorist on our top twenty-five."
 :'All of it very, very circumstantial," Wood said.
 'But there's so much of it," Whitman countered.
  "I'll take it up with the director in the morning. But you're going to
  have to have some help."
  "That's for sure, Ken, because besides Reid, I want to go after
  McGarvey."

 "I didn't hear you drive up," Louis Zerkel said.
  His brother Glen looked tired and disheveled. "I hitched a ride from town
  and hiked up from the highway. Where's everybody?"
  "The German left right after supper, and Mr. Reid went back to the city
  a couple of hours ago. Around ten, I
                HIGH FLIGHT 379

 think. Are you okay, Glen? Was there any trouble in Portland? Did you find
 out what Mr. Reid wanted?"
  "I found out enough to know that if we go through with this we'd better
  get it right, because afterward the sky is going to fall in. Guerin
  Airplane Company is a hell of a lot bigger than I thought it would be.
  I mean intellectually I knew the figures, but, Louis, you ought to see
  it. Christ, half the city belongs to them. Half the state."
 "What happened out there?" Louis asked.
  "I had to take out a night watchman. But that's beside the point. If we
  take on Guerin like Mr. R. wants us to do, it'll be more than a federal
  rap. Every agency in the country will be gunning for us. And whether you
  know it or not there's a lot of fucking good talent out there. This won't
  be like hitting a ski resort or an open pit mine, this'll be like the
  Munich Olympics, or the Marine barracks in Beirut, only bigger. Much
  bigger."
 "Did anybody see you?"
  "No. I don't think so. And if we're lucky the local cops will handle the
  case as a break-and-enter. Happens all the time out there. One guy in a
  bar offered me a job. Told me that's how he made his living. Stealing
  shit from Guerin. They don't even miss it."
 "You said no one saw you."
  "Nobody important. The guys I talked to sure as hell won't blow any
  whistles."
 "What guys? How did you find them?"
 Glen shrugged. "They're around. You just find them."
  Louis needed time to think it out. Circuit design and analysis were easy
  by comparison. He wished that he could talk it over with Dr. Shepard. She
  would understand.
  "How is your end coming?" Glen asked. "Can we do it without leaving a
  trail back here?"
 "I think so."
  "Don't think man," Glen shouted. "You'd better be goddamned sure. Our
  asses are on the line, you understand? Come out of the drift factor,
  Louis. Can we do it without leading them back to us?"
 380 DAVID HAGBERG

  "When I'm finished no one will be able to electronically trace the
  signals back here. But we have another problem."
  "I know," Glen said. "Mr. R. has no intention of paying us off. He's
  going to have Mueller kill us. That's why I'm going to kill the bastard
  before we push the switch. On his own Mr. R. will have to keep his word
  to
 US. V,
  "Besides that, I think Mr. Reid may be under investigation by the FBI,"
  Louis blurted.
  "Oh, Jesus Christ." Glen pulled a chair over to where Louis sat by one
  of the terminals and slumped down on it. "Did you get into the Bureau's
  system?"
  "There's nothing in the system, but Mueller thinks it's possible because
  of that German who called here from Paris."
 "Karl Schey? Did he show up here?"
  "Yes, and Mueller killed him. He told Mr. Reid that Schey would never
  have left Germany unless he was in some kind of trouble. If that were the
  case, Interpol and probably the FBI would be looking for him. The
  investigation might include Mr. Reid. What do you think about that?"
  "We either get the hell out of here now, or we get on with it as fast as
  possible."
 "I've got nowhere to go, Glen."
  "We have to get out of the country, that's for damn sure. And to do that
  takes money. So let's get on with it and hope that Reid has enough
  connections to stall the feds until we're out of here."

 Mueller presented himself at the Visitors Information Bureau at Oakland
 International Airport a minute before 3:00 P.m. and handed the young woman
 behind the counter his business card, which identified him as Thomas
 Reston, a freelance writer for High Technology Business and Aviation Week
 & Space Technology magazines.
  "Have you an appointment, sir?" the receptionist asked.
                HIGH FLIGHT 381

  "I telephoned the Tower Chief, Mr. Franklin, and he promised someone
  would be meeting me here."
 "Let me call for you."
  Mueller had lightened his hair and wore blue contact lenses, which along
  with a lightweight silk suit, Italian tie, and a butter-soft leather
  briefcase made him appear successful and at least ten years younger than
  his actual age.
  InterTech was nearby, but he felt no unease returning to the area so
  soon. Even if someone had seen and identified him last week it was
  unlikely the police would expect him back, nor would he be recognizable
  to anyone who didn't know him intimately. He'd had the business cards
  printed at a Kinko's shop in San Francisco and had done a few hours
  homework at the periodicliterature section of the public library.
  "That's all right, Tammy," a short man with gray hair and a gray beard
  said, coming across the lobby. His complexion was sallow as if he'd spent
  most of his life indoors.
  "Mr. Franklin?" Mueller asked, stepping away from the counter.
  "No. R.C. sent me over. I'm Bill White, chief air traffic control
  instructor here. Mr. Reston?"
  "Yes, that's right." Mueller handed the man a card and they shook hands.
  "I'm a little vague on what you'd like to know. Maybe you can fill me in
  on the way over to the tower. I'm assuming you want to see what we're
  doing in approach and departure control. But I can tell you right now
  that our progress since you people were out here last month is bang on."
  "That's good to hear. I'm assuming then that your IBM Initial Suite
  Sector System is up and fully operational."
 "It is.,,
  There'd been a lot written about the new air traffic control network in
  this country. It was called the Advanced Automation System Project and
  was part of a Washington-driven capital investment plan to spend
 382 DAVID HAGBERG

 around thirty billion dollars by the year 2000. IBM had helped design it.
  During the five-minute drive across to the tower, White was silent.
  Before they went up, however, he stopped Mueller. "Just what are you
  looking for this time? You know the situation out here. We're being
  squeezed both ways. High tech costs big bucks, and in the middle of it
  all we need the controller. The human voice talking to human pilots. That
  hasn't changed and won't."
 "The National Airspace Plan . .
  "That's a worn-out joke, and everybody knows it," White said. "You're
  dealing with big egos here. Controllers are hotshots, so what's new? But
  you've got to tell me why you really came out here today. You're after
  something specific, so you play straight with me, and I'll play straight
  with you."
 "The AAS . . ."
  "You've already asked about that, and I told you that we're on track. No
  problems there. What are you driving at?"
  Mueller was at a loss. From his reading he'd gathered that there was a
  lot of infighting going on between the airline industry, the Federal
  Aviation Administration, and the management commissions of the various
  large U.S. airports. But like in most bureaucratic entanglements more was
  said and written between the lines than was stated openly. His homework
  had been extensive enough to understand that such a situation existed,
  but not enough to come up with the answers that a man who claimed to be
  a technology writer should have. He had stumbled into dangerous
  territory, with no easy way to escape.
  A hint of suspicion was beginning to show in White's eyes. He was waiting
  for the right answer. But the man had admitted that his own ego was big.
  Mueller shrugged. He would have to guess. "I was going to feel you out
  first, Bill, before I mentione'd' it. I didn't want you to bite my head
  off."
                HIGH FLIGHT 383

 "About what?"
  "What they're doing at Haren near Brussels Interriational Airport."
  "Europe's supposed Central Flow Management Unit plan, is that what you're
  talking about?" White asked. "Come with me and I'll show you why it's the
  only way for them to go, but would be totally useless and a damned big
  waste of money in this country."

 Sokichi Kamiya had come to think of himself as a segregationist. There
 were those who maintained a more accurate description might be
 isolationist, but they were wrong. Japan could not exist in a vacuum, and
 he had never preached such a doctrine. International trade and cooperation
 were facts of life, although that fool Ichiro Enchi had gone completely
 over the edge with his announced Japan Free World Trade Zone. If the prime
 minister's plan were somehow to come to pass, Japan would go bankrupt and
 probably drag the U.S. down with it.
  He stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Imperial Hotel's
  thirtieth-floor suite looking out across the Imperial Gardens. How
  Western a spot in which to meet, he thought. And yet how Japanese the
  view. Storm clouds were gathering in more than just a figurative manner.
  The horizon to the northwest was ominously black. The coming days
  promised to be bleak.
  He was a man who understood that the soul of Japan hung in the balance.
  There were two hemispheres and two races that mattered. He would see to
  it that the purity of his remained intact, even if he had to carry on the
  fight singlehandedly. But the timing was wrong. Other forces were out
  there, meddling. Everything was coming to a head faster than he thought
  possible, which left him only two choices: either step aside and let
  events take their natural course or proceed as planned-much faster than
  planned. One choice, actually, he told himself.
 "We are reasonable men, Kamiya-san. Between us we
 384 DAVID HAGBERG

 will find a way," Tadashi Ota said from the buffet across the room.
  "Not by giving away our hard-won advantage," Kamlya grumbled. He turned
  away from the window.
  "My dear old friend, if you mean by that our financial position against
  that of America's, then your concern is as touching as it is misplaced."
  Ota was twenty years younger than Kamiya, and neither as an old friend
  nor as Deputy Director General of Defense was he directly involved with
  the government's finances.
 "Then why are you here?"
 "To ask for your help, of course, Kamiya-san.
 "Who directed you to speak with me?"
  Ota smiled wanly. "A delicate situation has arisen that involves a ...
  disciple of yours."
  Kamiya's left eyebrow rose. He turned back to the window. The trouble had
  always been that Japan's population was concentrated in a few cities. The
  nation's international commerce was gathered into definable regions that
  the military would term primary targets. Japan was an easy mark for
  destruction. Not a day went by that some event or some comment would not
  trigger his memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He knew exactly what he'd
  been doing on those days, at precisely those instants when the bombs had
  burst. It was the same in America. Depending upon what generation you
  spoke with, they either remembered the day Pearl Harbor was attacked or
  the day on which President Kennedy was assassinated. Those events had
  become national benchmarks. Pearl Harbor had given Americans the resolve
  to enter the war. Kennedy's assassination had jarringly awakened the
  nation to a new era. On that day the earth had shrunk by a quantum leap.
  But the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki had made Japan a
  shy nation. It wasn't so much that her people had become peace-loving
  overnight; it was that they had embraced the attitude of the loser. We
  cannot win, so let us not fight. It was the very reason that Japan had
  become so stunningly successful at rebuilding herself in the fifty years
  since the war, at creating a vibrant
                HIGH FLIGHT 385

 economy out of the ashes. Her national energy went from war to commerce.
 Japan became, in a few short decades, one of the leading economic powers
 in the world. That, of necessity since the end of the Cold War between the
 Soviet Union and United States, put Japan on a collision course with
 America. Like a marriage going bad, the danger existed that the husband
 would vent his anger at his wife by striking her down. In Kamiya's analogy
 Japan was the bride at her most vulnerable point. Enchi's offer to create
 a free trade agreement was the same last-ditch conciliatory gesture a
 frightened wife might make to her husband in an effort to save the failing
 marriage. It would not, could not, work.
  "I have no disciples," Kamiya contradicted. "What am I being taken for?"
  "We have spoken with Yabe Takagi. Actually he was quite open with
  investigators, I am told."
  Kamiya again turned back from the window to face the deputy director
  general. "He is a teacher, certainly not my student."
  "He is sensei of that hothead Seijii Kiyoda, a relationship you cannot
  deny you arranged."
  "I know the lieutenant commander and his family very well. His father was
  a personal friend of mine. But Seijii Kiyoda commands a submarine. He
  works for you, not me."
  ",Until a couple of days ago Lieutenant Commander Kiyoda was under arrest
  for treason."
  "House arrest, Minister Ota. Odd for such a serious allegation."
  "You are not chief justice of this nation," Ota blurted in vexation.
 "Nor are you."
  "Kiyoda was responsible for sinking a Russian naval vessel in the Tatar
  Strait, contrary to standing orders. It was Kiyoda who took the
  initiative. It was Kiyoda who maneuvered his vessel and his crew into a
  situation where the Russians had to defend themselves or die."
 "He should have been stopped."
 386 DAVID HAGBERG

  "A submarine at sea, submerged, is nearly autonomous."
  "Then his arrest should have been handled with greater care."
 "You interfered."
  "A charge I categorically deny, Deputy Director General," Kamiya
  asserted. "You arranged our meeting, you selected this place, and you say
  you have come to ask for my help. 'We are reasonable men. Between us we
  will find a way.' Your words. Is this meeting official?"
  Ota looked at him through narrowed eyes. "Not entirely, Kamiya-san. But
  I am asking for your help not only on behalf of the navy, but on behalf
  of our country."
 "With what?"
  "Stopping that hothead Kiyoda from doing irreparable damage. Damage that
  would put us in grave danger. We need time to bridge the differences
  between us and the United States. It is time Prime Minister Enchi is
  buying. It is time Kiyoda is stealing from us by his latest insane
  adventure."
 "Time for what?"
  "You read about the young woman's murder in Yokosuka and about the
  murders of ordinary Japanese tourists in New York and Los Angeles. You
  read about the gathering in front of the U.S. embassy not far from this
  very spot. And you have undoubtedly read about the growing anti-Japanese
  sentiment in the United States. These events and trends are nothing short
  of alarming. As the Prime Minister said . . ."
  "I know what that foot has said," Kamiya interrupted. "But I will ask you
  again, Deputy Director General, you need time for what? For this
  so-called free trade nonsense to be put into effect? For the so-called
  economic summit next month? Is that what you fools honestly expect me to
  help you with?"
  Ota was a diminutive man with sharp features, obsidian eyes, and very
  thick black hair. He was not unlike many Japanese men. Like rabbits,
  Kamiya thought. The
                HIGH FLIGHT 387

 spirit had been eroded in men such as Ota. No bushido here.
  "We will uncover the connection between you and the group that calls
  itself Rising Sun, be assured of that, Kamiya-san. -
 "That is not possible, because no connection exists."
  "Just as we will uncover your direct links with MITI, which has allowed
  you to use the ministry as your personal tool of aggression."
 "Get to the point, you fool."
  Ota took a couple of steps closer. "And we shall ultimately discover the
  true meaning of Morning Star, and stop it before the foul stench of your
  corruption spreads contagiously out of control."
  Kamiya made a supreme effort to keep his emotions in check, to keep his
  body expression loose, and his voice even. "If there were such a thing
  as Morning Star, and if I were in some way knowledgeable of it or
  connected with it you would not leave this room alive, Ota-san. -
  The Deputy Director General was taken aback. "What is this?"
  "Let us talk about treason, Ota-san. Fifty years of treason, and I will
  tell you about my vision for Nippon."

 FBI Director John Harding met CIA Director Roland Murphy in the corridor
 outside the White House cabinet room a few minutes before 9:00 A.M.
 Justice's breakfast meeting with the President had run over, and Murphy
 had shown up early for his daily brief.
  "Glad you're here, General, if you have a moment I'd like a word with
  you," Harding-said.
  "I was just on my way in, but it'll be a few minutes before he's ready
  for me," Murphy agreed. They went down the corridor and sat on a padded
  bench against the wall. A number of people nodded their greetings in
  passing.
  "How has the world treated us overnight, Roland? Are you going to give
  the President heartburn?"
  "A few hot spots. But nothing like the old days. How about your shop?
  Anything new?"
 388 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Frankly we're in the middle of an investigation that seems to be
  spreading all over the place. My people tell me it might involve one of
  your former field officers. Could be coincidental, but his name does keep
  turning UP."
 "Is it serious?"
  "Ken Wood seems to think so. And it might tie into a request that the
  French made to us initially through your Paris Station."
  Murphy gave him a hard look. "This have anything to do with Guerin
  Airplane Company and Kirk McGarvey?"
  "Yes, it does, General. But we've temporarily lost track of him in
  Portland. We'd like some help with his background."
  Steve Nichols came down the hall. "The President will see you now,
  General."
  "On my way," Murphy said, getting up. "I'll send a courier over with
  McGarvey's file later this morning," he told Harding. "Has this anything
  to do even remotely with Japan?"
  Harding looked up at the DCI. "There's nothing remote about the
  connection."
  "I see," Murphy replied heavily. "I believe I will be giving the
  President heartburn after all."

 EIGHTEEN

 Newton Kilbourne grudgingly admitted that his sister was holed up at his
 house in Grosse Pointe Shores, an exclusive Detroit suburb on Lake St.
 Clair. But he cautioned McGarvey against trying to see her. He didn't want
 her to get hurt again. And riding over from the airport McGarvey couldn't
                HIGH FLIGHT 389

 blame the man for trying to protect her. They had nobody except each
 other; he was the older brother, and she was sometimes impulsive and
 headstrong.
  "She asked about you," Kilbourne had said bleakly. "When I told her that
  you would be heading for Tokyo, she said 'good,' like she meant
  something. Like she was trying to tell me something without saying it.
  Good. What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
  "I don't know for sure, but I have an idea," McGarvey told him. "Will she
  remain in Detroit? Can you make her stay put?"
  "I don't think so. She said she wanted to talk to you. I told her you
  were already gone, but she called me a liar. Told me to get a message to
  you." Kilbourne shook his head. "Christ, what a mess. I tried to call
  back, but she won't answer the goddamned phone."
 "Is she gone already?"
  "She's still there. I hired a detective agency to watch over her. But if
  she wants to hop a plane and return to Washington, there's nothing I can
  do to stop her. What's going on?" Kilbourne demanded dangerously.
  "Call the detective agency and tell them I'll be showing up."
  MeGarvey had tried to telephone her from the Northwest flight he'd taken,
  and again from Detroit Metro without luck. Despite her brother's
  assurances that the detective agency watching her was among the best~ in
  Detroit, he worried that something had gone wrong. A couple of civilians
  were no match for a team of trained, dedicated professionals. If someone
  wanted to get to Dominique it would happen.
  Kilbourne maintained his Grosse Pointe house because he still had a lot
  of ties there, and because he would retire on the lake shore. It was home
  to him and to Dominique.
  Pulling up at the gate McGarvey could pick out the house at the end of
  a long, curving driveway through thick trees, many of them evergreens.
  All the houses were near the water's edge on lots of an acre or more and
 390 DAVID HAGBERG

 were owned by automobile executives. The country club was a half-mile
 away, and even though it was midwinter, the streets and sidewalks were
 devoid of snow and looked freshly scrubbed.
  A plain blue Dodge van was parked across the street. A tall man in a dark
  leather jacket got out of the van and came across the street as McGarvey
  climbed out of the cab.
  "Good afternoon, sir," the man said. He had the cynical expression of a
  cop or ex-cop.
  The driver of the van rolled down his window and watched them. His left
  arm and hand were in view, but his right was not. He was probably holding
  a gun. So far as it went they seemed to know what they were doing.
 "You're expecting me," McGarvey said.
 "Depends on who you are."
 "Kirk McGarvey."
 "Let's see some ID."
  McGarvey reached for his wallet, and the detective's hand went into his
  jacket. "I'm unarmed."
 'Easy .
  McGarvey pulled out his wallet and flipped it open for the detective to
  see. The cabby watched them nervously.
 "Miss Kilbourne is expecting you."
  "She knows you're down here?" McGarvey asked. "You've talked with her?"
  "She made us the second day. Came down and said if we didn't get in her
  way, she wouldn't get in ours."
 "She doesn't answer her phone."
 "No. 11

 "She get many calls?"
 "A few.,,
  "I'd like to have a list of the backtraces," McGarvey said. "In the
  meantime do I climb over the fence?"
  "Squawk her on the intercom. She'll let you in. Will you be staying
  long?"
 "I have a flight at six."
 "I'll have that list for you by then."
 McGarvey buzzed the intercom and identified him-                HIGH FLIGHT 391

 self Dominique didn't answer, but after a second the gate swung open and
 McGarvey took the cab up to the house.
 "You a cop or something?" the cabby asked.
  "Or something," McGarvey replied. "Can you come back for me at 4:30?"
 "I'll be here."
  The front door was not locked, and Dominique, dressed in jeans and a
  sweatshirt, was waiting for him in the large stair hall. Her hair was cut
  boyishly short, and she wore very little makeup.
  "Your brother is worried about you," McGarvey said. "How are you?"
  "Newton said you were going to Tokyo. Yamagata went for your proposal?"
  "It looks like it. Have you talked to anyone else since you left
  Washington?"
  "My office. There were some things that had to be dealt with. But they
  won't tell anyone where I am because they don't know."
 "There've been a number of calls here."
  "Other than you, my brother, and my watchdogs, nobody knows I'm here."
  "The calls are being traced. If I want to talk to you, I'll ring three
  times, hang up, and immediately call again. Have you got that?"
 She nodded.
  "If I want you to get out of here, I'll ring once, hang up and
  immediately call again letting it ring only once again. If that happens
  grab your coat and leave immediately. Go to your brother in Portland."
 "You're expecting trouble?"
 "I want you to be ready for it."
 She wet her lips. "When are you leaving for Tokyo?"
 "In a couple of hours."
 "Are you flying Guerin equipment?"
 "Commercial."
 44JALT'
 "No," McGarvey said.
 392 DAVID HAGBERG

  The early afternoon winter light streaming through the cut-glass windows
  flanking the door and down from the clerestory windows above the landing at
  the head of the stairs softened the planes and angles of her face. For a
  brief moment she looked like an innocent, the kind of person totally free
  of guilt whom McGarvey, in his heart-of-hearts, did not believe existed. It
  was a fault of his own, a personality defect that did not allow him to see
  only the good in a person. Lurking around every shadowy comer something
  hurtful was waiting to pounce. Some word or deed that when uttered or
  accomplished would destroy him. Nor could he forget. In some ways that was
  an even greater fault-his inability to forget. He remembered every wrong
  that had ever been done to him, and every wrong he'd committed. He
  remembered every harsh word, every slur, every slap in the face, and every
  death that he had caused either directly or indirectly. God knows the
  number was legion, balanced only by the one life he had created.
  He remembered that as a boy he'd looked up to his parents with a love that
  bordered on blind adoration. His father was everything that a man should or
  could be: kind, gentle, intelligent, wise, all-knowing, all-seeing,
  patient, loving, caring. His mother was the epitome of womanhood:
  beautiful, strong, loving, intelligent, and caring, just like her husband,
  only in a different way, in a nurturing way.
  When their mangled bodies were pried out of the wreckage of their
  automobile, McGarvey thought his grasp on the real world, on anything and
  everything that was good and right, had slipped away and he might never
  regain it. Especially when the investigating officers thought for a short
  while that the car might have been tampered with to make it crash. But only
  afterward, after he'd buried them, and after he'd done his eldestson duty
  of straightening out their final affairs did he know for certain that he
  would never regain his grasp of what was good. At that moment, looking over
  what he'd inadvertently discovered about his parents and under-
                  HIGH FLIGHT 393

 standing its full meaning, he knew that he would always be able to see the
 end of his life. He was headed for death, as everyone was, only he would
 never have the slightest illusion about his own mortality.
  It was damned cold being that alone, and he didn't know if he could
  change. He just knew, looking at Dominique, that for the first time in
  a long while he wanted to try.
 "It's starting, isn't it?"
 "Soon.,'
  "I read the newspapers," she said impatiently. "Newton didn't say
  anything about the murder at Gales Creek. What'd they want?"
 "We don't know."
 "Was it the Japanese?"
 "We just don't know, Dominique,"
  Color had come to her cheeks and forehead. "At first I thought David was
  crazy or desperate for dealing with you. But I was wrong."
 "I want to save lives."
  "You're a killer," she said simply. "It's what you do, and sometimes
  you're necessary. I can see that now."
  She had pulled out his heart, but he couldn't blame her. Not really. "I'm
  sorry," he said, and he started to turn away.
  "Look at this place, look at me. It's a mausoleum, and I'm in hiding."
 "You'll be safe here for a little while longer."
  "I want to go back to my office in Washington. There are people who
  depend on me."
 "You will, I promise you."
 She shook her- head. "Now."
 "A few days, maybe. Dorninique, listen to me."
 "I hate you," she said softly.
 "Do you want to go to your brother?"
  She raised her eyes and looked at him. She was torn by emotion, but
  beyond that her face was unreadable to McGarvey. She was in pain, and he
  didn't know what to do to help her.
 394 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Dominique, I'll end it as soon as I can."
 "Go, then. Do it," she said. "And leave me alone."

 Marine Lieutenant Colonel Robert Blisk was waiting on the ramp at Camp
 Foster as Captain Don Moody climbed down from the Gulfstrearn VC-10 on
 which he'd hitched a ride from Yokosuka. The weather over Okinawa was
 decidedly better than over the Japanese main island. The sun was shining,
 and Moody was glad of it.
  "I see that you've finally wised up and started to moonlight as a cabby."
 "Can't make ends meet on what the Corps pays me."
 "Which is a hell of a lot more than you're worth."
  Blisk chuckled as they got into his HumVee and headed to headquarters on
  the other side of the base. As chief of First Marine Air Wing
  Intelligence on Okinawa he did the same thing for First Wing that Moody
  did for Seventh Fleet. They'd crossed paths a number of times in their
  careers and had developed a solid working relationship. They trusted each
  other's judgment.
  "How's life been treating you down here, Bob? You're getting set to
  rotate back home, aren't you?"
  "We'll be back in D.C. in six months. But Keiri's not overly excited
  about the move. She's in Nagasaki now with her mother, and every damned
  time she goes they try to talk her into staying."
  Moody smiled. "Twenty years and they're still working on her? Tenacious
  people."
  "Yes, they are," Blisk said, glancing at Moody. "You've got your hands
  full at Yokosuka."
  "I think the writing's on the wall, and everybody can see it, but
  nobody's saying much. We've got a couple more years here before we're
  eased out."
 "Subic Bay sure as hell isn't making anybody happy."
  "It's their ocean, Bob. Hell, they're the allies now, and it's up to us
  to do everything possible to help them. We owe them, remember?"
 "You ought to see Keiri's mother when she does her
                HIGH FLIGHT 395

 thing. Pulls off her wig so everyone can see her bald head and wrings her
 hands and cries about cancer and liver damage and genetic imbalances.
 Problem is, everyone sympathizes with her even though she was seventy-five
 miles away from Nagasaki when we dropped the bomb on them."
  "And that was over fifty years ago. Like I say, they're a tenacious
  people."
  Of the 34,000 U.S. personnel stationed on Okinawa, two-thirds of them
  were Marines. Anything happened on the island, Blisk knew about it. Even
  Air Force Intelligence on adjacent Kadena Air Force Base fed into Blisk's
  operation. The usual division of labor made no sense out here.
  "There's a potentially no-win situation heading your way, and Al Ryland
  asked me to come down to fill you in," Moody said when they reached
  Blisk's office.
  "You're talking about the MSDF submarine that bulled its way through the
  Takara Strait."
  "Mike Hanrahan's a good man, but there wasn't much he could have done,
  short of taking a shot."
  A sergeant came in with coffee, and Blisk held off making a comment until
  the aide was gone and the door closed.
 "It's that bad?"
  "The sub is the Samisho, same one that sank the Russian frigate up north.
  Nobody at the MSDF is talking to us, so Ryland has bounced it back to
  Washington. In the meantime, Hanrahan is going to stick with it as long
  as he can."
 "The Samisho is heading this way?"
 "Looks like it."
  "At the risk of sounding flippant, so what? It's their ocean, as you say,
  Okinawa belongs to them, and I'm a ground-pounder, not a sub-hunter.
  Seems to me if you force that sub-driver into a comer he'll shoot."
  "Technically speaking, we're still a force of occupation."
 "Bullshit."
 396 DAVID HAGBERG

  Moody had to smile. "That's a good word, Bob. Use it all the time myself
  But there's more to the situation than we're publicizing. When's the
  last.time you had this place swept?"
  "We're clean. And there are no Japanese nationals on this floor, if that's
  what you mean."
  "I'do," Moody said. He took a half-dozen large, oddly tinted photographs
  from his briefcase and handed them to Blisk. "The first five are
  computer-enhanced night shots courtesy of the National Reconnaissance
  Office. They came through this morning. Atsugi, Iwakuni, Komatsujima,
  Shimofusa, and Hachinowe. All of them naval air installations."
 "Tokyo doesn't know we have this capability?"
  "We don't think so. Only reason I got these is because of a friend."
  Blisk studied the first photographs. "If I didn't know better I'd say they
  were starting to mobilize and trying to keep it under wraps. This come out
  of the blue, or did you go fishing?"
  "I had a hunch," Moody said. "The sixth shot is of the Air Self Defense
  Force base on Tanegashima. They're doing the same thing."
  Blisk looked at the last photograph. "Readiness drills. They do it all the
  time."
 "This one wasn't published."
  "We weren't invited to the show, and someone's getting nervous."
  "The Samisho's skipper was under arrest pending an investigation into the
  incident in the Tatar Strait. MSDF was talking a charge of treason, but
  they never locked him up. Had him under house arrest, and somehow he
  managed to get to his fully provisioned, fully armed, and fully crewed
  boat, which had been under continuous guard, and drive out of the harbor.
  Nobody tried to stop him. The MSDF didn't scramble its sub-hunters, nor
  were we notified. And that always happens, Bob. The MSDF moves a ship, and
  we get the message. SOP. Standard Operating Procedure."
                HIGH FLIGHT 397

  "What are you telling me? That the Japanese military is gearing up for
  war?"
  "There's an outside chance that the Russians might try to pull something
  in retaliation for their frigate. The entire crew was lost. The Japanese
  may be gearing up for it.19
 "That makes more sense to me."
 "They didn't tell us."
 "They haven't consulted us about Subic Bay either."
  "The weather has closed in so it may be a few days before N.R.O. can give
  us anything further. But why Tanegashima? If the Russians want to start
  something they'll tie it to the Sakhalin Island issue. If there's any
  action it'll be up north."
  "I see what you mean," Blisk said. "The Samisho should be heading north,
  not south. But if I catch your full meaning, it's still thin."
  "I'm not advocating or predicting a thing, Bob. But this is your island.
  You tell me. Any unusual incidents around here? Increased activity?
  Accidents that shouldn't have happened. Sabotage. Pilfering. Anything at
  all?"
  Blisk sat back and eyed Moody. "Has Ryland talked to my boss about this?"
  "No. So far this is just between us. I'm here to fill you in on the
  Samisho, and to answer any questions you might have."
  Major General Marvin Zweibel was commander-inchief of all the Marines on
  Okinawa. He was a fairminded but tough man who had the reputation of
  cutting his people off at the knees if he thought something was being
  hidden from him.
  "Would you be willing to tell him what you've told me?"
 "Say the word."
  Again Blisk eyed Moody speculatively. "I might do that, Don, but for the
  moment let's keep this in our bailiwick. I'm saying that because I can't
  tell you a thing that might signify anything. Okinawa is doing business
  as usual. Sorry."
 398 DAVID HAGSERG

  "Don't be, because believe me I hope I'm seeing spooks in the closet."

 "You have jeopardized all of us," Reid warned. He'd just come out from the
 city, and he'd been drinking heavily all day. His eyes were bleary, and he
 slurred some of his words.
  "There wasn't anything else I could do, Mr. R.," Glen Zerkel replied. "You
  sent me out to gather information, which I did. It was bad luck, that's
  all. But no one else saw me, so there's no way I can be identified. The
  only man who did see my face is dead."
  "Maybe you can plant a story that a Japanese man was spotted nearby," Louis
  Zerkel said.
  "I've already thought of that. But it'll have to be done with care."
  "Especially since you yourself might be under investigation by the FBI
  because of your involvement with General Schey," Louis took his shot. He
  had spent the early morning hours redesigning his safeguard system. By
  eight it was in place within the FBI's mainframe. Mueller's tampering would
  not destroy it. He and Glen were safe.
  "If there ever was a suspicion about me, it has been quashed. And you would
  be well advised to keep your nose out of places it does not belong.
  Concentrate on your part of this operation."
  "Don't threaten me!" Louis blurted. His face was hot, and he was nauseous.
  He always felt that way when his anger got out of check.
 "Take it easy, Louis," his brother cautioned.
  "I don't have to. They can't touch us now. I made sure of that last night.
  As of this morning there's not a thing they can do. What do you think about
  that?"
  Reid shook his head in irritation. "Then pack your bags and get out of here
  you prima donna sonofabitch! But leave the way you came, with nothing
  except some data on a few floppy disks. Leave the computer equipment that
  I bought for you and go."
                HIGH FLIGHT 399

  The old man walked across the room to one of the terminals and studied
  the complicated electronic diagram on the screen. He was not an
  electronics expert so he didn't have the slightest idea what he was
  looking at, but he knew it was important. His life had finally come down
  to this moment in time with two men, both of whom could be classified as
  insane. Where then did the greater fault lie? With the hand that held the
  gun, or with the man who directed the gunman? Who said that things begin
  to fall apart at the edges, but as long as the center holds you'll be all
  right? He couldn't recall, nor was he sure he wasn't mixing metaphors or
  something. But his plan was beginning to unravel at the edges, and even
  the center was getting muddled.
  His name had apparently come up in some discussion over at the FBI,
  although exactly in what context he'd not been able to find out. A word
  to a friend of his at State was filtered to the Bureau through a White
  House staffer, and he was safe for the moment. But he'd been shaken to
  the core. Everything was coming apart, but it shouldn't be happening. Not
  yet.
  Reid turned the monitor's brightness control down, and the image on the
  screen faded. Then he turned the contrast control to zero and the image
  slowly faded to nothing.
  "Gone," he said, looking up at the Zerkels. "And yet not gone. You've
  done most of the work, Louis, for which I thank you. Now I think I could
  find perhaps a hundred thousand electronics and computer experts who
  could finish the job."
  "Without me your entire scheme will be plastered over every FBI terminal
  in Washington."
 "Your name is there too."
 "I didn't name myself or my brother."
 "But I did," Reid said.
 "Not in my program . .
  "In mine, Louis. Shall we talk ' about your psychiatrist, or about your
  InterTech supervisor and his family? Or about the murder of the InterTech
  night watchman and
 400 DAVID HAGBERG

 the fire? You're implicated in all of those crimes, of course. And in
 California they still have the death penalty."
  "You're forgetting me, Mr. R.," Glen said. "To this point nobody except us
  in this room knows I'm involved. I could kill you now, and Louis could find
  and destroy your program. I don't think it would be hard for him to do."
  "And you're forgetting Bruno. I've offered the man one million dollars in
  gold for his part. What do you think he would do to the people who took
  that away from him? Or do you think you're a match for him?"
  "I think between us we could manage to take him out," Glen said. "He's a
  man, not a god."
 "Why?" Reid asked.
 "Why what?" Glen said, his eyes narrowing.
  "Go through all of this when we've made so much progress, when we're so
  near to the finish? You haven't got far to go, have you, Louis?"
 Louis shook his head, but then stopped.
  "Kill me and walk out of here, and the two of you will be hunted fugitives
  for the rest of your lives. Stay and finish the job and you'll have enough
  money to go a very long distance from here, where you'll be able to
  insulate yourselves from the grubbiness of leading ordinary lives."
  "How do we know that Mueller won't kill us when we've done our bit?" Glen
  asked.
  "We've all got our safeguards in place, that's why," Reid answered. "Nobody
  wants to end up on the run or in jail or, in Louis's case, in the gas
  chamber. Together we can win. If we separate now, we'll all lose."
 "It's you who is the sonofabitch," Louis said.
  Reid smiled wanly and nodded. "You are entirely right, my good man, I am
  indeed a sonofabitch. But right now I'm your rich sonofabitch."
 "Goddamned right."
 "How soon before you think you'll be ready?"
  Louis shrugged. "I don't know. A few days, maybe a little longer."
                HIGH FLIGHT 401

  "Good. Then Glen and I will go over the details of what he learned in
  Portland. And as soon as Bruno returns with what information he's
  gathered, the four of us will decide exactly how we'll accomplish our
  mission with the least amount of risk. Anybody have a problem with that?"
 The Zerkels said nothing.

 NINETEEN

 A 11 right, gentlemen, what have we got so far?" John Whitman asked. It
 was late, he'd missed dinner, and his stomach was sour from too much
 coffee and too many cigarettes.
  "We have a substantial number of criminal acts, but the connection
  between them, if one exists, is circumstantial at best," Albert McLaren
  told his boss.
  Phillip Joyce looked up from the file he was studying. "With Reid off
  limits for the moment, we've got only two choices, John. We either stick
  with McGarvey, or we take each case on its own merits and pursue the
  investigations individually."
  "McGarvey is one tough sonofabitch, but if I'm reading it right, I think
  he's in the middle of it all," McLaren said. "Hell, nothing started to
  come down until he went to work for Guerin."
  "Doesn't make him a criminal." Whitman played devil's advocate.
  "Maybe not, but I'd sure as hell pick him as a material witness to any
  one of these incidents, including the Dulles crash."
  "If we go after him we're going to have to watch our step," Joyce
  cautioned. "He's more than a tough sonofabitch. Have you read his file?"
 402 DAVID HAGBERG

  "The man has done some impressive stuff," McLaren said.
  "I'll say. Even the CIA treats him with kid gloves. Did your read about
  that incident with that Los Angelesclass sub? And then the thing in
  Iran?"
 "He's killed some people. He's an assassin . .
  "Excuse me, Al, but assassins usually take their targets out in a lot
  more civilized manner. Not usually face to face, and not usually with
  ten-to-one odds against them. Shit, the Russians respect him! I'm telling
  you that if we go after him we'd better get some help, and we'd better
  keep our distance. I don't want to end up in a body bag."
 "He's just a man. He can't take on the entire Bureau."
  "Take it easy," Whitman interrupted. "Nothing here says the man is
  directly involved."
  "Then why did he accept a job with Guerin Airplane Company?" McLaren shot
  back.
 "You're forgetting the man's file," Joyce said.
 "What?"
  "I think the real question is why did Guerin hire him. McGarvey's not a
  businessman, he's not an airplane designer or engineer or electronic
  technician. He kills people. So what's Guerin doing hiring a killer?
  What's more, hasn't the CIA always denied-even to us-that it uses
  assassins? Yet it sent over his file to us. And there can't be any
  question about what it contains. You tell me what's going on."
  "Are we getting caught in the middle of some political game?" McLaren
  asked.
  "Ken Wood seems to think it's a possibility," Whitman admitted.
  McLaren groaned and sat back. They met in a small conference room across
  the hall from Whitman's office so they had more space to spread out their
  case files. The long table was loaded.
  Joyce opened another file. It was a brief case history of McGarvey's last
  job for the CIA. "You can argue that he harbors some anti-Japanese
  sentiment."
 "Not so uncommon."
                HIGH FLIGHT 403

  "Guerin is worried about a Japanese buyout that maybe the White House is
  ignoring because of the Tokyo Economic Summit. Somehow Guerin's brass found
  out that McGarvey has bad feelings about the Japanese, and I assume the
  Japanese feel the same way about him. They also found out just who and what
  he is, and that he has the respect of the CIA and presumably even the
  Russians. Are you following me so far?"
 "I'm not sure that I am," Whitman admitted.
  "If the Japanese are forced into making a big mistake, maybe the White
  House would have to sit up and take notice after all."
  "The days of the Chrysler bailout are over," McLaren said.
  "Right," Joyce replied sardonically. "The first step after they hire
  MeGarvey is to negotiate with the Russians for a factory. Can't be making
  the Japanese happy. Did Mr. Wood tell you what kind of politics he was
  talking about?"
  "Only concerning Reid. The State Department asked us to back off, and
  someone at the White House agreed. That's politics."
  "But no mention was made about McGarvey?" Joyce asked. "No one has Ssked us
  to back oV"
 "No. 11

  "The CIA has been extraordinarily cooperative with us, sending over these
  files. Who'd they come from? Do we have a name?"
  "Howard Ryan, the Agency's general counsel," Whitman said.
  "What are you getting at?" McLaren asked his partner. "You have the look."
  "I'd say we were being directed toward Mr. McGarvey."
 "By whom?"
 "I don't know, and I find that curious, don't you?"
 "What's your point?"
  "If we investigate each incident-and I think there'll be more-we could get
  bogged down. But if we go after McGarvey, we might get somewhere."
 404 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Do you think he has his own agenda?" Whitman asked.
  "I don't know that either," Joyce answered. "But I do know that Mr.
  McGarvey booked a business-class ticket from Portland to Detroit . . ."
  "What the hell is he doing in Detroit?" McLaren asked.
  "That's anybody's guess, but he's already left there on his way, via
  Seattle, to Tokyo. What do you suppose he's up to this time?"

 Technical Sergeant Tony Person removed the last of the six screws holding an
 electronics panel marked HEAT MONITOR/ALARM, ENGINE, PORT in its rack aboard
 Air Force One parked in its hangar at Andrews Air Force Base. He pulled the
 unit out and shunted its connectors through a Tektronix dual-trace scope and
 spectrum analyzer and back into the twenty-seven-pin receptacle in the rack.
 It was the eleventh subassembly he'd run diagnostic checks on so far today.
 There were a lot more to go.
  His headset was connected to the aircraft's intercom system. "Jim, I'm
  ready to power up Hotel Mike slash Alpha, Port."
  "Stand by," Staff Sergeant Jim Spallaci radioed. He was on a work scaffold
  beneath the unbuttoned port engine.
  Like the other twenty technicians on the team, he and Person had been going
  over the President's airplane with a fine-tooth comb for three days. Their
  NCOIC Chief Master Sergeant Gene Mazorsky was a stickler for details. But
  so was his boss, Captain Robin Woodhaven. If Mazorsky was a zealot, the
  captain was a maniac. She had more to prove because she was a woman in a
  predominantly male career field.
  Before and after every flight, Air Force One was thoroughly checked out by
  Mazorsky's raiders, as they called themselves. And just prior to a long
  flightespecially a trans-Atlantic, or in this case a trans-Pacific,
                HIGH FLIGHT 405

 flight-the preventative maintenance routines were ultra-rigid. But the
 President's airplane was a Guerin P522, the same type of aircraft that had
 gone down at Dulles, and this time they were practically pulling the bird
 apart and rebuilding her.
  Each of the five sections on the team had a specific area of
  responsibility-electrical, structures- including the aircraft's skin,
  engines, flight controls, and hydraulics systems. But cooperation was
  orchestrated directly by Mazorsky. They were a well-oiled machine, the
  best against any standard in any air force or any private sector anywhere
  in the world.
  "Starting on line one, pulse GO-One," Spallaci came back.
  GO-One was the interrogative signal that the monitor/alarm subassembly
  sent to the engine-mounted sensor rack when the system was first powered
  up. The subassembly said it was ready for action and asked the engine
  sensors if they were ready.
  Person hit the start button on his test set, which simulated the power-up
  procedure that would be initiated by the crew above in the cockpit. The
  GO-One pulse showed up on the oscilloscope against the timing grid.
 "Shit," Person said half under his breath.
 "Looks good," Spallaci radioed.
  "Stand by. I'm sending you GO-One again. I had what looked like
  one-tenth-hertz delay."
  "Maybe you were out of phase there, because it looked good on the frame."
  Person shut off the power to the subassembly for a moment. "Here it
  comes." He hit the start button, and again the GO-One pulse showed up
  very slightly delayed.
 "It's good out here," Spallaci radioed.
  "I'm still off," Person replied. "Is Sergeant Mazorsky on the floor?"
  "Right here," Mazorsky said at the open access hatch in the cockpit floor
  above. "What's the problem?"
 406 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Jim, he's up here with me," Person radioed. He looked up. "I'm catching
  a phase delay or shift on the heat monitor/alarm GO-One."
 "Let me see the book."
  Person handed up the schematic diagram of the subassembly, and Mazorsky
  studied it for a few seconds. "GO-One is routed through the main CPU
  chip, but we're using the new sensor frame and harness. Run it again."
  "I'm sending you GO-One again," Person radioed. He shut down the
  subassembly's power, waited a moment, then hit the start button. As
  before GO-One was slightly delayed on Person's scope.
 "Right on," Spallaci said.
 Person looked up. "It's good at the engine."
  "They probably built a phase delay into the CPU to accommodate the new
  frame and harness," Mazorsky said. He handed the schematic back down.
  "It's within parameters, but log it anyway."
 "You got it, Sarge."

 Bruno Mueller parked his rental car in the lot in front of the low-slung
 modern Oakland Airport Commission building in' the industrial park across
 the airport from the main terminal. In the distance he could see the
 control tower rising up across the main east-west runway, and to the north
 the rotating radar antennae and communications dishes that were used by
 the tower and by Air Traffic Control. The air smelled of burned kerojet,
 and as he got out of his car a big jetliner took off with a
 window-rattling roar.
  He was pushing his luck sticking around here this long. Sooner or later
  someone would think to call the editors at High Technology Business or
  Aviation Week & Space Technology magazines to ask about him and find out
  that no one had heard of Thomas Reston. But he wanted to learn more. As
  incredible as it seemed, passengers entering the terminal were required
  to submit to an electronic search of themselves and their luggage, but
  no such security measures were required of
                HIGH FLIGHT 407

 someone entering Air Traffic Control or the tower where a terrorist could
 do more harm.
  Putting Louis Zerkel's repeater somewhere in the Air Traffic Control
  centers at any airport would present no insurmountable problem (Bill
  White had assured him that most U.S. airports were similar). But they
  could only count on keeping them in place undetected for forty-eight
  hours at most. The real problem was the touchiness of the ATC equipment,
  which was almost constantly under some maintenance routine. Just about
  every piece of equipment in a typical Air Traffic Control center was
  taken apart and cleaned or adjusted every couple of days. The repeater
  would almost certainly be discovered more quickly than they'd hoped. If
  that was the route they were going to take, the timing would be tight.
  Maybe too tight.
  For Louis Zerkel's scheme to work, a signal had to be sent to every
  airplane within a Terminal Control Area, the air space immediately above
  and around an airport. The firing pulse would be sent to the airplane
  piggybacked, or superimposed, on a legitimate signal, such as the
  transmissions Air Traffic Control generated.
  But Bill White had given Mueller another idea. Air Traffic Control wasn't
  the only unit sending electronic signals to incoming and departing
  airplanes. A lot of electronic traffic went back and forth between
  jetliners in the air and installations on the ground, among which were
  the various airport radars, the navigational beacons, and signals from
  a flight-management-systern research project being conducted by the
  Oakland Airport Commission.
  The project manager, Ron Herring, met Mueller in the reception area. He
  was a compact man in his late thirties with an athletic build, boyish
  good looks, and a direct up-front manner. His hair was cropped short, and
  his clothes looked as if they'd just been starched and ironed.
  "I'm surprised Bill White even mentioned my name," Herring said,
  grinning. He and Mueller shook hands.
  "I don't think he likes you very much. Seems to think you're wasting your
  money and his time."
 408 DAVID HAGBERG

  "If we're irritating the feds, it must mean we're doing something right."
  Herring led him back to a small suite of offices that were equipped with
  computer terminals, large-screen monitors, data recorders, and other
  electronic gear. Three men and one woman were seated at desks or terminals,
  and they looked up and nodded and smiled. The atmosphere here seemed far
  less tense than across the field at Air Traffic Control.
 "Why the difference of opinion?" Mueller asked.
  "Did Bill give you the bit about how air traffic controllers have big
  egos?"
 "He made it a point."
  "They're still bitching about what Reagan did to them, but the fact is
  they're outmoded and downright dangerous. Having a man on the ground
  watching a radar scope and telling a pilot what to do won't work much
  longer no matter what kind of new equipment IBM comes up with for them."
  Herring shrugged. "Did Bill tell you about the incident with the guy and
  the walkie-talkie last year? A Northwest flight had just taken off, and
  departure control told the pilot to climb to six thousand and make a turn
  to a heading of one-two-oh. A second later some joker on the ground, using
  a Radio Shack VHF walkie-talkie, got on the air and told the pilot to
  disregard the last instruction and instead climb to five thousand feet and
  make a left turn to three-zerozero. If the pilot hadn't been sharp and
  asked departure control for a repeat, he would have collided with an
  incoming Quantas flight."
  "It's a vulnerable system," Mueller agreed, and after all he'd seen so far
  he was not surprised.
  "You can't imagine how bad it is. But every airplane flying with a glass
  cockpit, and in a few years that'll be just about every commercial
  airliner, is equipped with a Flight Management System computer. With the
  proper ground installation every FMS-equipped airplane can be brought in
  for a landing or directed on takeoff out of the Terminal Control Area along
  very precisely defined
                HIGH FLIGHT 409

 corridors. And I do mean precise. Every airplane would approach and leave
 the TCA on a path that would be meters, not kilometers, from a center
 line."
 "No chance for errors? Collisions?"
  "Equipment can go down, so we'd provide backup and human supervisors with
  an override capability," Herring said.
 "This system is in place now?" Mueller asked.
  "It's not certified yet, but we are running an ongoing test, with
  electronic cross-talk between us and the FMSequipped airplanes coming
  into our TCA."
 "From here?"
  "The transmitters and some of the recording devices are physically
  located in the basement, but the controls and data outputs all come to
  this room."
 It was a stroke of good luck.
  "Actually all of this started out in Minneapolis where a hotshot friend
  of mine from MIT-and an Air Guard pilot like me-was working on an airport
  noisemanagement system. He wanted to precisely regulate the airport's
  flight pattern, so he came up with the FMS idea. The feds don't like him
  any better than the rest of US. 11
  "The rest of us?" Mueller asked as nonchalantly as he could.
  "The same study is in place at Los Angeles, at O'Hare, and Minneapolis,
  of course, at Dulles, and at New York's LaGuardia and JFK. We're working
  on Miami and Atlanta, but it may be six months or a year before they come
  on line."
  "I understand," Mueller said. "Is there a possibility of seeing the
  equipment downstairs?"
 "Why not?" Herring said.

 Tokyo was in the middle of rush hour. All the counters at Narita Airport
 were jammed. The passport and customs officials were polite as usual, but
 something was different. At first McGarvey couldn't quite put his finger
 on it, but the atmosphere in the busy terminal was the same as
 410 DAVID HAGBERG

 it had been aboard the flight over. Half the passengers on the jetliner had
 been Caucasian, while most of the other half were Japanese, or Oriental, and
 a transparent wall seemed to stand between the two aboard the airplane and
 here.
  "The purpose of your visit, Mr. McGarvey?" the passport officer asked
  pleasantly.
 "I have business with Japan Air Lines."
 "What is the nature of this business, Mr. McGarvey?"
 "It is financial in nature," McGarvey said evenly.
  "What will be the length of your stay in Japan, please?"
 "I'm not sure. Perhaps two or three days."
 "Do you have hotel reservations?"
  "Yes, I do," McGarvey replied. He'd never been asked so many questions
  coming into Japan. Things were definitely different. It was the growing
  anti-American sentiment.
  "At which hotel do you have reservations, Mr. McGarvey?" the passport
  officer asked patiently.
 "Is there some problem with my passport?"
 "At which hotel will you be staying?"
  "The Asakusa View. It is in Taito-ku. Is there some trouble?"
  The officer stamped McGarvey's passport and handed it back. "Next," he
  said, smiling pleasantly.
  And fuck you too, McGarvey said to himself, taking his passport and
  following his fellow passengers down the escalators and across to customs.
  There were a lot of uniformed, armed police stationed throughout the ter-
  minal. It was something else he'd never seen before. Japan had prided
  itself on being a nation with an extremely low crime rate. No need,
  therefore, for such an open show of force. Things had definitely changed.
  Narita seemed like an airport geared for trouble.

 Mueller had dinner at a Ponderosa Steak House in San Leandro a few miles
 from the airport, then checked into a Days Inn Motel off Interstate 580 near
 the Oak Knoll
                HIGH FLIGHT 411

 Naval Medical Center. The evening had turned cool with a sea breeze and
 thick cloud cover. For its size, America was a very easy place in which
 to travel. Unlike Europe where every border crossing used to be fraught
 with danger, here people's credentials were seldom checked. Renting a car
 required a driver's license and a credit card. But boarding an airplane
 or train, or driving across state lines, elicited no suspicion or
 attention. The country was wide open, and it had always amazed him that
 there weren't more acts of terrorism here. Except for a few incidents such
 as the car bombing of the World Trade Center towers in New York City, the
 country had emerged from the Cold War relatively unscathed. Of course all
 that was about to change. If their project was a success no one in America
 would ever feel secure again.
  At midnight he headed back to the Oakland Airport Commission, traffic
  much lighter. The last flight was due in at 12:25 A.M., and as he got off
  the freeway across from the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum the big
  jetliner from Honolulu was touching down. It was a Guerin P522, and he
  thought how lucky the people flying in tonight were. Chances are most of
  them would not be flying again so soon. For many of them the flight was
  the termination of a much anticipated midwinter vacation. California was
  great, but Hawaii was better. They would go back to work a little
  sunburned, a little weary, but content that they could hold out now until
  summer. Most of them would not be taking one of the Guerin P522s that
  would crash at this airport, killing everyone aboard.
  There were only two cars in the Oakland Airport Commission's parking lot.
  Night watchmen. It was one of the additional bits of information he'd
  needed.
  Mueller drove past and put his car behind a long row of trucks and
  delivery vans at a warehouse identified by a sign in front as Miramax
  Distributing Company, Ltd. He made his way on foot back to the rear of
  the OAC building, keeping to the shadows as much as possible. If
 412 'DAVID HAGBERG

 he were stopped and questioned here, he would have no reasonable answers.
 He would have to make the kill and get away. Oakland would be out then,
 but from what he'd learned already there were going to be very few
 problems bringing down as many jetliners as they wanted to. When it
 happened, the day would rank right up there with the day Kennedy was
 assassinated and the day the shuttle Challenger exploded. No one would
 forget. But he needed to know one more thing.
  Two vans, one of them windowless, with the Oakland Airport Commission
  seal on their doors, were parked at a rear entrance. A light over the
  door illuminated an area fifteen feet from the building. None of the
  windows showed light.
  Mueller examined the situation from where he stood in the darkness beside
  a pale-gray Dumpster, From his vantage point he spotted the
  closed-circuit television camera above the door. Someone inside the
  building would be monitoring the screen. The OAC was security conscious
  after all.

 Asagiri Eto left a message at the front desk that he would come to the
 hotel at six sharp to meet McGarvey for drinks and dinner. If that was not
 acceptable he'd left a telephone number. McGarvey had instructed the con-
 cierge to direct Eto to the sixth-floor communal hinoki-a traditional
 bathhouse with Japanese cypress hot tubs. Drinks and dinner would come
 later.
  It was just that hour when McGarvey got off the elevator and crossed to
  the bathhouse that overlooked a beautiful indoor garden. The place was
  pleasantly warm and humid and smelled of jasmine and teak and cypress
  woods. Several of the deep tubs were occupied, all of them by Oriental
  men who glared up at McGarvey when they realized a Gai Jin had invaded
  their territory, and watchful that the barbarian would make mistakes in
  the bathing ritual that would embarrass them all.
  The attendant was a flustered old man who gave McGarvey two large towels
  and directed him to a changing compartment. He kept bowing and shuffling
                HIGH FLIGHT 413

 his feet, almost a parody of how a lot of Americans still thought the
 Japanese behaved.
  McGarvey got undressed and stepped across a narrow corridor to the showers,
  where he used a lot of soap to scrub himself, including his hair, before
  rinsing first in hot, then in cold, water. He wrapped one towel around his
  waist and the other over his shoulders and went back into the tub room.
  A slightly built Japanese man dressed in a sharply tailored blue pinstriped
  business suit was talking with the attendant, his gestures animated as if
  he were angry. When he spotted McGarvey he hurried over.
  "Mr. McGarvey, I am sorry. I thought I misunderstood your message. I was
  told that -you wished to arrange a meeting as soon as possible."
  McGarvey glared at the man for several long moments. Everyone in the place
  was watching them. 'Etosan, it has been a tiring trip from the United
  States. Before I discuss business I would like to sit in a very hot tub,
  have my back scrubbed, and drink very cold saki. Can you understand this?"
  Eto suddenly looked uncomfortable. "I am terribly sorry."
  "You may join me, but I caution you we will not talk about business or
  world affairs."
 "Yes, of course." -
  McGarvey stared at him for several more moments as if he were trying to fix
  the man's face in his mind. "I am a punctual man, Eto-san. The agreed upon
  time was six. You are late."
  Eto's expression sagged even further, and he lowered his eyes. "I am truly
  sorry, McGarvey-san. I only heard at the last minute that you would be
  arriving, and my instructions were not precise."
 "Perhaps I should be meeting with someone else."
  "That will not be necessary. If you will give me a moment I will join you."
 "Very well."
  "And if you will permit me to order the saki, there are a number of
  varieties you should try."
 414 DAVID HAGBERG

  N prefer my saki very dry, Eto-san, " McGarvey said, and he turned abruptly
  and went directly to one of the big tubs where he lay his towels aside.
  Without hesitation, and with no outward indication that the water was so
  hot it was nearly beyond human endurance, he sat down up to his neck.
  For a long time no one in the bathhouse moved or made a sound, until
  finally a young woman in a snowwhite bathing costume got into the tub with
  McGarvey and began scrubbing his back with a large, rough natural sponge.
  One point for the Christians, McGarvey thought. And zero for the lions.
  He'd taken the opening shot. The next move was theirs.

 It was a macabre bit of irony not lost on Mueller that the jetliner taking
 him back to Washington, D.C., was a Guerin P522. With a crew of seven the
 airplane could carry three hundred seventy-five passengers nonstop coast to
 coast. In the past few years most airlines in America had reduced the number
 of flights made each day in order to get the maximum use out of their
 equipment, so most U.S. domestic flights were full or nearly full. If ten
 airplanes went down, at least thirty-five hundred would be killed. That
 wasn't counting the possible casualties on the ground. The airplanes they
 were going to knock out of the sky would be approaching for a landing or
 taking off and climbing out over populated areas. When these huge birds came
 tumbling down there was no telling what could happen. Mueller made a note to
 find out which airports maintained approach and departure patterns over
 schools or hospitals or apartment complexes where population densities would
 be high.
  The flight attendants were getting ready to serve breakfast, and the odors
  of coffee and food actually smelled good to Mueller. If this was one of the
  flights they were going to bring down, no breakfast would be served. In
  fact the first-class passengers would be the
                HIGH FLIGHT 415

 only ones to have drinks by then. No time for anyone to get over the
 take-off nervousness. It gave him a rush thinking about it, and he had to
 consciously stop himself from grinning like a simpering idiot.
  There was little doubt in his mind that Louis Zerkel would come up with the
  electronic solution to the triggering pulses, and there was little doubt
  that his brother would hold up his end. Nor, now that he'd seen Oakland's
  tower, Air Traffic Control, and airport commission facilities, did he have
  any doubt about bugging the system. But he did have serious reservations
  about Reid. The man was a drunk, and he was unstable. If the FBI were to
  approach him he might try to bully his way out, thereby giving everything
  away. It was a problem, Mueller told himself, that he was going to have to
  address soon.
  Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, New York, and Washington. It
  would definitely be a day all Americans would never forget.

 TWENTY

   don't know if we can be ready in sixteen days,"
   Newton Kilbourne said. He and George Socrates sat
   with David Kennedy in the first-class section of the
 P/C2622 in her Gales Creek assembly hangar. The cabin
 was ninety-five percent complete. The only major work
 left to be done inside was on the avionics in the cockpit.
  "Al Vasilanti wants it. He set the date," Kennedy said.
  "We all understand why, and I don't blame him, but it
 doesn't alter the facts." In actuality, except for the
 hypersonic engines, the airplane was nearly ready to fly.
 The FAA's chief regional certification inspector was
 willing to issue a one-flight airworthiness certificate that
 416 DAVID HAGBERG

 would allow Guerin to conduct one test flight over unpopulated areas and for
 a limited duration. That flight could be conducted tomorrow. The real
 problem was with unk-unks- unknown problems that couldn't be predicted but
 always cropped up in the design and manufacture of anything so complex as a
 modem jetliner. "We've had our share of unk-unks on this project, David. No
 reason to expect anything has changed."
  "I understand what you're saying. But short of the FAA grounding us, or you
  or George telling us flatly that we can't fly, we're on for Honolulu in
  sixteen days."
  Kilbourne thumped his fist on the armrest of his seat. "It's too soon,
  goddammit, and you know it."
  "I tend to agree with Newton, but not strictly for technical reasons,"
  Socrates said. He'd arrived back from the crash investigation yesterday and
  had thrown himself into the final pre-test flight preparations and
  inspections.
  "Are you telling me that we can't be ready to fly?" Kennedy asked.
  Socrates shook his head. "We can do an initial test flight the day after
  tomorrow, which would leave us two weeks to fix anything that crops up, and
  make at least three additional one-certificate runs. If we were trying for
  hypersonic or even supersonic speeds now, I'd definitely say no."
 "But?" Kennedy prompted.
  Socrates took off his glasses and wiped the lenses with the end of his tie.
  "Dulles was very bad, David."
  "I know that," Kennedy replied too sharply. "I know."
  "There was nothing wrong with our airplane, nor was there anything wrong
  with the Rolls engines. Sending our AOG teams around the world to switch
  power plants does nothing but waste money and shake our image."
  "Something we don't need just now," Kilbourne put in.
  "But our airplane did fall out of the sky," Kennedy said.
                HIGH FLIGHT 417

  "Yes, it did," Socrates agreed solemnly. "We looked for evidence of
  sabotage, but we didn't find a thing. Sam Varelis says that the Board will
  probably rule in March that the crash was caused by faulty turbine blades
  in the port engine. Sir Malcolm wants to disagree, but he's caught in the
  middle."
 "You don't believe it."
  "The engine swallowed a blade, but I don't know why. 11
 "We've done a fault-tree analysis," Kennedy said.
 "Nothing showed up."
 "But you have a gut feeling."
 Socrates nodded.
  "It shouldn't affect this airplane, George," Kennedy said reasonably.
  "Completely different engines from the frame out."
  "I know. But the break-in and killing here is one more link in what could
  be a very big and nasty chain. I sat in on some of your meetings with
  McGarvey. I talked with him, answered his questions, listened to what he
  had to say. He's a very bright man, David, but he's an alarming man. He's
  made me think about things I believed were no longer possible. Hitler is
  dead. Stalin is dead. Hirohito is dead. And the Cold War is over. We won."
  "That's exactly why Al wants this flight to go as advertised. Show them
  that we're not about to cave in." Kennedy shrugged. "There's nothing wrong
  with this airplane. If some unk-unks crop up we'll fix them."
  "There was nothing wrong with our airplane now lying in ugly piles at
  Dulles."
  "It could have been tampered with on the ramp in Moscow by the Russians or
  by the Japanese, or hell, by someone else with a grudge against Americans.
  Functioning airplanes don't crash."
 "A glitch."
  "Yes, and that's something we can't protect against no matter what the
  circumstances are, George. Just like clear air turbulence and wind shear
  used to be major problems."
 418 DAVID HAGBERG

  "There would have been an indication," Socrates said. He was tearing
  himself apart with this. He was an engineer. Effects had causes-it was
  axiomatic.
  "There'll be another big difference between this flight and the one into
  Dulles."
 Socrates looked up. "What's that?"
  "We left Moscow after nothing more than a routine pre-flight. Before this
  airplane leaves for Honolulu it will have been tested from stem to stem
  a dozen times. You are personally going to oversee that every single
  system and subsystem aboard is at or above specs."
 "What about the engines?" Kilbourne asked.
  "I spoke with Sir Malcolm. He's sending a team. In fact they ought to be
  showing up later today. Put them to work."
 "Who'll be crewing?"
  "Pete Reiner and John Callahan. Northwest has agreed to loan us fifteen
  flight attendants."
  It took a moment for what Kennedy said to sink in, and when it did
  Kilbourne and Socrates were stunned.
  "What are you talking about?" the engineer demanded.
  "We'll carry a full load out to Honolulu and back," Kennedy said evenly.
  He knew that this was going to be the worst part, especially for
  Socrates. It's the reason he met them here. The airplane was an
  impressive piece of machinery.
 "Engineers, technicians, monitoring equipment?"
  Kennedy shook his head. "Al Vasilanti and his wife. Me and my wife. You
  two, Fred Taich, Gary Topper, and Larry Cross."
 "The Vice President of the United States?"
  "Yes. Along with Tom Holder and most of his House Subcommittee on
  Aviation, a few senators, a couple of representatives from the FAA, the
  news media, of course, and the Russian amb~assador."
  "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," Kilbourne said in awe. "Al has lost his mind."
  "We're trying to run an airplane company, Newton," Kennedy flared.
  "America may be painted on the fuse-
                  HIGH FLIGHT 419

 lage, but our name is stamped on the airframe. We've bet the farm on this
 project, and it either works big or we go under. It's come down to that."
 "Somebody wants us to fail," Socrates said.
  "That's right," Kennedy agreed. "That's why we hired McGarvey."
 "They'll be targeting this flight."
  -I have no doubt of it, George," Kennedy said evenly. "Which is why we've
  got to do it."
  "Every passenger and crew member will have to be screened electronically,
  their baggage searched."
  "The Vice President will be aboard so I'm sure the Secret Service will help
  out."
  "Okay. If Reiner and Callahan are available now, I want them to fly all the
  test flights. The first one goes the day after tomorrow, and I'll schedule
  four others before the Honolulu flight."
  "I'll have them out here tomorrow," Kennedy said. "They might as well be
  involved with your preflights."
  Socrates turned to Kilbourne. "I want your people down here along with Fred
  Taich's shop. We're going on around-the-clock shifts starting now."
 "Make it fly, George," Kennedy said.
  Socrates looked at him. "That I will. And the day she returns from Honolulu
  is the day I retire."

 "In a few minutes my driver and bodyguard will take me over to the Kremlin
 where I will be expected to give my recommendation. Do we retaliate against
 Japan for the sinking of our frigate, and if so, what form shall this
 retaliation assume?"
  General Polunin handed a series of photographs to SUR Director Karyagin.
  "These are the latest RORSAT shots over the Tokara Strait and East China
  Sea, including the island of Tanegashima."
  Karyagin studied the photos and then put them aside. "There has been no
  battle between the American destroyer and the Japanese submarine?"
 "Not yet. Apparently the Thorn received orders from
 420 DAVID HAGBERG

 Seventh Fleet to stand aside and allow the Samisho passage through the
 strait."
  "It looks as if the Thorn was also ordered to follow the submarine."
  "That's what we think, Mr. Director. But look at the Japanese air base
  on Tanegashima. Photographs six and seven."
  Karyagin looked at the two pictures. "A lot of activity."
  "Too much activity. The base is on alert, as are the Japanese Air and
  Maritime Self Defense Forces on Hokkaido in the north."
  "It's not unexpected, General. The Japanese are aware that we may make
  some response."
  "Agreed, Mr. Director, which explains their state of readiness on
  Hokkaido. But why Tanegashima in the south? Those are waters they share
  with South Korea, not us."
  "What are you getting at?" Karyagin asked. He was annoyed by Polunin's
  continued preoccupation with conspiracy theories.
  "I'm suggesting that we proceed with a great deal of caution until we're
  absolutely certain we have all the facts. There is simply too much going
  on that we cannot explain. Even Abunai is telling us that the situation
  in Japan is explosive at the moment."
  "Apparently he's produced no hard intelligence for us," Karyagin
  complained sharply.
  "That's because of the increased risks he's facing. But I'm told that he
  is on the verge of gaining access to the Kobe Bank zaibatsu's
  confidential meeting records. Something may turn up soon. But if we
  accelerate the situation by attacking a Japanese warship or ground
  installation, there is no predicting what will happen."
  "You must know that there is a strong sentiment at the Kremlin to make
  a show of force."
  "At the very least the American government would probably revoke its
  license for Guerin to export aircraft technology to us, and certainly the
  loan guarantees would be lifted."
                HIGH FLIGHT 421

  "Which is why, General, I was asked to help devise a plan so that any
  attack we might make against Japan would seem to be self-defense. The
  Americans still have the cowboy mentality."
 "Have we developed such a plan?"
  "The Defense Ministry may have something. What else have you brought to
  help brighten my day?"
  "The FBI has begun its investigation of Kirk McGarvey, as we expected it
  would, given the information that was made available to it. But it seems
  possible that the CIA is cooperating with the FBI. If that's true, it may
  mean that McGarvey is not working for the Agency after all."
  "He works for Guerin Airplane Company, as he claims?"
 "It seems more likely now than it did before."
 "But the CIA is cooperating with McGarvey?"
  "He still has friends at Langley, Mr. Director. But the FBI is apparently
  taking its investigation in a direction that never occurred to us."
 "Continue," Karyagin said dourly.
  "It may be attempting to tie McGarvey to a series of murders in
  Washington and California and Oregon centering around Guerin and the
  company's troubles with the Japanese. The issue that McGarvey asked us
  to help with."
  "Do they actually suspect the man of working for the Japanese?"
 "I don't know that yet."
 "But it's information that you will get?"
  Polunin nodded. He could see that a veil had been lifted from Karyagin's
  eyes. The director was beginning to understand just how powerful a sword
  and shield the SUR still wielded.
 "Should I know this source, General?"
  "Like Abunai there is no reason for you not to know the name of our
  penetration network in Washington."
  Karyagin shook his head. "And no reason other than my own ego at this
  moment for me to know."
 Polunin was surprised. It was quite an admission for
 422 DAVID HAGBERG

 someone to make, especially a Russian and especially a man in Karyagin's
 position.
 "No, sir."
  "But there is something else you have to tell me. I can see it in your
  eyes."
  "We learned that McGarvey spoke with someone from Japan Air Lines in
  Washington a few days ago and that now he has shown up in Tokyo."
  "McGarvey is in Tokyo?" Karyagin sat back. "What is he doing there? Have
  Abunai find out."
  "We've sent those instructions, Mr. Director, but it may take a little
  while to learn anything significant. It is precisely why I think you should
  warn the Kremlin to slow down."
 "General, that puts me in a very difficult position."
 "Yes, sir, I know it."

 It was the first time the four of them had sat down together to have a meal
 at the farmhouse. Glen Zerkel stir-fried some thinly sliced beef marinated
 in soy sauce, along with some julienned vegetables, and served it with
 cooked rice. He'd also baked bread and made a salad of cucumbers, tomatoes,
 and onions dressed with lemon juice, yogurt, and garlic. It was quite good,
 and Reid, who for once wasn't drunk, complimented him on the meal.
  "You learn to make do when you live alone," Glen explained.
  "I never did," his brother complained. "I think I'll miss this. When we're
  finished, I mean." He glanced at Mueller.
  "It'll be easier than we thought," the German told them. Over the Zerkels'
  protests he'd waited until Reid came out to tell them what he'd learned.
  "I'll need seven repeaters-and as it turns out the size isn't as critical
  as we thought it might be. But I'm going to need a way of shunting a
  closed-circuit television system so that the monitors won't detect what's
  been done and will leave no traces when I remove it."
                HIGH FLIGHT 423

 "Seven is a very specific number," Reid said.
  "Oakland, Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, both New York City airports,
  and Dulles here."
  "Potentially that's a lot of airplanes." Reid looked at his plate. "A lot
  of people will die." He got up and poured himself a stiff shot of Irish
  whiskey, drank it down, poured another, and came back to the table.
 "It's up to you. But Japan will take the blame."
 "It might backfire, make Guerin stronger."
  "Again, it is up to you, Reid. But if this is done correctly, and we
  bring down seven or more Guerin airplanes, it will take investigators a
  long time to figure out how it happened. In the meantime the company's
  stock will certainly become nearly worthless, and you as a very loyal
  American who still believes in America for Americans will step in and
  help save the company. When the signals are finally traced back to the
  Japanese, you will become twice the hero."
 No one said a thing.
 Mueller turned to Louis. "Can you do that?"
  Louis's head bobbed nervously. "Not this instant. I need more time. A
  week, maybe two. But I can do anything, including that trick you want
  with the closedcircuit TVs."
  "I'll tell you something else," Mueller said, turning again to a subdued
  Reid. "When this happens it will have to be nothing less than stunning.
  Unprecedented. So horrifying that it will be the single worst event in
  America's history."
 "Christ . . ." Reid said softly.
  "Isn't it what you want?" Mueller asked. "Isn't that why you gathered us
  here? Isn't this your invention?"
 "I'm still an American."
  "Yes?" Mueller smiled. "Then pay us and we shall walk away now,"
  Reid looked up out of his sudden anguish. "The Japanese would win."
  "So what? You're an old man, even if you begin squandering your money
  immediately you couldn't
 424 DAVID HAGBERG

 spend it all before you died. We can walk away from this insanity. Can you?"
  Mueller wondered if he could take his fee and turn his back on this project
  as he'd told Reid he could. He expected it wouldn't be terribly difficult.
  It wasn't his fight or his cause. He felt no compelling emotions for the
  plan, although he admitted to himself that he would miss the excitement of
  causing all those deaths. But it wasn't important to him one way or the
  other.
  The Zerkels were talented sociopaths. Geniuses. But Reid was becoming
  troublesome because of his drinking, and because he had a conscience. He
  would self-destruct whether or not they went ahead. He would not live much
  longer, and he probably knew it.
  Mueller smiled. "If you want me to continue, I will give you an account
  number in a Channel Islands bank. Within twenty-four hours you will deposit
  one million dollars in that account. It's up to you."
  Reid drained the rest of his drink. "I'll take care of it first thing in
  the morning."
 "What do you think about that?" Louis Zerkel said.

 TWENTY-ONE

  j& sagiri Eto refused to discuss exactly who he A#6% represented, agreeing
  that McGarvey needed at
     least the day and overnight to recover from the effects of jet lag.
  "Japan can be a strenuous country for someone new. Please forgive my
  impatience. Business can wait until morning."
  It was midnight when they emerged from the Club Shin-Oki in the Asakusa
  District a half-dozen blocks from McGarvey's hotel. The evening was cool,
  but not
                HIGH FLIGHT 425

 unpleasantly, so, and because of the hour the streets were nearly
 deserted. This area was Tokyo's oldest section, and unlike the glitzy
 uptown Ginza area, Asakusa closed down at night. The narrow streets were
 dark, the arcades, shops, stalls, artist studios, and restaurants shut-
 tered until morning.
  "I'll expect you at my hotel at 8:00 sharp," McGarvey said. "I will have
  had my breakfast, and I'll be ready to conduct my business. Do you
  understand my English, Mr. Eto?"
 "Perfectly, Mr. McGarvey."
  "It was my understanding that I would not be meeting with Japan Air
  Lines, but with another interested party."
 "That is the case."
  MeGarvey stared coldly at the man. "Who will I be meeting?"
 "I'm not at liberty to tell you that."
  MeGarvey stepped in closer so that he clearly made the Japanese
  uncomfortable. "I'm not here to play fucking games, pal, if you're still
  catching my English. I came to discuss a business deal that could be
  worth billions of dollars to your principals."
  "Worth the existence of the corporation you work for," Eto said, suddenly
  matching McGarvey's coldness. His eyes looked reptilian, their lids
  hooded, their expression unreadable.
 "There are other willing trading partners."
 "You came to us."
  "Yes," MeGarvey said. "And Mr. Yamagata was receptive, even though he
  knows who and what I am. And why I was hired by Guerin Airplane Company.
  Don't make me an enemy of Japan, Eto-san.
 "You already are the enemy."
  "All right." McGarvey nodded and stepped back. "So fuck you. I'm
  withdrawing my offer. No negotiations. I'll book the first flight out."
  For a moment Eto was caught flat-footed, but then his face began to fall
  apart. "No," he said.
 426 DAVID HAGBERG

 "No, what?"
  "Mr. McGarvey, I was not sent to antagonize you. Just the opposite. My role
  is simply to arrange a meeting between you and my principal."
 "Who is this man or men?"
 "In the morning ... you will have to trust me."
  McGarvey allowed a faint smile to curl the comers of his mouth. "Is that
  right?"
  Again Eto was flustered. "We are interested in a cooperative venture with
  Guerin Airplane Company. You, acting as its representative, came as a
  surprise. We were not prepared. We thought it would be someone else. The
  company's business counsel, or perhaps their chief financial officer."
 "Were you expecting Guerin to come to you?"
 "No, not exactly."
  "Quit jacking me around here. You haven't told me a thing all night, but
  Yamagata practically dropped his teeth when I showed up in his Washington
  office. He suggested that I come to Tokyo, and when I stalled him he came
  out to Portland. My idea was to speak to someone in Washington from JAL, to
  see if the airline was interested in principle in doing business with us.
  If it was, we would send a negotiating team over to explore the
  possibilities. Something like this is not put together overnight."
 "You are also dealing with Moscow."
  "Your intelligence is not bad," McGarvey said. "The Russians can put
  together wing panels cheaper than we can, and I'm sure cheaper than you.
  Besides that, my government is willing to make loan guarantees to the
  Russians to make the deal work. We can't miss. With you it's a different
  story."
 "Your company is practically bankrupt."
  Bingo, McGarvey thought. "I thought you weren't supposed to aggravate me,"
  he said. "In this case your intelligence isn't so good. Guerin may be at
  its limit, but the company is sound."
 "Why did you approach us?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 427

  McGarvey looked at him and smiled. "Is it you I'm supposed to be meeting?
  Are you Yamagata's principal? Because if that's the case, I damned well
  will be out of here on the first flight."
  Eto's jaws tightened. "Re, " he said. He flagged down a passing cab. "I
  will drop you at your hotel."
 "No, thanks. I'll walk."
  "That's not possible, Mr. McGarvey," Eto said as the cab pulled up. "It's
  too far, and the streets here are very ... confusing."
  "I think I can manage. I'll see you at the hotel in the morning."
 "It could be dangerous."
  "Are you telling me that the streets of Tokyo are unsafe?"
  "There is very little crime in Tokyo compared to New York."
  "As a Gai Jin I'm in danger, is that it, Eto-san? Or am I specifically
  in danger because of why I'm here? Which is it?"
  Eto looked helplessly at McGarvey. The rear door of the cab was open, and
  the cabby waited patiently behind the wheel. The cab was spotless. All
  taxis in Japan were always clean and in very good repair. It was the law.
 "I'll walk with you," Eto said.
  "I need to be alone. I'll see you in the morning." McGarvey turned and
  walked down the street, aware that the Japanese was watching him.
  McGarvey turned right at the comer and sprinted down a narrow alley
  twenty yards away, where he pulled up in the shadows of a shuttered
  stall. Moments later the cab passed on the street, Eto sitting ramrod
  straight in the back seat.
  The confrontation had answered a number of questions, among them just how
  importantly the Japanese were treating his offer, and just how bad
  Japanese sentiment toward Americans had become. He'd been treated
  shabbily at the airport and at his hotel, and Eto seemed to be genuinely
  frightened for his safety tonight.
 428 DAVID HAGBERG

  McGarvey lit a cigarette as he continued to watch the street. Eto's concern
  for his safety involved more than a fear of simple street crime. No matter
  what Japanese group had targeted Guerin, there'd be opposition. Eto and
  whoever he worked for-which sure as hell wasn't JAL-had enemies. By
  association they would also be McGarvey's enemies. But they would be a
  group who, for whatever reasons, opposed the takeover of Guerin. They were
  one of the reasons he'd come to Japan.
  The cab, with Eto still in the back seat, passed on the street again. Even
  at a distance it was clear that the Japanese was agitated.
  "Thanks," McGarvey said. The man had just proved the supposition.
  He'd been seen with Eto at the hotel's hinoki baths and at the club. From
  this point two forces would be in motion: that of the principals Eto worked
  for and that of the opposition. Actually three forces, he corrected him-
  self. If the Russian Abunai network got wind that he was in Tokyo-which was
  likely-the mix would be further changed, perhaps muddied if it believed
  Guerin was trying to cut a deal with the Japanese.
  Working both sides of the fence almost always produced a reaction of one
  sort or another. And the side that reacted first and with the most force
  was usually the group with the most to lose.
  McGarvey flipped his cigarette away, hunched up his coat collar, and headed
  toward his hotel.
  The Sumidagawa River, which emptied into industrial Tokyo Bay, was
  somewhere off to his right, beyond Sumida Park. He could smell the odors of
  oil and creosote wafting up from its banks. A few blocks in the opposite
  direction was the ancient Sensoji Temple, which had been one of the first
  things to be rebuilt after the war.
  Kelley Fuller had called this place shitamachi, the heart and soul of
  downtown. She'd worked deep cover for the CIA's Tokyo Station, and when
  McGarvey had come over on an assignment she'd helped out. He
                HIGH FLIGHT 429

 remembered her very clearly, and remembered everything she'd told him. By
 that time she'd been burned out on Japan and on the Company and wanted
 nothing more than to return home to Hawaii. But it would be nice to have
 her with him now. Despite her love-hate relationship with the country, she
 knew the Japanese psyche very well and was able to be objective.
  It was difficult for an American to negotiate directly with a Japanese
  because of the, vast cultural and language differences between them. The
  only saving grace was that if Americans had trouble understanding the
  Japanese, the Japanese had the same difficulty trying to figure out
  Americans.
  Kelley's perspective had been unique in that she'd been able to clearly
  see and understand both sides.
  McGarvey climbed a broad set of stairs to a long openair mall, with shops
  along either side of a brick thoroughfare. Fountains, trees, and park
  benches were scattered here and there. The only illumination came from
  a few large globes on short aluminum stanchions. In the early evening
  with shops open, people strolling or sitting and chatting, the effect
  would be soothing. Now the mall was in shadows.
  McGarvey held up at the head of the stairs and listened to the city
  sounds, which were far away and faint. The air still smelled of the
  river, but there were other odors here: spices and flowers and perhaps
  cooking food. But something was wrong. The hairs at the nape of his neck
  prickled.
  The mall ran roughly east and west for about two blocks, opening at one
  end on what was probably Nakamise-dori Avenue, which during the day was
  busy with traffic. The other end of the mall was lost in darkness.
  MeGarvey had left his pistol in Portland. If he'd been caught trying to
  bring it through customs he would have been arrested and kicked out. He
  hadn't come here with any intention of getting into a situation where he
  might need it, but just now he was sorry he hadn't tried.
 430 DAVID HAGSERG

  A motorcycle engine roared into life, and the bike came slowly up from the
  dark end of the mall. McGarvey backed up, his left hand trailing on the
  burnished aluminum stair rail.
  The helmeted driver was dressed in black leather, and as he passed, he
  looked at McGarvey and smiled like a Cheshire cat.
  Before he got to the far end of the mall, a second motorcycle started with
  an angry whine and headed up from the darkness, the driver weaving a path
  through the benches, trees, and fountains. As he passed McGarvey he looked
  over and smiled like the first biker.
  A third and fourth bike started up and came from the end of the mall, and
  as McGarvey started to turn back a pair of motorcycles appeared at the
  bottom of the stairs. The drivers revved the engines, the snarling noises
  echoing off the storefronts. Two more bikes started up and came from the
  dark end of the mall as the first four returned.
  McGarvey sprinted away from the stairs toward a small tree protected by a
  low circle of bricks, one of the bikes just missing him as it spun around
  the fountain a few feet away.
  The second bike passed in a roari something hard smashing into McGarvey's
  back, driving him to his knees. He looked up in time to see a third and
  fourth bike heading for him, the drivers swinging what looked like pieces
  of steel or lead on the ends of three-foot chains.
  He'd found the opposition, but they didn't seem inclined to stop and talk.
  McGarvey rolled left, away from the first pair of oncoming motorcycles, and
  they flashed by, the lead weights missing him. He was up on his feet as the
  two bikes from below burst over the head of the stairs and came directly at
  him.
  He swung around the tree, avoiding the first bike, and then stepped
  directly toward the second. At the last possible instant he moved aside,
  like a bullfighter allow-
                  HIGH FLIGHT 431

 ing the charging bull to pass. He ducked under the swinging weight, then
 popped up behind it and grabbed a handful of the biker's leather jacket,
 dragging the man off his motorcycle and swinging him directly into the
 path of another charging bike.
  The force of the impact spun the downed biker violently around, his left
  arm catching in the rear wheel's mag struts, taking it off just above the
  elbow and sending the motorcycle and driver crashing into one of the park
  benches.
  Blood pouring from the open wound sprayed everywhere as the Japanese
  screamed and tried to get away.
  McGarvey snatched the heavily weighted chain that the downed biker had
  dropped and stepped back.
 "This man needs help!" he shouted.
  The other bikers circled slowly, well out of range. "Rising Sun is going
  to get you," one of them taunted.
  The Japanese whose arm was torn off lay crumpled in a heap, the flow of
  blood from his wound slowing. The biker who'd crashed into the bench lay
  beneath his motorcycle, his head lying at a severe angle.
  "I came here to talk to you, not fight, goddammit," McGarvey tried to
  explain.
  "Too bad you're going to die now," one of them shouted.
  Two of the bikes cut out of the pack and suddenly roared toward him from
  opposite directions, the drivers swinging their weighted chains.
  "You stupid bastards," McGarvey yelled in frustration. He swung the
  weighted chain twice over his head and let it fly at the biker to his
  left, then darted across the path of the other bike, jumped up on the
  back of a park bench, and leaped at the oncoming driver.
  It happened too fast for either biker to get out of the way. McGarvey
  came over the handlebars and crashed into the Japanese, driving him off
  the bike, both of them smashing into the bricks.
  McGarvey yanked the weighted chain out of the Japanese's hand and, as he
  scrambled to the left, tossed
 432 DAVID HAGBERG

 it at the wheel of one of the other bikes still circling. The chain caught
 in the mag struts of the front wheel, sending the machine crashing into the
 bike in front of it.
  The bike to his left was down, the driver getting to his feet. The Japanese
  reached inside his jacket, but then he suddenly looked up and stepped back.
 "I want to talk," McGarvey shouted.
  The biker McGarvey had knocked down yanked his still idling motorcycle
  upright, climbed aboard, and roared away, while the Japanese to his left
  jumped on another bike's pillion as it raced past.
  All of the bikes swung around and charged down the stairs at high speed.
  Only after they were gone did McGarvey hear the police sirens, a lot of
  them, closing in.

 "I've finished with the repeater design, and it won't take me very long to
 build seven or eight of them," Louis Zerkel said. "But there's another
 problem."
  "With the circuit design?" his brother Glen asked. Louis had been in an odd
  mood all morning. He was twitchy.
 "It's embarrassing."
  "What's your problem, Louis? I can't help you if I don't know what it is."
  Louis looked down at his hands resting on the terminal keyboard. "In
  California it was different. I didn't have to ask anyone, not even Dr.
  Shepard. I knew where to go to get what ... I needed."
 "What?"
 Louis looked up, and shrugged. "A woman."
  Glen shook his head and grinned. "Shit, man, I can dig it. You're homy. Now
  that you mention it, so am U'
 "Can you do something, Glen?"
  "No sweat, brother. I'll talk it over with Mr. R. See what we can come up
  with. Just hang tight."
  "Good," Louis said. "Only thing that's left after the repeaters will be
  setting up the signal paths from Tokyo and one test of the sensor unit in
  the Faraday cage."
                HIGH FLIGHT 433

 There was no use running, McGarvey told himself, because he'd been set up
 the moment he got off the airplane. If they wanted him they would have no
 trouble finding him. Besides, cops had the habit of shooting at a moving
 figure first and a stationary target last. Watching the half-dozen or more
 squad cars, sirens blaring, lights flashing, race into the mall from
 Nakamise-dori Avenue, he was glad he'd heeded his first instinct to leave
 his gun at home. It would not have helped him very much against the
 bikers, and if he had it now it would definitely start to become a serious
 problem in about thirty seconds.
  He stepped into the pool of light cast by one of the globes and raised
  his hands over his head, his passport in his left.
  The first radio units screeched to a halt in front of him, their
  headlights making it difficult to see anything. Other units were
  arriving, and he could hear a lot of activity. Of course there were
  bodies all over the place, and the police had no real idea what they were
  walking into.
 McGarvey stood perfectly still.
  Several uniformed cops, their weapons drawn, fanned out on the double on
  either side of him. Someone from behind the lights shouted something in
  Japanese, and a man in civilian clothes slowly approached to within a
  couple of feet of McGarvey. He glanced at the upraised passport.
 "You're an American?"
  "Yes. My name is Kirk MeGarvey. I'd like to speak with someone from my
  embassy."
  "Are you armed?" the Japanese asked him. His English was very good, but
  he was dressed in a baggy suit and a rumpled trench coat that made him
  look like a detective out of a forties movie.
 'No.
  The plainclothes cop said something in Japanese, and two uniformed cops
  hurried forward, took McGarvey's passport, then quickly frisked him. When
  they were done, they pulled his arms behind him and secured his
 434 DAVID HAGBERG

 wrists with a plastic wire tie. They were quick and efficient.
  "What happened here?" the plainclothes officer asked. He pocketed
  McGarvey's passport without looking at it.
  "They called themselves Rising Sun. Said they were going to kill me."
 "This was all of them?"
 "There were more of them. Five or six others."
  The cop glanced at the crashed motorcycles and the three bodies. A great
  deal of blood had pooled up around the biker who'd lost his arm. "Who
  helped you here, Mr. McGarvey?"
  "No one. If you won't call my embassy, contact Mr. Asagiri Eto. I have
  his number. I had dinner with him this evening."
  The plainclothes cop studied McGarvey. "What are you doing in Japan?"
 - I'm here on business."
  Again the Japanese cop studied McGarvey. "I think your business is not
  possible now," he said. "I am placing you under arrest at this time."
 "What am I being charged with?"
  The plainclothes cop smiled faintly. "Murder, of course."
  "Eight against one?" McGarvey asked. "I call it selfdefense."
  "I see only three bodies, Mr. McGarvey. And you are a very large,
  obviously very powerful man. Whereas your victims were nothing but boys.
  Not a fair fight, if you ask me."

 "I'll be damned," Reid said, surprised.
  "It's not so much to ask, considering everything he's done so far," Glen
  Zerkel argued. "Question is, can we get someone out here without putting
  ourselves in danger?"
  "I don't think that would be terribly difficult," Reid answered. "But I
  don't know if it would be very smart." It was late afternoon by the time
  he'd come out from the
                HIGH FLIGHT 435

 city. He'd put his latest newsletter to bed, and he'd waited until all the
 copies had been machine-addressed and mailed. This had caught him
 completely off guard.
  "We're not home free yet, Mr. R. We still need him, maybe for another
  week or two."
 "Can't he wait?"
  Mueller came into the living room from outside. "Who can't wait for
  what?" he asked, mildly.
  "Young Louis tells us that he wants a whore," Reid said.
  Mueller shrugged. "Washington has whores. Get him one."
 "We were thinking about the danger."
  "When he's finished with the woman I'll kill her and put her body with
  Karl's. How are his experiments progressing?"

 TWENTY-TWO

 McGarvey was taken to Metropolitan Police
      Headquarters downtown on Sakurado-dori
      Avenue. They removed his wrist restraint,
 searched him with a metal detector, took everything out
 of his pockets, and locked him in a small interrogation
 room furnished only with a steel table and three chairs.
 It was a                          half-hour before the plainclothes cop
 who'd
 arrested him came in.
  "I will ask you some questions, Mr. McGarvey," the cop said, setting up
  a cassette tape recorder. "It will save time if you tell me only the
  truth."
  "Fine," McGarvey said. "But first I want your name, and I'll want to see
  some credentials. Then I want a cup of coffee or tea, and my cigarettes
  and matches."
 "There is no smoking."
 436 DAVID HAGBERG

  "In that case you'd better give my embassy a call right now, because I'm
  not telling you anything until I speak to a consular officer."
  "You will answer my questions," the cop said sternly, his expression
  menacing. "You have no rights here."
  "If you want to create an international incident, go ahead and push.
  Otherwise, fuck you."
  The cop managed a faint smirk as he eyed McGarvey speculatively. "You are
  a murderer, Mr. McGarvey, and just now sentiments are running very high
  against Americans. I meant it when I said that you have no rights here.
  So this can be easy for you, or very hard. It is your choice."
  "Actually it's your choice," McGarvey said. "Sooner or later the people
  I came to see will find out what happened and they'll get me out of here.
  In the meantime we can chat like civilized men, or you can try to force
  some answers out of me."
  "The trouble is that you lied to me from the beginning, so I find it
  difficult to believe anything you say. You are a murderer and liar."
  "You cooperate with me, and I'll cooperate with you," McGarvey offered.
  The cop's eyes narrowed. "The number you supplied me has no record of
  this man you mentioned- Asagiri Eto."
 MeGarvey said nothing.
 "How do you explain this discrepancy?"
 Still McGarvey maintained his silence.
  The cop switched off the cassette recorder, got up, and came around the
  table to McGarvey's side. "Did this man help you murder those boys?"
 MeGarvey looked up at him.
 "You bastard," the cop said, and he raised his fist.
  "If you hit me, I'll take you apart," McGarvey said softly.
 The cop's eyes widened.
  "Work it out. There were only three bodies down there, but four
  motorcycles. If your forensics people are on the ball, they should have
  discovered the tire marks
                HIGH FLIGHT 437

 of more than just those four bikes. From what I'm told Asakusa is a
 traditional family neighborhood. There'll be witnesses, but you'll probably
 have to go banging on doors to find them. And unless I'm mistaken it was the
 Rising Sun group that staged the riots in Tokyo last week. I was fair game
 out there." McGarvey watched the cop. He suspected that there was more to it
 than that, because of Eto's concern. Problem was he'd blown his chances to
 ask for the opposition's help.
  McGarvey. willed the tension out of his muscles and sat back. "I didn't
  pick the fight, but I sure as hell wasn't going to stand there and take it.
  They would have killed me. You saw the weapons they carried."
  The cop shook his head in amazement. "You would have actually attacked me
  if I had slapped you?"
  "Yes. If the situation were reversed, and this was New York City, wouldn't
  you have defended yourself?"
  "Against a proper authority?" the cop asked, still trying to fathom
  McGarvey. "No."
 "Never come to New York."
  "You should not have come to Tokyo, Mr. McGarvey." The cop opened the door,
  gave somebody some instructions, then came back to the table. He showed
  McGarvey his gold shield. "My name is Nobuhiku Myamoto, and I am a
  lieutenant of detectives. Tea is being brought for you. Your cigarettes
  will be brought as well. It will just take a minute."
  "Very well," McGarvey said. "Asagiri Eto works for someone who wants to do
  business with the company I represent."
  "Now we're getting somewhere," Myamoto said. "How was it arranged that you
  should come to Tokyo and meet with this man?"
 "Through a contact at JAL in Washington, D.C."
  Myamoto switched on the cassette recorder. "Did Asagiri Eto pick you up at
  Narita?"
  "He came to my hotel, and afterward took me to the Club Shin-Oki."
 Myamoto was obviously impressed. "That is a very
 438 DAVID HAGSERG

 exclusive club. I'm surprised that an American was allowed entry."
  Someone knocked at the door, and Myamoto jumped up and got it. An older man
  in civilian clothes said something in rapid-fire Japanese, and Myamoto
  glanced back at McGarvey, this time a look of wonderment on his face.

 "The man is a murderer. How am I supposed to report this?" Police Captain
 Tsutomu Watanabe demanded.
  Hiroshi Ozawa had made his way downtown by helicopter the moment he'd heard
  that McGarvey had been arrested. "I am very sorry, Watanabe-san, to
  interfere in police business, but if Mr. McGarvey is guilty of murder it
  was certainly in self-defense. His presence in Tokyo is of extreme
  importance to us."
 "I will not be told why?"
 "No," Ozawa said, lowering his eyes politely.

 "Mr. Pelham, this is Sam Miller, officer of the day. Sir, I have an amber
 light for you."
  "All right, I'm switching over ... now," Pelham said after a brief
  hesitation. He'd been caught by surprise. "I'm secure. What have you got
  for me?"
  The green, circuit-secure light came up on the duty officer's encrypted
  console. "Mr. McGarvey was arrested a little over an hour ago by Tokyo
  Metro Police. Apparently he was involved in an altercation of.some sort in
  Asakusa."
  "Oh, Christ, that's just great. Have you reached Gates, yet?" Stephen
  Pelham was the assistant chief of the CIA's Tokyo Station. Cortland Gates
  was the COS.
  "No, sir. He's hunting at the lodge on Hokkaido. But word has been left for
  him."
  "Have the Japanese contacted anyone downstairs on his behalf?"
 "There's been no call like that."
  "Shit," Pelham said. "All right, it's a little after two now, which puts it
  noonish in D.C. We'll have to
                HIGH FLIGHT 439

 message Langley on this. I can make it in about twenty minutes. Traffic
 will be light. Thank God for small miracles anyway."
  "Yes, sir," Miller said, but the green light on his console winked out.
  Pelham had already hung up.
  The ACOS showed up thirty-five minutes later at the Company's small
  operations and communications center on the top floor of the U.S. embassy
  on Akasaka in Minato-ku. Unlike Miller, who was short, dark, and wiry,
  Pelham was a corpulent man with wispy, almost nonexistent pale blond hair
  and nearly invisible eyebrows. He looked like an albino.
 "What's he been charged with, Sam?"
  "Murder, but it's getting more complicated than that."
  "Not possible," Pelham said, his acid indigestion rising.
  When the bulletin had come from Langley requesting that Tokyo Station be
  on the lookout for McGarvey, no one had been overly concerned. Such
  requests were common, and very often bounced downstairs to an embassy
  officer. Usually it involved visiting businessmen or VIPs whose movements
  were to be loosely monitored for their own protection. They were to be
  bailed out of any difficult situation they might put themselves in. But
  when the follow-up book cable had arrived a couple hours after the first
  bulletin, filling them in on McGarvey's background, Gates and the entire
  staff had sat up and taken notice.
  "I didn't make the connection until now," the COS told Pelham. "What the
  hell is that MeGarvey doing back here? It's a surprise the Japanese even
  let him in after what he did to them three years ago."
  He was a tough man to keep track of, and from the moment he'd slipped out
  of his hotel with a Japanese national, Pelham had known damned well that
  something would happen.
  "Sir, Mr. McGarvey was released about the same time I was talking to you.
  The charges have been dropped."
 440 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Jesus. Are you sure?"
 "Yes, sir."
 "Where is he now?"
 "Back at his hotel."
 "Has he got company?"
  "The same man he left with last night. We don't have an ID on him yet,
  but apparently he carries some weight. The hotel has provided him with
  the penthouse suite."
  "At this hour?" Pelham asked, rhetorically. "Who're we getting this from,
  Justine?"
  "Yes, sir," Miller said. Justine was the code name of a small network of
  informants working for the Metro Police. Each person signed on for three
  years, after which they were brought to the United States, had their eyes
  Westernized, and were given a new identity and money. They had no trouble
  recruiting applicants,
  "Whoever this Jap is, if he swings enough weight to get McGarvey sprung,
  we'd better find out who he is."
 "It wasn't him, Mr. Pelham," Miller said.
 "Goddammit, who was it then?"
 "MITI."
  Pelham stared at the OD, blankly. "The Ministry for International Trade
  and Industry? Why? What the hell has that sonofabitch gotten himself into
  this time?"
 I 'Sir?"
  "You were here when the book cable came through. You know what he is, or
  was. Christ, he's killed people."
 "But he's one of us."
 "Don't count on it, Sam."
 "I don't understand."
 "Whenever MeGarvey shows up there's trouble."
 "Yes, sir."
  "I don't like the timing. The President is going to be here is less than
  a month, and I'd like to know what McGarvey is up to. Exactly what he's
  up to."
 Miller was taken back. "I see what you mean, sir."
  "Keep trying to contact Gates. I'll be in my office putting together
  something for Langley. Who've we got at the hotel?"
 "Shapiro and Littell."
                HIGH FLIGHT 441

 "Get Isaacs and Ireland down here too."
 "Will do, Mr. Pelham."

 In the dawn the air over Tokyo appeared dusty.
  "It was an unfortunate incident for which I apologize," Asagiri Eto said.
  "One which you tried to warn me about," McGarvey replied. "How did you
  find out I'd been arrested?" The police offered no explanation why they
  were releasing him, nor would Lieutenant Myamoto answer his questions.
  But the cop was clearly shook up. He'd been called out of the
  interrogation room, and when he came back he was subdued. McGarvey's
  personal belongings were returned, and after he'd signed an inventory
  release form printed in English and Japanese he was allowed to leave. .
  'T waited for you at the hotel, but when you didn't show up I became
  worried. The police said that you'd been attacked. Frankly, I didn't know
  what to think."
 "Did you arrange to get me out of there?"
  Eto looked owlishly at McGarvey. "You are a difficult man. We had hoped
  to avoid any unpleasantness while you were here, but that's no longer
  possible. Now we have damage to repair."
 "Was it an isolated incident?"
  Eto shrugged, a gesture uncharacteristic for a Japanese. "I don't know."
 "They were Rising Sun. Enemies of yours?"
  Eto took a moment to answer, obviously in some difficulty. "It's not so
  easy as that. My country is in turmoil, you know. We are coming out of
  very difficult times. Some people in government think they have the
  answers but there are ... factions who believe Nippon will be made to
  suffer if we continue on our present course."
 "Are you talking about a coup?"
 "We're a democracy," Eio retorted sharply.
 "Who is Rising Sun?"
 "A group ...
 "One of the anti-government factions?"
 442 DAVID HAGBERG

 Eto shook his head. "This is not the West."
  "I had to defend myself. Three Rising Sun are in the morgue. Who's got
  the pull to have the charges against me dropped? Are you one of these
  anti-govemment factions?"
  Eto looked past McGarvey out the glass wall at the morning over the big
  city. The distant mountains were completely lost in the air pollution.
  "If you still wish to pursue your business with us, we'll leave now."
 "Will I be returning to this hotel?"
 "No.,'
 "Then I'll get my things."
  Eto smiled faintly. "Your suitcase is downstairs in the car."

 "I told you there'd be trouble with that sonofabitch," CIA General Counsel
 Howard Ryan said.
  "Still just circumstantial, Mr. Ryan," Carrara said, although even he was
  beginning to have doubts. After listening to what the FBI was working on
  he knew MeGarvey was in the middle of something all right, but after
  talking with Phillipe Marquand in Paris he didn't know anymore. Maybe
  McGarvey had turned. "He was up front with me about Arimoto Yamagata's
  connection with JAL, and about Mintori, so he's not masking all movements
  from us."
  "But he didn't tell us that he was going to Tokyo," Ryan said. The former
  Wall Street attorney had come down to Carrara's office just before
  quitting time for an update.
 "He's not working for us."
 "But he asks for our help."
  "That's right, and I was told by the general to do just that." Carrara
  maintained his composure. Ryan's gripe with McGarvey went back several
  years, and in the DDO'S opinion the general counsel's behavior and
  attitude were anything but professional. But the man had his point:
  McGarvey was showing up in too many places at too many times. The
  Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry stepping in to get
  him
                HIGH FLIGHT 443

 out of trouble was problematic, as was the interest in him shown by the FBI
 and the French Action Service. "What are you telling me, Mr. Ryan? That I
 should refuse any further contact with him?"
 "I'm not saying that," Ryan was quick to correct.
  "Well, maybe we should bring him in. Tokyo Station would make contact and
  pass the message on to him."
 "Nobody is calling for that either."
  "What then?" Even if Gates could get to him, there wasn't much chance that
  Kirk would come running. "What can I do for you?"
  "You're his friend. I understand and appreciate that, so I'm not asking you
  to stab him in the back," Ryan dismissed the notion with a shake of his
  head. "In fact, the man has done a lot for us. Accomplished some remarkable
  feats, actually. But you have to admit that this has become something
  entirely different. Now he's involving himself directly in international
  politics."
 "He's working for Guerin Airplane Company."
  "Spare me," Ryan cut him off. "Practically on the eve of one of the most
  important summit meetings ever facing this country, the Japanese decide to
  get into it with the Russians. And who shows up out of the blue in Moscow
  and then in Tokyo? None other than McGarvey. Of course, whenever McGarvey
  shows up someplace dead bodies fall like cordwood."
 "Mr. Ryan, I repeat, what can I do for you?"
  The general counsel looked at him coolly. "Kirk McGarvey is your friend.
  Find out what he's doing and stop him. For his sake, if not the nation's."
  Carrara got slowly to his feet, every muscle in his body bunched into
  knots. It took everything within his control not to lunge across the desk
  at the smug bastard. He even managed to nod. "I'll do my best, Mr. Ryan."
  "That's all I'm asking, Phil. I'm sure you'll do the right thing."
 "Yes, sir."

 Heading north out of Tokyo the air cleared and traffic thinned dramatically,
 so that by the time they were in
 444 DAVID HAGBERG

 the foothills, the narrow road was all but deserted. McGarvey and Eto rode
 in the back seat of the stretched custom Lexus. Their driver was a
 precise-looking man with wire-rimmed glasses whom Eto said had been a
 Formula One driver until an accident three years ago.
  "Ura Nihon, " McGarvey commented, looking out at the terraced fields that
  led up into the snow-capped mountains.
 Eto was startled. "Where did you learn that?"
  "A long time ago from an old friend," McGarvey replied absently. He and
  Kelley Fuller had traveled south together to Nagasaki. The countryside had
  seemed peaceful and delicate, dollhouse-like, completely different from the
  bigger-than-life, frenetic pace of Tokyo and Japan's other large cities.
  Ura Nihon, she'd called it. The other Japan. The ancient Japan. Tradition.
  Honor. Beauty. Bushido.
  McGarvey glanced at the Japanese. "The old ways are the best. No kata
  tataki out here, no tapping on the shoulder to tell you that you have been
  voluntarily laid off. That's just for the cities. Shoganni, Eto-san?
  Nothing can be done about it?"
  Eto returned his gaze. "You are indeed a troubling man, Mr. McGarvey. If I
  had my way I would, send you back on the very first flight."
 "But you don't."
 "No. 1~

  "Then let's hope for the best, because I sincerely do not want to be your
  enemy," McGarvey said.
  The road climbed higher into the mountains of Nikko National Park, the
  terraced farm fields giving way grudgingly to forests of tiny trees that
  seemed to be trimmed, the growth around them carefully cultivated. From a
  narrow defile the car was passed through a massive wooden gate that swung
  on a huge arch ornately carved with the figures of fierce dragons. From
  there a perfectly maintained road of crushed white gravel led up the valley
  to a broad forested ledge through which a narrow stream bubbled and plunged
  over the sheer edge. The view from the top was breathtaking. Perched on the
  far
                HIGH FLIGHT 445

 edge was a traditionally styled Japanese house, low to the ground and
 rambling in every direction. Tiled roofs, rice-paper screens and walls,
 carved beams, courtyards, broad verandas, gardens, ponds, and ancient
 statues and figures gave the spot an unreal air, as if it were a setting in
 a fairy tale.
  "Whoever owns this must be a very lucky man," McGarvey said, and again Eto
  gave him an odd, measuring glance.
  At the house their driver let McGarvey out of the car and a yovng woman in
  a flowered, pale-pink kimono came across the broad porch to greet him. Eto
  remained in the car.
  "Ohayo go-zai-ma-su, McGarvey-san, " Good morning, the young woman said,
  smiling.
  "Ohayo go-zai-ma-su, " McGarvey said, bowing slightly. "Eigo o hanashimasu
  ka?"
  The young woman tittered and returned his bow. "Yes, of course, I speak
  English. Please, if you will follow me, tea has been laid out for you. The
  morning is beautiful, is it not?"
  "The morning is brilliant," McGarvey agreed. He removed his shoes and
  without looking back at Eto followed the young woman into the house, down
  a wide corridor of highly polished teak, and finally out onto a very broad
  veranda that overlooked a beautiful garden. Part of the stream had been
  diverted through the garden, and it splashed gently on the rocks. A
  windchime hanging in a gnarled old tree tinkled on the pleasant breeze.
  At first McGarvey did not notice the old man seated cross-legged like a
  Buddha in front of a low table at the edge of the veranda. He was dressed
  in a snow-white kimono and sat absolutely still until the girl led McGarvey
  across to him. Then he looked up and smiled.
  "Please sit down, Mr. McGarvey. You have come a very long way, and you must
  be weary."
  The old man's English was good, his accent British upper class. He looked
  to McGarvey to be in his seventies, possibly older. His eyes were wise, and
  from the
 446 DAVID HAGBERG

 expression on his face, and the way he held himself erect, sure of
 himself, MeGarvey could guess that he was rich, even wealthy. All of a
 sudden the light bulb went off in his head.
 "Sokichi Kamiya. Mintori Assurance."
  Kamiya inclined his round, nearly hairless head, slightly in
  acknowledgment. "Actually quite clever of you to guess so soon. And to
  take your quest into the lion's den. Sit down. I'll pour us some tea."
  MeGarvey stared at the old Japanese for a beat. He'd been finessed, and
  he suspected that Kamiya was a master at it. But it had been so easy.
  Like scratching an itch, or swatting a fly. Effortless.
  "This is a nice spot," McGarvey said, looking out across the garden.
 "It belongs to a young friend of mine."
 Another light went off. "Arimoto Yamagata."
  "Yes. This place is his solace, although as of late he has not been able
  to enjoy any peace. But it is war."
  McGarvey stared at a lone rock about the size of an irregularly shaped
  soccer ball. It was placed to one side in the garden. He suspected it had
  some significance. For the first time since Santiago, what seemed like
  a thousand years ago, McGarvey felt out of his league, even outclassed.
  His showing up on Yamagata's doorstep in Washington had come out of the
  blue, and yet Kamiya's organization was so far reaching and so strong it
  was able to suck McGarvey in and maneuver him to this place and time. It
  was tidy.
  "Guerin Airplane Company is only part of it, then," McGarvey said.
 "A key element, but only that."
 "Without Guerin you would fail."
  "But we will have Guerin, Mr. McGarvey. There is no question of that. No
  question whatsoever."

 McGarvey sat across from Kamiya. "Maybe I'll kill
 YOU."
 "You would be dead before you got within striking
                HIGH FLIGHT 447

 range," the old Japanese said. He was supremely confident.
  McGarvey had studied the garden for signs that anyone was hiding. Now he.
  studied the facing wall and roofline of the house. No one was in sight,
  which didn't preclude some kind of remotely operated weapons system. Kamiya
  would have to be out of the line of fire, but it wouldn't be too difficult
  a system to engineer. McGarvey could think of several ways of doing it.
 "Did you bring me here to kill me?"
  "No, merely to neutralize you, Mr. McGarvey," Kamiya said. "You have become
  a nuisance. A thorn in my side."
  McGarvey pushed back away from the table. There was nothing to fight, or to
  defend against.
  "Even as we speak, Mr. McGarvey, a situation is being arranged that will
  diminish your effectiveness to nearly zero."
 "Maybe I'll leave now."
  "Then you will die now. You need to remain a little longer."

 They came in two teams, leapfrogging out of the city, Isaacs and Ireland in
 a plain Toyota van and Shapiro and Littell in a four-wheel-drive Subaru.
 Greg Isaacs got out of the lead car about twenty-five yards from the big
 gate and immediately started through the thick woods up the mountain. At
 thirty-eight he was in the best physical shape of the four CIA legmen, so
 he'd been volunteered for this part of the mission. The others waited on the
 main road, one car well above the gate, the other retreating to the highway
 at the bottom of the valley about four miles away. Isaacs carried a powerful
 pair of binoculars, a sound amplifier with a small parabolic pickup dish,
 and a walkie-talkie.
  The first hundred yards were relatively easy, but then the slope sharply
  steepened, and until he finally made it to the crest of the defile Isaacs
  wasn't sure he could do it without mountain-climbing equipment. At the top
  he
 448 DAVID HAGBERG

 found himself at one end of a long ledge, the mountains rising In the back
 and a sheer cliff plunging five or six hundred feet in the front. A big
 house was perched at the edge of the dropoff about two hundred yards away.
 Isaacs raised his binoculars and saw McGarvey seated with another man on
 a veranda.
 Isaacs keyed his walkie-talkie. "I have him."

 "You said that this is war. Do you mean a shooting war between Japan and
 the United States?"
  "It may come to that," Kamiya replied calmly. "But not necessarily."
 "Not necessarily."
  "It depends upon what Russia does in the coming days, and on how your
  government reacts to certain events that will soon occur."
 "I can stop you."
 "How?"
  "By telling someone in my government what you've said to me. I think I
  can convince the right people to listen, and to believe enough to at
  least start an investigation. Tokyo would help."
  Kamiya noisily sipped his tea and looked at McGarvey with amusement. "Two
  days ago you might have had some small chance of success. But not now.
  By coming here you have damaged your credibility with your government,
  especially after your performance last night. The authorities in this
  country are very harsh with murderers, and especially harsh on
  foreigners. Yet you were released and all the charges against you wiped
  clean."
 "Those things can be explained."
  "Not after this morning, Mr. McGarvey. You will be leaving here in about
  an hour. Afterward you will be of no concern to me."
  McGarvey looked again toward the house, then measured the distance across
  the table to the old man. He would have to keep Kamiya between him and
  the house.
  "Don't forget the garden," Kamiya said, a faint smile curling the comers
  of his mouth.
                HIGH FLIGHT 449

 "If they miss me, they will hit you."
 "No. 11

 "Can you be so certain?"
  Kamlya's smile widened. "The system has been tested, Mr. McGarvey. But if
  you wish to try it, please do so. It might prove to be amusing."

 Isaacs steadied his arm on the bole of a small tree as he aimed the
 parabolic dish directly at McGarvey and the other man. He pressed the
 headset close against his ear, but there was nothing except what sounded
 like wind in the trees or a waterfall, but a long way off. The receiver was
 supposed to be foolproof. Aiming the dish with his left hand, he raised the
 binoculars with his right and focused on the two men. They were talking. He
 could make out the Japanese man's lips, but he was getting nothing except
 the goddamned waterfall in his headset. Shit. He put the dish aside and
 picked up the walkietalkie.
 "Rover one, copy?"
 There was no answer.
 "Rover one, this is two, do you copy, over?"
 Still there was no answer.

 "Your most intelligent observers in Washington are correct in their thinking
 about one thing," Kamiya said.
  "What's that?" McGarvey asked, his frustration mounting.
  "These attacks are not directed by my government. They are trying to stop
  me, though secretly they admire what I am doing. They are frightened."
 "I don't blame them," McGarvey said.

 The repeaters were finished. There was the* possibility that they would be
 discovered before the operation, so Louis had designed and built them to
 look like something completely different, so ordinary looking that even if
 they were spotted they might not be disturbed.
  "The technicians will think that the janitors put them out, and the
  janitors will think that the technicians did
 450 DAVID HAGBERG

 it." Louis giggled. "It's not much, but it might give us a little margin
 of safety. Nobody will want to touch them."
 "Roach Motels?" Reid asked in wonderment.
 "That's right."
  The seven repeaters, each a couple of times bigger than, a pack of
  cigarettes, were covered in simulatedwood brown paper, the Roach Motel
  logo on the side of each box. Reid picked one up and hefted it.
  "It's a little heavier than I would think one of these should be."
  "So who's the expert on Roach Motel weights?" Louis asked.
  Reid looked through it. "It's hollow, except for the baffles."
  Louis giggled again. He was very proud of his handiwork. "The circuitry
  is on a board sandwiched between the top layers of cardboard. And the
  ion-exchange battery, which I designed, is sandwiched between the bottom
  layers. What do you think about that?"
  Reid lowered the box and shook his head slowly. "What do I think?" He
  shook his head again. "I think you're more of a genius than anyone has
  ever guessed."

 "Rover two, this is Rover one. What's going on up there?"
  Isaacs keyed his walkie-talkie. "Rover one, this is two, do you copy
  now?"
  "Rover two, negative contact. If you copy, maintain your position. I'm
  coming up."
  "Good luck," Isaacs muttered, laying the walkie-talkie down. Bob Ireland
  was in no shape to make the climb. He'd be a basket case by the time he
  got up here. If he made it this far, Isaacs figured he'd end up carrying
  his partner back down the mountain.
  He started to raise the binoculars when someone grabbed him from behind
  and yanked him away from the tree. He pawed for his weapon, but something
  smashed into his neck, cutting off his air, a thousand stars bursting in
  his head.
                HIGH FLIGHT 451

  Isaacs was conscious long enough to understand he was being lifted off
  the ground by someone very strong, and then he was hurtling over the
  edge of the cliff and falling toward the rocks five hundred feet
  below.

 TWENTY-THREE

 Goddammit, Carrara, the sonofabitch has done it now!"
 Phil Carrara had expected Ryan, but not so soon. The book cable from Tokyo
 Station had come less than an hour ago. "It's too early to draw any
 conclusions."
 "Conclusions, my ass. I warned you about this."
  "As you may recall, I asked if you wanted Tokyo Station to bring him in.
  You said no. Gates is not back from fhe lodge and Steve Pelham admits his
  information is preliminary at best."
  Ryan's left eyebrow rose. "Your signature was on the return cable . . ."
 Carrara flared. "I don't work for you, Ryan."
  "Authorizing the operation to contact him. He's left Tokyo. Any word on
  him?"
  "Not yet. All we're doing is following him to see who he meets with. He's
  done nothing wrong-at least he's broken none of our laws."
  "Come off it. He killed at least three people, and now he's disappeared."
  "The Japanese police released him. That tells us something."
  "He's got powerful friends. He didn't fly over on vacation. Can you say
  for certain what he's involved with?"
 Carrara averted his gaze for a moment. Ryan had
 452 DAVID HAGBERG

 come charging into his office loaded for bear. While the CIA was in the
 business of intelligence gathering, the politics of influence often was
 the major factor in an operation. Ryan was the consummate political
 animal. He had the trust and respect of the director, and he had friends
 on the Hill and in the current White House administration. He was a
 dangerous man. "We know he's involved with something we don't understand,
 Mr. Ryan. I'll admit that much. But what we don't know yet is exactly what
 that might be."
 :'Bring him in. Ask him."
  'Not so easy a job." -
  Ryan's lips compressed. "Are you saying that the man is out of control?
  He's above the law? The bastard can come and go as he pleases?"
  "Self-defenseCarrara said, and Ryan cut him short.
  "McGarvey is a trained assassin. It was this agency that trained him, and
  we did a good job of it. Without exception every time he gets involved
  with something there are fatalities. These three in Tokyo are just the
  latest. Can you guarantee there won't be more?"
 "They'd be justified."
 Ryan smirked. "No possibility he's turned?"
  "Turned into what?" Carrara demanded. He was tired of Ryan's amateurism.
  The man was a lawyer and politician, but he was not an intelligence
  officer, though he liked to think he was. He used sophomoric terminology.
 :'Into a double by the opposition."
 'I don't know what you're talking about."
  Ryan came closer to Carrara's desk, his eyes glittering. "The President
  is concerned that nothing affect his summit meeting in Tokyo."
 :'I wouldn't know." -
  'I do. It's my job. The General will want my recommendations. What do I
  tell him?"
 :'Operational briefs come from this office."
 'My office is responsible for oversight."
                HIGH FLIGHT 453

 "For the legal ramifications of our operations."
  "Congressional relations as well. And we all know what that means to this
  administration."
 "Do your job, Counselor, and let me do mine."
  Ryan held up his hands in a peace gesture. "Let's not be at odds, Phil,
  I'm not the enemy. But if I'm to do my job effectively I need the
  cooperation of all the deputy directors."
 "You have mine."
  "All I'm saying, Phil, is that I don't trust or like Kirk McGarvey. I
  think the man is dangerous, not only to this agency, but to the interests
  of the United States. A view that is shared by a number of important,
  well-informed people."
 "I don't happen to agree."
  "I appreciate that. Out of friendship, or whatever, I concede your point
  that we ought to go slow with McGarvey." Ryan stepped even closer for
  emphasis. "But let's get with it. The timing is becoming critical. I
  would like a handle on the situation before it gets out of control. Do
  you know what I'm saying?"
  Carrara nodded. Pissant or not, the Agency counsel was correct in his
  concerns. The situation with McGarvey was developing into something that
  promised to become even more deadly. "The follow-up from Tokyo should be
  coming in soon. When it does I'll put it together with what we've already
  got and bring it up."
  "Fair enough. But I want you to remain objective. Can you do that for us,
  Phil?"
 "Sure.,,
  Ryan took the elevator back up to the seventh floor. The general was
  expected in a few minutes. In the meantime Deputy Director Lawrence
  Danielle was free. Carrara, he thought, would have to be eased out. The
  DDO was very good at what he did, but like a scientist or an engineer the
  man had developed tunnel vision. He could not see beyond his own office,
  which in this day and age was not good enough. No longer were our enemies
  clearly defined. It was a fact that Ryan had tried
 454 DAVID HAGBERG

 to get across to Carrara on more than one occasion. Shades of evil existed
 everywhere, including at home. Even here in this building. But the bastard
 wouldn't listen to him. In fact Carrara was becoming increasingly
 difficult. It was as if he thought he owned Operations. Just like in Cuba,
 or Nicaragua, or Chile, Hispanics were basically unstable. It was, he
 supposed, genetic.
  "I thought you were gone for the day," Danielle said from his desk.
  "I had a few last-minute items to go over. Have you seen the latest from
  Tokyo?"
 "McGarvey is at it again."
  "I think he should be brought in. I'm going to recommend it to the
  General."
 "What's Phil's reading?" the DDCI asked.
  "Wait and see. Don't upset the apple cart. Same old same old."
 "A view you do not share."
  "No," Ryan said. "In fact I think Phil may be in left field on this one.
  Old friends and all that. I mean, it's understandable, but it does not
  alter the fact that just now Japan is important to us, and McGarvey's
  meddling is creating an unlevel playing field."
  Danielle gave Ryan an owlish look. "Phil Carrara is a bright, capable
  man."
 "I didn't mean to imply anything different."
  "Very well, Howard. But you know as well as I do that McGarvey will come
  in only of his free will."
  "Unless he's charged with something," Ryan suggested slyly.
  Danielle's intercom buzzed. "The Director has arrived," his secretary
  said.
  "Tell him that Howard and I have something for him."
 "Very well."
 Danielle and Ryan walked across to the DCFs office.
  "Has something come in from Tokyo Station?" Murphy asked.
 "Phil is expecting an update momentarily," Ryan
                HIGH FLIGHT 455

 replied. "But it's possible they'll turn up a blank. Tokyo is a big city,
 and if McGarvey has help it'll make things doubly difficult."
  "Has anyone spoken with Al Vasilanti or David Kennedy in Portland?"
 "Not that I'm aware of, General," Ryan admitted.
 "Lawrence?" Murphy turned to his DDCI.
  "I'd feel better if we had a chance to ask McGarvey a few questions. But he
  won't come in on his own."
  "We charge him with obstruction of justice," Ryan suggested. "The NTSB is
  considering the outside possibility that Guerin's crash at Dulles may have
  involved sabotage. McGarvey could be a material witness. At the very least
  he is withholding potentially important information. Air safety is on
  everyone's minds these days. Considering Air Force One is a Guerin 522, 1
  think we need to talk to anyone and everyone concerned. With or without
  their cooperation."
 "It's an approach," Danielle agreed.
  Murphy nodded after a moment, "Instruct Tokyo Station that MeGarvey is to
  return to Washington immediately."
 "He'll certainly object." Ryan's eyes Zlittered.
 "Immediately," Murphy said.

 Like their lunch date a few days ago, Chance Kennedy had no intention of
 accepting Yamagata's dinner invitation, yet at the last minute she had given
 in. She was fascinated, de~pite the danger signals. She felt like a foolish
 schoolgirl, out of her league, but David was wrapped up with the new
 project, and she was so bored she wanted to scream. Yamagata was after
 information. But that cut both ways if she could keep her head.
  "It was lovely, Arimoto," Chance said over afterdinner drinks.
 "Thank you, but it's not over. I have a surprise for
 YOU."
  Chance smiled wanly. She glanced out the bay windows that looked through
  the woods toward the resort's
 456 DAVID HAGBERG

 cabins, each with its own private path from the main lodge and dining
 room. "I wondered how you would approach that."
 "You accepted my invitation."
  "For dinner," Chance said, turning back. His smile was devastating. "But
  not bed."
 "Tea," he said, studying her face.
 She looked at him quizzically.
  He caressed the rim of his champagne flute with a finger. "You're here
  for the same reason I am, Chance. Information. I would like to know more
  about Guerin Airplane Company's will and determination to survive, and
  you want to know about Japan's interests and intentions." He looked up.
  "In order for you to succeed you must first understand the Japanese."
 "By drinking tea with you?"
  -Cha-no-yu. It's a ceremony, but it amounts to us drinking tea together.
  Two small cups for you, and two for me. Afterward you return to the city
  if you wish."
 "That's it?"
  He smiled again and nodded. "I've rented a cha house-actually it's just
  the living room in one of the cabins-but I've made preparations. It's
  taken two days."
 "Just tea?"
  Yamagata helped her with her chair. "Just tea," he assured her.
  They got their coats and headed down one of the paths. Chance could
  scarcely believe that she was going along with him. But whatever Yamagata
  was, she didn't think he was a rapist. She was a big girl, fascinated but
  not befuddled. She had a good husband who was simply going through a bad
  time. She was not going to jeopardize her marriage.
  "Humility, cleanliness, and simplicity, these are very important to a
  Japanese," Yamagata explained. "Everything springs from these three
  virtues. From these comes beauty, elegance, and the courage to live not
  only the present but to face the future."
                HIGH FLIGHT 457

 "You're different from us," Chance said foolishly.
  Yamagata took her arm as they neared the cabin, which was a chalet-type
  structure with a sharply sloping roof The smell of wood smoke drifted on
  the still night air. Small yellow lights softly illuminated the path, which
  had been swept clean of snow. "You cannot imagine how different. But after
  tonight you will understand some things about us for the first time."
  A few yards from the chalet's front deck, Chance pulled up short, beginning
  to wonder if this situation was getting out of control. Not only had the
  path been cleared, but the snow on either side of the path for as far as
  she could see into the darkness had been meticulously raked into patterns
  of gentle swirls and graceful ridges that caught the light from each
  lantern and reflected it at lovely angles.
  "I'm pleased that you notice," Yamagata said, watching her. "Humility
  springs from simple labors, the results of which are cleanliness and
  simplicity not only of surroundings but of one's inner self."
  "It could have snowed again and covered your work. Or the wind could have
  destroyed it."
 "Then I would have begun again."
  Inside, he hung up their coats and had her take off her shoes, which he put
  with her purse and his shoes out of sight. A small table in the entry hall
  held a broad earthenware bowl filled with water. To the left were two white
  cloths and to the right a beautiful arrangement of flowers.
  "First we cleanse our fingers," Yamagata said, showing her how to dip her
  hands into the water, then dry them,
  The short carpeted corridor opened to the living room, a fire burning on
  the grate the only light. Normally the room was furnished with sectional
  couches, chairs, coffee tables, television and stereo, and a diningroom
  arrangement. But all of the furniture had been removed. The only items in
  the big room were a very low table placed in front of the fireplace in the
  center of a
 458 DAVID HAGBERG

 five-by-eight tatami. The table held a cast-iron pot of water simmering
 on an intricately fashioned charcoal brazier, a porcelain pot, a tiny
 handleless cup, a bamboo spoon and bamboo whisk, and a small lacquered
 box.
  The wooden floor gleamed richly in the flickering firelight, and the
  entire room, walls, rafters, ceiling, every single surface was spotlessly
  clean. The effect was overwhelming. Intimidating on one hand, strangely
  reassuring, even comforting on the other. Yamagata, or someone he had
  hired, had gone to a great deal of effort to make everything perfect. But
  he'd said simple labors made for humility, and that he'd worked two days
  on the preparations. He did all this, and Chance was impressed. Yet the
  overall effect was alien. Different. NonWestern.
  She stepped back, stumbling into his arms. "Oh." She looked up into his
  eyes, her heart beginning to pound.
  -Cha-no-yu, " he said, reassuringly. "I think you are beginning to
  understand. But wait."
  He led her to the low table where she had to hike up her dress to sit on
  the mat. He gracefully lowered himself across from her. She was
  mesmerized by him, by the surroundings. Everything within her wanted to
  get up and leave, but she could not.
  "I ask if you would like to take tea, and you reply that it would be a
  great honor, but I should not go to any trouble."
  "It would be a great honor," Chance said. The words wanted to catch in
  her throat. "But please don't go to any trouble for me."
 "It is no trouble. It is my honor."
  His voice was soft, his motions slow and precise. She could believe that
  each movement had been practiced often. He opened the lacquered tea caddy
  and using the bamboo spoon placed a measure of green tea powder into the
  cup. Replacing the spoon to its precise position, he poured hot water
  into the cup, replaced the iron pot on the brazier, and using the whisk
  delicately mixed the powder and water. Next he added a spoon of cold
  water
                HIGH F-LIGHT 459

 from the porcelain pot, stirred the mixture again, and replaced the spoon as
 before.
  He picked up the cup in both hands, bowed to Chance, and offered it to her.
  "Return my bow, take the cup, and drink three times. Delicately. Leaving
  just a little."
  She did as she was instructed. The tea was at perfect drinking temperature,
  but tasted odd. Like flowers, with a hint of some unidentifiable spice or
  spices, not unpleasant. She looked up.
 "Finish it, and return the cup to me."
  She did so, languidly as if in a dream, and he repeated the ritual, making
  a second cup of tea that he again offered to her.
  "Refuse. Tell me that I should taste the tea myself," Yamagata said.
  She complied, and he studied the contents of the cup for a long moment
  before he sipped three times, rested for a few seconds, the expression on
  his face serene, and finished the tea.
  He made a third cup in precisely the same fashion as the first two, which
  Chance took, and a fourth cup, which he drank.
  She was floating. The odors of the fireplace, the charcoal brazier, and the
  tea were distinct and separate in her senses, wonderfully soothing.
  Sensual. She was beginning to understand.
  Yamagata helped her away from the table and undressed her, his movements
  just as slow and precise as they had been making tea.
  He was seated naked in front of her, and he brushed rose petals against the
  erect nipples of her breasts. The effect was hypnotizing. She was seduced
  into a gently swirling whirlpool. Warmth. Pleasure. Caressing her body,
  pulling her beyond anything she had ever experienced or dreamed of.
  They were sitting, half reclining, side by side, and he was inside her from
  behind, motionless, yet waves of sexual pleasure coursed through her body.
  She began to
 460 DAVID HAGOERG

 understand that he was increasing and decreasing the size of his penis,
 rhythmically, and she began to contract the muscles of her vagina in sync
 with him.
  "I love it," she murmured. She did not want to break the spell. She never
  wanted it to end.
 He kissed her neck, increasing her pleasure tenfold.
  Then his fingers found her clitoris and in consort with everything else,
  even with the music that seemed to be playing somewhere, he teased and
  played with her until she did understand. Everything.
 She never wanted it to end. "I love it," she said again.
  "Talk to me, Chance," Yamagata said into her ear. "I will listen."

 Louis Zerkel had become increasingly nervous over the past twenty-four
 hours. He had diverted his attention from testing the heat monitor
 subassembly until he'd finished the repeaters and the closed-circuit
 television shunt Mueller had requested. The Faraday cage had been
 completed, and the monitor they had stolen from InterTech along with one
 of the repeaters was safely protected within its electromagnetic confines.
 Whatever signals were generated by the system would remain within the
 system. No one wanted an uncontrolled repeat of the Dulles crash.
  Louis had not figured out what the extra circuitry in the CPU was used
  for. All of his diagnostic tests had come up with nothing. He'd hoped
  that by having the actual unit to test, figuring out what was going on
  would be easy. But it still made no sense to him, and his inability to
  accomplish something he thought was little more than basic electronics
  was frustrating him.
  He'd expected to see a modified signal coming from the monitor when the
  keying pulse was sent, decoded, and processed. A reversal in polarity of
  some of the critical temperature-monitoring sensors, for example, would
  cause the engine to rapidly overheat and destroy itself while sending
  indications to the Flight Management Computer in the cockpit that engine
  temperatures
                HIGH FLIGHT 461

 were well within parameters. But there were no feedback signals into that
 section of the subassembly.
 "How much longer?" Mueller asked.
  "I don't know," Louis admitted. "I'll know better after this test. The
  entire system is on line this time." Louis had set up his Faraday cage
  and subassembly test breadboard in the basement. Extra lights had been
  strung up, and some of his test instruments had been brought down along
  with a computer terminal connected to his mainframe upstairs. Wires
  snaked across the dirty concrete floor, indicators blinked, the audio-
  pulse generator connected to the encoding sequencer warbled and beeped,
  and a white-noise generator that protected the low-frequency sections of
  the subassembly hissed like a radio tuned off station. But something was
  missing, Louis thought. Some critical part of the destructive mechanism.
 "When will you finish tits test?" Mueller asked.
  Louis flipped on the computer monitor and watched as the encoding
  multiplexer homed in on the correct pulse, and seconds later locked on.
  The heat monitor subassembly was cocked.
 "Now," he said.
  Mueller stepped aside. Reid was in Washington, and Glen was asleep in one
  of the upstairs bedrooms. It was just the two of them down here.
  Louis adjusted the oscilloscope connected to the input and output
  sections of the CPU, timing it against the subassembly's GO-One clock,
  then keyed the walkietalkie shunted directly to one of the repeaters.
  "Boom," he said into the mike. After a short phase delay the CPU
  delivered a modulated spike to the extra ground wire. Louis stared at the
  scope. The output signal was less than ten milliseconds duration, but
  information had been piggybacked onto it. A message had been sent to the
  engine sensor frame.
 "Was that it?" Mueller asked.
 Louis continued to stare at the scope.
 "Does it work?",
 462 DAVID HAGBERG

  The system was incomplete, Louis thought. One more test. He had to make
  absolutely certain. He needed to know one more thing for sure. There
  could be no room for error.
  He turned to the German. "You have to go back to San Francisco, or
  Portland. I need the engine sensor frame and wiring harness."
  Mueller's expression was unreadable. "Is this necessary?"
 "Yes," Louis said.
 "Then I will wake your brother and we'll get it for
 YOU."
  Louis turned his gaze to the monitor. "What do you think about that?" he
  mumbled.

 "Who do you work for?" McGarvey asked.
 "Does it matter?" Eto responded.
  They were headed out of the mountains to Narita Airport. McGarvey's bag
  was in the trunk. His passport had been exit-stamped with today's date.
  They had thought of everything, their organization spectacularly smooth
  and extremely effective. It would be no use to fight them here and now.
  Later, on a battleground of his own choosing, he would even the odds.
  Whatever Kamiya had arranged to neutralize him would be good. But nothing
  or no one was impossible to break.
 "Out of curiosity-MITI or Mintori Assurance?"
 "If I told you, I don't think you would comprehend."
 "Try me," McGarvey insisted.
 Eto was exasperated. "I am bushido-"
  McGarvey chuckled. "You're another Mishima fanatic, is that it, Eto-san?
  Have you and your pals formed a Shield Society of your own? Is that what
  bullshit you people are trying again?"
  The chauffeur looked at them in the rearview mirror. McGarvey caught his
  gaze. The big Japanese was scowling. Throw a rock into a pack of dogs and
  the one that gets hit yelps.
  Eto's lips compressed as he fought for control. "You said that you did
  not want to be my enemy. But you are.
                HIGH FLIGHT 463

 When I have delivered you to the airport my obligation for your safety
 will end. Do not return to Tokyo."
  "Wakarimashita, " I understand, McGarvey said. "But the next time I
  see Kamiya-san, I shall kill him. 0wakari desu ka?" Do you understand?
 "Hai, " Eto said through clenched teeth.

 TWENTY-FOUR

 You come as something of a surprise, Mr. McGarvey," Sir Malcolm O'Toole
 said. "Did young Kennedy send you over?"
 "I'm here on my own. I wanted to talk to you."
  The Rolls-Royce chief design engineer eyed him speculatively. "If this
  has to do with the crash I don't think it's appropriate at our level."
  "Hear me out, and afterward you can do whatever you want. But not here.
  Let's take a walk."
 "Very well," O'Toole said after a heavy silence.
  It was a cool, overcast day as they walked along a narrow path away from
  the company's Barnoldswick, Yorkshire, design and manufacturing facility.
  A weather front was coming down from the Scottish highlands, and McGarvey
  hunched up his coat collar against the wind. He was sure he was being
  followed at Narita, so at the last possible moment he had switched
  flights from Seattle to London. He'd taken the train directly up here.
  "Have you sent the engine to the NTSBT'
  "Yes, and a pair to Portland. But you must know that we're under
  increasing pressure to put a hold on all engine deliveries."
 "Including the hydrogen burner?"
  They headed toward a line of trees a few hundred yards distant. A pair
  of large ravens rose up, cawing raucously. Somewhere a dog was barking.
  With their
 464 DAVID HAGOERG

 backs to the Rolls complex they could have been in any North English
 countryside.
  "Why did you come here, Mr. McGarvey? And why the skullduggery?"
  "Because I have something to tell you, and because there is a possibility
  that your office has been bugged."
  Sir Malcolm stopped short. "You mean hidden microphones, and all that
  rubbish?"
 "Yes, sir."
 "By whom?"
 "The Japanese."
  "Good heavens." Sir Malcolm glanced over his shoulder. "Is it the
  government?"
  "I don't think so, but the group involved may have the tacit approval of
  someone at higher levels. Perhaps the Ministry of International Trade and
  Industry."
 "I really don't think I should be talking to you."
  "I'm talking about saving Guerin and Rolls and possibly a lot of lives."
  Sir Malcolm looked wan. "Do you believe that our engine failure at Dulles
  was caused by sabotage?"
  "Yes, and the one in '90. A safety-board pathologist found an extra body
  in that wreckage. The board ruled that the plane fell on the poor
  bastard."
 "Not likely out in the open."
  "The doctor was murdered a few months later, and all his crash records
  destroyed."
 "Anything like that at Dulles? I hadn't heard."
  "No. But what are the chances of the same type of malfunction occurring?"
  "Reasonable, but happening to the engine on the same side of the
  aircraft-well, it would be fifty-fifty, I suppose. Not a long shot."
 "But you've no evidence of sabotage."
  "Not to my engine. But then we found nothing to indicate that such a
  failure should occur either. We've pushed those blades well beyond the
  most extreme safety parameters, and they've not failed. Not once."
  "But two airplanes fell out of the sky for the same apparent nonreason.
  The first was a test, or maybe an
                HIGH FLIGHT 465

 accident in timing. And the second an attempt to stop Guerin from dealing
 with the Russians."
  "I see what you mean," Sir Malcolm said. They started toward the trees
  again. "It's monstrous if it's true. What would they have to gain by
  ruining us and Guerin?"
  "I've just come from Tokyo. The man I talked to said ruining you and
  Guerin is just the tip of an iceberg. He seemed pretty sure of himself.
  He's got the money, the organization, and the connections to make it
  happen. At the very least, make it damned uncomfortable for
 US."
  "Go to your government with it. I'm told you're well placed in certain
  circles."
  "I was set up. I don't think my word is going to carry much weight just
  now."
 "So you've come to me. Marshalling your forces."
  "Something like that. Your engines did not fail of themselves. And it'll
  happen again, fairly soon, I think. So you'll need to protect yourself."
 "How?"
 "By being aware of the situation."
  "Possible situation," Sir Malcolm corrected. "Why should I believe you?
  I mean good heavens, sabotage, and hidden microphones, and some nefarious
  plot by the yellow hordes, what?"
  "The Japanese military is the fastest-growing war machine in the world.
  Submarines are not defensive weapons. And theirs are good."
  "Fastest growing perhaps, but still tiny by comparison to yours, ours,
  or the French, or any number of other nations I could mention."
  "You're right. But the Japanese will occupy Subic Bay before long. They
  have a fully operational rocket launch facility on Tanegashima Island.
  And they've been rumbling about the development of nuclear capability."
 "Because of the threat from North Korea."
  "If they go nuclear they'll become a formidable force on that side of the
  Pacific, whatever the reason."
 Sir Malcolm rummaged in his pockets for his pipe and
 466 DAVID HAGBERG

 tobacco. He took his time getting it lit. It was a pipe smoker's gambit
 to gain thinking time. "Even if they were to start this instant, it would
 take them six or seven years to develop weapons. Assuming that all your
 wild speculations are true-and mind you that's exactly what I think you've
 come here with-where would sabotaging airplane engines come into the
 scheme?"
  "I don't know," McGarvey admitted. "But these are confident people."
  "History is filled with confident, and competent, people who've failed,"
  Sir Malcolm said. "You say that your word may no longer carry any weight
  with your government. Bring me proof that sabotage occurred, or will
  occur again, and I will take it to my government."
 "That's why I'm here."
 Sir Malcolm stopped. "You have proof?"
  "You're going to find the proof. You've told me how the engine failure
  could not have happened. You're sure of your test results?"
  "Absolutely, but as you pointed out, two airplanes have crashed."
 "Find out what could have caused those crashes."
 "There could be any number of causes."
  "Right," McGarvey said, hiding his triumph. He'd known that the Brit
  would be a hard sell, but once the old, man was convinced he would go to
  the ends of the earth to find the reason for the crashes. He was an
  engineer. Cause and effect were his raison detre. "Think like a saboteur.
  You want to bring down Rolls-powered Guerin airplanes in such a way that
  the best investigators and engineers will not be able to figure out how."
  "Could well be an exercise in futility. You cannot imagine how
  complicated our machines have become."
  "No more complicated than human beings," McGarvey said. "I'm asking you
  to make one assumption-that both crashes were the results of sabotage,
  whatever the reason. Go from there. Figure out how it could happen."
 "A big assumption."
                HIGH FLIGHT 467

  "Not so big, I think, considering the consequences of doing nothing about
  it."
  Sir Malcolm took his pipe out of his mouth and studied McGarvey. "What
  about you?"
 "I'll continue to marshal my forces."
  "Gary Topper was here this morning, you just missed him."
 "What did he want?"
  "Essentially the same thing as you. He's in London. You should get
  together."
 "I'll do that."
 "Then what?" the Brit asked.
  "My job is to irritate people until they make mistakes."
  Sir Malcolm smiled tiredly. "A job at which, I suspect, you are eminently
  successful."

 Louis Zerkel was exhausted. He'd worked around the clock for a solid week,
 only catching catnaps when he could not continue. Except for the one
 essential test, which he could not conduct until his brother and the
 German brought him the engine sensor frame and wiring harness, he was
 finished with the hardware. All that remained was the signal train. He
 planned on initiating seven wire transfers of money from the Bank of Tokyo
 into InterTech's San Francisco account. Before the signals reached
 InterTech's account, however, they would be shunted through the company's
 mainframe computer, which would in turn spit out the properly encoded
 signals to the seven repeaters Mueller would hide at the seven airports
 around the country. A few milliseconds later the trigger pulse would be
 sent, and Guerin airplanes would start failing out of the sky.
  The date had not been set, but Louis had a definite idea when it would
  be, and he planned on talking to Mr. Reid about it. He'd been busy
  working on the circuitry, but not so busy he missed the major television
  news broadcasts. Especially CNN, which did a special two days ago on
  Guerin's new hypersonic airplane. The
 468 DAVID HAGBERG

 plane was to make its first subsonic test flight, Portland to Honolulu,
 in two weeks. What Reid and Mueller did not know yet was that the P/C2622
 was equipped with the same heat monitor subassembly as the 522s. The Vice
 President and a lot of other VIPs would be aboard that test flight. The
 eighth repeater was ready, and eight, rather than seven, wire transfers
 could be sent from Tokyo. The results, he thought, would be more than
 impressive.
 "What do you think about that?" he muttered.
  His computer screens were turned low, and for the first time all the
  printers were silent. He stood at the bedroom window across the hall
  looking at the lights of Dulles Airport in the distance, and he felt a
  terrible surge of loneliness in his gut. He'd been a loner most of his
  life, but only on rare occasions did he feel lonely for company. He
  missed his mother, he supposed, but most of all he missed his father. He
  was glad that his halfbrother had found him. Over the past week he had
  come to appreciate the adage that blood is thicker than water.
  "Louis," Glen said from the doorway. "Are you okay?"
  Louis turned. "I thought you and Mueller were already gone."
  "We're leaving in the morning. Are you finished for the night?"
  Louis nodded. "Everything is ready. I just need the frame and harness."
 "Then you deserve a break."
 "What ... T'
  "You've done a hell of a job, brother. Mr. R. is very pleased. Even
  Mueller respects what you've done."
  The compliment felt good, and Louis managed a tired smile. "I'm not quite
  finished yet."
 "But you're close, so tonight's yours."
 "I don't understand," Louis said.
  His brother stepped aside, and a young woman came into the bedroom. She
  was tall with a decent figure, and a round, wide-eyed face. She wore a
  halter top, a very
                HIGH FLIGHT 469

 short mini-skirt, black fishnet stockings, and spike heels. She smelled
 of perfume.
 "Hi. You must be Louis. I'm Tracy."
 "I ... yes," Louis mumbled.
  Her smile was dazzling. "They said you're a genius. How about you teach
  me some things, and I'll teach
 YOU."
 Louis's face felt hot.
  "I'll see you in the morning before we leave," Glen said, grinning, and
  he closed the door.

 Gary Topper was staying at Claridge's. McGarvey met him in the darkly
 paneled bar. The lunch crowd was gone, and except for a couple of
 businessmen at the end of the bar they had the room to themselves.
  "You look like shit, McGarvey," the Guerin vice president for sales said.
 "Sir Malcolm was kinder."
  "I wondered how you tracked me here. Nobody's heard from you, and Kennedy
  is getting a little tense.",
  The barman came to them. They ordered martinis, dry. When they got their
  drinks, McGarvey glanced at the businessmen. They were out of earshot.
 "Something's come up?" McGarvey asked.
 "You know a guy named Phil Carrara?"
 "He's a friend."
 "CIAT'
 McGarvey nodded.
  "According to David your friend is not making friendnoises. They want you
  in Washington. If you refuse they'll arrest you."
 "They don't have the authority."
  "Your friend mentioned the FBI. David said he sounded serious."
  It was starting faster than McGarvey thought it would. "Did he mention
  anything specific?"
 "David didn't say."
 "Did someone from Washington talk to Vasilanti?"
 "I don't know," Topper said. His eyes were dark and
 470 DAVID HAGBERG

 serious. Like everyone at Guerin whom McGarvey had met, the VP was
 consumed not only with making a success of the new airplane, but with
 keeping Guerin's safety record intact. "You've been toTokyo. Considering
 the line you've been touting, that was a pretty gutsy move."
 "That's why I was hired."
  "Except for pushing us into handing a wing assembly plant to the
  Russians-which was a nifty bit of business-just what have you done for
  us?"
  "Proved your suspicions. Mintori is trying to take you over, and someone
  is sabotaging your airplanes."
  "Did Sir Malcolm buy into that? He wouldn't listen to me.
 "He's agreed to help."
  Topper sipped his drink. "The Honolulu flight's a go in about two weeks.
  Anything happens between now and then, we'll go down the tubes."
 "It will."
  Topper's expression got hard. "I'm serious, McGarvey. Another one of our
  airplanes goes down, we'll be fucked. This goddamned administration in
  Washington doesn't know its ass from a hole in the ground. They're
  letting the Japanese take the initiative while selling us down the tubes.
  A couple of Toyota plants in Kentucky or wherever doesn't compare to us.
  Can't they add and subtract?"
  Topper wasn't the idealist that Kennedy was, but he was still relatively
  naive. "It's always been that way, Gary. The last President figured the
  way out of the deficit was raising taxes and tightening belts. This one
  thinks the way out is in the international marketplace."
 "The same thing the Japanese are saying."
 McGarvey agreed. "Puts us on a collision course."
 "They don't like us very much."
 "The feelings are becoming mutual."
  "Shit," Topper said into his drink. "Maybe it's time to get out. This
  isn't fun any more." He looked up. "When I started all I could think
  about was flying. Making flying machines that wouldn't fall out of the
  sky. Bigger, faster,
                HIGH FLIGHT 471

 better. Everybody respected that. Excellence. Look what Boeing has done.
 Safety first and profits second."
 "Same as you guys."
 "So what's happened all of a sudden?"
 "The end of the Cold War," McGarvey said.
  Topper looked startled. "What are you talking about?"
  "When it was just us and the Soviet Union, we were the boss of this
  hemisphere and they were the boss of theirs. Except for Vietnam and
  Afghanistan, most of the skirmishes were controlled by us or them. It's
  different now."
 "You can say that again."
  "But not so different from the twenties and thirties. Everybody shooting at
  everybody else. All the old animosities are out in the open again. But this
  time the weapons are a hell of a lot more plentiful and more
  sophisticated."
 "We won the Cold War."
  "Yeah," MeGarvey replied tiredly. "Just like we won the First World War."
  Topper looked away in frustration. "Are you telling me that it's going to
  start all over again? Shit, man, if that's the case, we might just as well
  sandbag our borders and say the hell with everyone else."
 "Didn't work then, won't work now."
 "War?"
 McGarvey shrugged.
  "I think you're crazy," Topper said. "Or at least I hope you are."
  "Me too," McGarvey said. "Meanwhile there's work to be done."
 "Are you returning to Portland?"
 "Yes. Then Washington."
 "You can fly back with me. I've got a company plane."
 "When are you leaving?"
 "Now is as good a time as any."

 Representative John Davis sat across the table from Reid at the Four Seasons
 Hotel, a troubled expression on his
 472 DAVID HAGBERG

 deeply lined face. It had been thirty-six hours since Reid had asked the
 Appropriations Subcommittee chairman for help. Like a lot of others in
 Washington, Davis owed Reid a favor or two. His last campaign, which he'd
 narrowly won, had been almost entirely financed by Reid, illegally so, a
 fact that the portly Maryland Republican was acutely aware of. But
 Washington always had been and always would be a town of special favors and
 influence. A White House staffer had once commented that lobbyists were to
 congressmen what television commercials were to the public-a window
 overlooking a field of possibilities.
 "Did you find out something for me?"
  "The Bureau wasn't happy. But Harding agreed not to buck my request over to
  the AG if I promised to keep what I was told strictly confidential."
  "Hardly the object of this exercise, John," Reid said. "I've stepped on
  some toes, that's all. What else is new? But I'm not the enemy."
  " The Bureau doesn't think so either. But your name is apparently being
  linked with some people who aie. What I mean to say is that the Bureau is
  conducting an investigation, and your name has popped up in a couple of
  places. Might be coincidental, Harding told me. Could even be a case of
  mistaken identity, but they've taken notice. Especially since someone from
  State has asked them to back away from you. The White House, by the way,
  agreed."
  "Nice to know I have friends," Reid said. He took a drink to mask his
  uneasiness.
  "You do have friends in this town, Edward," Davis said. "But you've also
  got some powerful enemies, especially over your stand on the Japanese."
  That was an understatement, Reid thought. But once Guerin was brought
  stumbling to its knees and the crashes blamed on the Japanese, Washington
  would be like a hornet's nest. "Is that what all this is about? I'm
  surprised the White House backed me up."
  " Only partially, but I didn't get all the details except that it involved
  the French Action Service. Someone
                HIGH FLIGHT 473

 over there is looking for a former East German assassin and a retired West
 German intelligence officer."
  "Where'd my name come into play?" It was all Reid could do to control
  himself His hands shook so badly he was afraid to pick up his drink.
  " Apparently the West German telephoned someone here in Washington and
  mentioned the East German's name along with the name Reid."
 "I can't imagine who this German could be."
  "It wasn't your telephone number, nor did he use your first name. But
  Harding did mention that you'd been stationed in Germany."
 "A long time ago, John."
  "Well, both Germans have disappeared, and the French asked for our help
  in finding them."
 "Here in Washington?"
 "Apparently."
 "What's that got to do with Japan?" Reid asked.
  "Harding was even more sketchy about this part, and I had to press him
  a little. The East German assassin's name is Bruno Mueller. He was a
  colonel in the Stasi, and when the wall came down he got involved with
  a group of terrorists that shot down an airliner full of people taking
  off from Paris."
 "So what?"
  "One of the passengers was the girlfriend of a former CIA officer who
  apparently has one hell of a reputation. This guy works for Guerin
  Airplane Company now and is in the middle of some sort of an operation
  with the Japanese."
  Reid's chest was tight, and he was having trouble catching his breath.
  Christ, did this idiot have any idea what he was saying? If Mueller were
  here, Davis would be a dead man. "Where do I come into it?"
  Davis looked sharply at him. "You don't directly. Are you okay, Edward?"
  "Frankly I'm annoyed. I think this should be sent over to the AG's
  office. Harding's way off base here."
  "Nobody's accusing you of a thing," the congressman said.
 474 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Then where's the connection? Who is the CIA officer?"
  "Former officer. Kirk McGarvey. Name mean anything to you?"
 41 No."
  "The only connection, according to Harding, is that Mueller might have
  come here looking for McGarvey. Since the name Reid was mentioned, and
  both you and McGarvey are involved with Japan, it got them wondering."
  Reid allowed himself to relax a little. Neither Schey nor Mueller had
  mentioned the CIA or McGarvey. As far as he was concerned that would be
  a dead end for the Bureau. "I'm not involved with Japan, John. On the
  contrary, I'm arguing for disinvolvement with them."
 "Not a popular view at the White House."
  "Then why did someone over there tell Harding to back off when it came
  to me?"
  "Maybe they're giving you enough rope hoping you'll hang yourself." Davis
  sat forward. "Seriously, Edward, watch your step. These are difficult
  times."
  Yes, they are, Reid thought. But nowhere as difficult as they would
  become. No matter what happened, the Japanese would have to be dealt with
  sooner or later. The last time we'd waited too long despite all the
  warning signs, and the Japanese navy had attacked Pearl Harbor. The same
  warning signs were back. Japan was flexing its economic and its military
  muscles, and sooner or later the economic bubble between us and them
  would burst. The mere fact that the electronic device Louis had
  discovered aboard the Guerin airplanes had been designed by the Japanese
  was all the proof that Reid required. The dirty bastards were at it
  again. This time he wasn't going to let the United States wait for
  another Pearl Harbor. This time he was going to wake up the White House,
  and the entire nation before it was too late.
  Whoever the hell McGarvey represented-Guerin or not-Reid decided he was
  no threat to their plans. If
                HIGH FLIGHT 475

 need be, when it was over, he would send Mueller out to settle whatever
 old scores there might be between them. Might even kill two birds with one
 stone.
 No, Reid assured himself, nothing to worry about yet.

 On the way across the Atlantic, Topper wanted to call Kennedy on the
 company frequency to tell him who was aboard, but McGarvey stopped him.
 Even though the message was scrambled it could be monitored and decoded
 with the right equipment.
 "What about customs?" McGarvey asked.
  "Not until Portland, unless you want to leave the plane when we refuel
  in Detroit."
  McGarvey thought about it for a moment. Dominique was there at her
  brother's house. "Portland will be soon enough."
  "Won't be a reception committee if they don't know you're coming."
 "That's what I figure," McGarvey said.

 TWENTY-FIVE

 We wouldn't get away with another fire," Mueller said, looking out the
 window at the and countryside.
  He rode in a rental van with Glen Zerkel on Interstate 10 southeast of
  Tucson, the sun setting in a fantastic multicolored swirl behind them.
  There was nothing like this in Germany. It was as Mueller imagined Africa
  would be, except that here were strip malls, swimming pools, and the
  ubiquitous McDonald's. He was still amazed with the vastness of the
  country. Japan did not have a chance against the United States. None of
  them ever had.
 476 DAVID HAGBERG

  "That's what I thought. And if we lifted one of the units from Guerin
  they'd miss it. Wouldn't take them long to figure out what's going on,"
  Zerkel said.
 "How did you know about this place?"
  "It's pretty much general knowledge. But I read something a while back
  about what used to be the Strategic Air Command mothballing some of its
  squadrons when the Soviet Union collapsed. Some of the planes are Guerin
  522s. I checked it out at the library."
 "They'll be intact?"
  "Sealed tip but ready to fly. They're too valuable to cannibalize. It's why
  they mothball them down here. Weather's hot and dry. Nothing will rust,
  Louis told me how the frame is probably bolted in, and what we're going to
  have to do to pull it and the wiring harness out. If we do it right nobody
  will notice the stuff is missing until they recommission the plane."
  They'd gone over this on the flight down. "I'll give you the time if you
  think you can do it."
  "I can. But if something goes down it could blow the whole deal."
  "Leave that consideration to me," Mueller said calmly.
  Zerkel glanced over at him. "I mean it. If we have to fight our way out of
  there, they'll check to see what's missing."
 "Not every component of every airplane."
 "That's right . . ."
 "Leave no outward traces."
  "I see what you mean," Zerkel said. He should never have doubted the
  German's ability orjudgment. Mueller was a professional. It gave Glen pause
  thinking about going head to head with the man if and when the need arose.
  But for the moment he was glad to have Mueller on his side.

 Commander Hanrahan returned to the bridge after a quick lunch alone in the
 officers' mess. The sky was covered with a thick overcast, and the wind and
 seas were beginning to build.
                HIGH FLIGHT 477

 "What's our friend doing, Red?" he asked his exec.
 "Same as before. Drift and run."
 "Still nothing from Yokosuka?"
 "It's only been six hours since our last radio contact."
  "Shit," Hanrahan grumbled. He stepped closer to the windows and watched the
  bow rise and fall on the increasing waves. Meteorology was not predicting
  any weather more serious than this. Yet he was uneasy. "Same baseline since
  the strait?"
  "He runs in a random zigzag pattern, and when he drifts it's back toward
  us. But his baseline is still southsouthwest."
 "Okinawa. What's his SOAT'
 "About two knots. Maybe a little less."
  " Two weeks, Red, before he crosses Okinawa's inner defense perimeter.
  Unless he speeds up. In the meantime we babysit."
 "Not much we can do about it, Skipper."
  Hanrahan faced his XO. "I told you before that I wasn't going to stay out
  here following that bastard all over the East China Sea indefinitely."
  "I hear you. But if he doesn't want to play, there's not much we can do
  about it. Seventh has set the rules of engagement."
  11 That they have," Hanrahan picked up the growler p hone and called
  Sattler in CIC. "What are you painting, Don?"
  "He's six thousand yards off our starboard bow, making ten knots, course
  two-seven-zero."
 "Straight west this time. What's his depth?"
  "Two hundred feet. But when he drifts he comes up about fifty feet. Soon as
  he goes active we pick him up at about one-fifty. Takes him fifteen minutes
  to level off at what he's using as a cruise depth."
 :'We lose him in drift."
 'About a half-hour each time."
  "He's going to have to come up to recharge his batteries sooner or later."
  " That's the point, Skipper. He should've done that by now. He's not a
  nuke. Whatever he's using for electricity
 478 DAVID HAGBERG

 must be damned good. Better than anything I've ever heard of."
  "Me too," Hanrahan replied, thinking about it. The days were long gone
  since the U.S. shared its technology with the Japanese, and even longer
  since Japan shared with the U.S. The Samisho was state of the art. He
  wondered how good her weapons were.
 "When's he due to drop off our scopes again?"
 "About an hour from now."
 "Half-hour duration each time?"
 "That's been the pattern so far, Skipper."
  "Next time he shuts down I want to continuously ping him. Set up a firing
  solution for a pair of harpoons, and we'll close the range to a
  guaranteed no miss."
 "That'll get his attention. How long do we keep it up?"
  "Until he makes a move, or until he comes out of the drift mode."
  "Half-hour of that racket will drive him nuts. You know how he reacted
  last time."
  Hanrahan chuckled. "That's the idea, Don. We'll go to battle stations
  each time. Give the crew some practice-"
  "Wait!" Sattler interrupted. "Skipper, we have two incoming jet aircraft
  from the northeast about three miles out, just subsonic! Altitude four
  hundred feet! Right on the deck!"
  Hanrahan put it on the speaker. The targets were showing up on the bridge
  radar. "What type of aircraft?"
  "Looks like fighter/interceptors. F/A-18 Hornets. I think they're
  Japanese out of Tanegashima. We're being lit by their radars."
  "Switch our after Phalanx to automatic," Hanrahan ordered.
 "Mike, these are not enemy aircraft," Ryder objected.
  "Then they better stay the hell out of my envelope," Hanrahan turned on
  his XO. "Do it now!"
 "Aye, aye," Ryder replied, and he gave the order.
  Moments later the jets responded to the threat, climbing sharply out of
  the limited range of the Thorn's
                HIGH FLIGHT 479

 Phalanx system radar, one left and the other right. Then they passed
 directly overhead, standing on their tails, the noise from their engines
 aimed directly at the bridge.
  "Bastards," Hanrahan shouted. The bridge radar showed their tracks
  converging as they swung back to the northeast. He got back on the
  growler to Sattler. "What'd they get from us, Don?"
  "They covered every frequency range we monitor, including infrared.
  Probably took pictures too. We did."
 "We're showing them out of here."
  "Us too, but they're dropping back to the deck, so they'll be over our
  radar horizon in about a minute and a half. Should we send up a chopper
  to see where they're headed?"
  "We couldn't see any markings. Were they definitely Japanese Air Self
  Defense jets?"
  "We got a good look up their tails. Definitely F/A18JDs. Only country in
  the world has that class of Hornet is Japan."
  "No need for the chopper. We know where they're going. What about
  Chrysanthemum~"
 "Still ten knots on two-seven-zero."
  "Did he launch a comms buoy by any chance?" Hanrahan asked.
 "If he did we missed it, Skipper."
 "Any chance of that?"
 "Not at this range."
  "Keep a sharp eye, Don. I think they just sent us a message."
 "What's going on?" Ryder asked.
  Hanrahan smiled knowingly. "Someone just told us that the Samisho's
  skipper is probably not a rogue after all. They're starting to pay
  attention in Yokosuka."
 "Maybe in Tokyo too."
  Hanrahan ignored the comment. "Message Seventh. I think the rules have
  changed."

 They parked the van behind a small school off Valencia Road a half-mile
 from the Pima Air Museum on the
 480 DAVID HAGBERG

 extreme south edge of Davis Monthan Air Force Base. To the northwest the
 lights of Tucson were bright in the night sky, and directly north, the
 tower beacon rotated white and green. Here, however, they were in
 darkness. The school could have been abandoned. Shutters covered the
 windows. In any case no one was likely to come around until morning.
  In addition to the 9 mm silenced Beretta, Mueller carried a long,
  razor-sharp stiletto in a sheath across his chest. Zerkel carried his
  tools, including insulated wire cutters and a set of battery jumper
  cables, as well as a sling to carry the sensor frame and harness.
  They headed across the desert, keeping well away from the road that went
  up to the museum. They had to cross a concrete-lined drainage ditch and
  then the Southern Pacific railroad tracks to reach the tall, electrified
  fence that marked the air force base boundary.
  Mueller dropped down behind some low bushes and motioned for Zerkel to
  do the same. They were less than twenty-five yards from the fence.
  Directly north they could see the end of the main runway, but in the
  distance to the east Mueller could see row after row of vague shapes that
  could have been buildings in a darkened town.
 "Is that it?" he asked.
  "Just the edge of it, I think," Zerkel whispered. "There's ten thousand
  airplanes parked here."
  Mueller looked sharply at him, trying to gauge from the expression on his
  face whether he was joking. But he was serious. "That's a significant
  portion of your air force."
 "Some of those planes are World War 11 vintage."
 "Why haven't they been scrapped?"
 "The article didn't say."
 "But they're guarded."
 "Probably," Zerkel said.
  "Incredible. There must be tens of millions of dollars worth of equipment
  out there."
 "Yeah. Impressive, ain't it?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 481

  Mueller didn't reply, turning inward to what he'd learned since joining
  Reid. Even in the early days of the Cold War he'd been enough of a realist
  to know that the Soviet Union's military strength was being exaggerated in
  the West. They'd all assumed that Soviet estimates of NATO's strength were
  similarly overestimated. That was not the case.
  At 11: 30 P.m., the lights of a vehicle worked its way up and down the rows
  of mothballed aircraft. It turned back to the north a half-hour later.
 "Might be another before dawn," Zerkel said.
 "We'll watch for it." ,
  At the fence Zerkel connected the jumper cables across a five-foot section,
  and carefully cut it away with the insulated wire cutters. If there were
  security alarms on the fence the break would not show up. And they were far
  enough away from the nearest road that the opening likely would not be
  spotted by a passing patrol.
  They headed in a brisk pace across the desert to the nearest rows of parked
  airplanes, keeping a wary eye for approaching lights from the north. The
  night was utterly still. Even the light breeze earlier had died to nothing.
  Airplanes of all sizes, shapes, and vintages were parked in orderly ranks
  and files for as far as the eye could see. Some had their engines removed,
  others were propped up on cradles, their landing gear missing, but most
  were intact.
  It was after 1:00 A.m. before they chanced upon a row of twenty-seven
  Guerin 522s, which the Air Force had designated C-7C Globelifters. The
  engines were in place, but sealed, as were the windshields and windows
  along the sides.
  "Keep your eyes open," Zerkel whispered. "If someone comes, knock twice on
  the hull. I'll hear it."
  "Four hours," Mueller warned. "If you're not finished by then we'll return
  tomorrow."
  "Right," Zerkel said, and he scrambled up onto the nose wheel and
  disappeared into the landing-gear well.
 Mueller moved back into the shadows and took up
 482 DAVID HAGBERG

 position behind the main gear on port side of the big jetliner. From where
 he stood he could see the road, but he would be practically invisible from
 anyone passing in a vehicle.
  There was the sound of metal scraping against metal from inside the
  airplane, and then a muffled thump. Mueller waited for more noise, or for
  Zerkel to call out for help, but there was nothing.
  When these planes started failing out of the sky it would be the most
  devastating single day in the history of the United States. Mueller knew
  that he would probably spend the next several years on the run, and that he
  would be lucky to survive. The authorities would not soon give up the
  chase, unless they were misdirected from the start.
  He turned that thought over. If Reid and the Zerkels were found dead, the
  search would be concentrated on one man. Their murderer. But if they were
  found dead by suicide or by accident, and if his name were to be removed
  from Louis's computer programs, he might have a head start.
  Mueller had no illusions about the FBI or the CIA. They had the money, the
  expertise and, after the button was pushed, they would have the motivation.
  As did the French.
  Over the past few years the SDECE had become more aggressive, emboldened by
  the end of the Cold War. Yet he thought the French would have been more
  cautious because of the reunited Germanies.
  It was a different world. And it would be made even more different by what
  Reid had set them to do.
  That was the other thing. After this was over he was going to have to
  retire. Reid had made good on his promise by depositing one million dollars
  in Mueller's account. The question was where could he go? The Caribbean?
  The South Pacific? Perhaps South America? Wherever, he needed to begin
  making his arrangements.
  Zerkel climbed down from the wheel well a half-hour later.
                HIGH FLIGHT 483

  Mueller moved out of the shadows. "Something wrong?"
  "No. Help me up on the wing, and then watch for company, I've got to open
  the engine cowling."
  Mueller boosted him up onto the wing, then tossed the tools up. "Did you
  get the harness?"
  "Just the plug. There's nothing between the panel and the frame except
  wire."
 "Are you sure?"
 Zerkel looked down at him. "I think so."
 "Do it correctly, Glen. I don't wish to return here."
  "I'll do what I can. But to get the entire harness out I'd have to tear
  the wing apart. Watch for the patrol."
  Zerkel undid a dozen fasteners and lifted a section of engine cowling up
  on its hinges.
  Mueller saw the problem at once. "How long are you going to be up there
  with the engine open?"
  "I don't know." Zerkel shined a dim red light inside the cowling. "An
  hour, maybe less if I'm lucky."
  "Hurry," Mueller said, and he headed down the road in the direction from
  which the patrol had come. At the first intersection he looked back. Just
  as he thought, the upraised cowling broke the orderly line of
  silhouettes. It was out of place and would be noticed even at a distance
  if another patrol came by.
  From the number of airplanes and the size of the area, Mueller doubted
  that more than three patrols would be mounted each night: one at dusk,
  one in the middle of the night, and one at dawn. With luck they'd be okay
  here for several more hours.
  He settled down to wait in the shadows of a Boeing 727 from where he
  would see an approaching patrol before it reached the airplane Glen was
  working on. If one did come he would have no time to warn Zerkel. He
  would have to flag them down, kill however many guards there were-one or
  two, he suspected-and move their bodies to another area of the mothballed
  fleet. He thought about this without any emotion, only a detached
  interest in the technical difficulties of such an action.
 484 DAVID HAGBERG

  Looking back again the cowling still jutted above the wing. But an hour
  later it was gone, and Mueller trotted back to the jetliner.
  "Where the hell were you?" Zerkel whispered urgently.
  "Making sure you were not disturbed. Are you finished?"
  "Yes." Zerkel handed down a stamped metal frame in the shape of a capital
  A about three feet long, and two feet wide at the base. Several dozen
  single wires, plus a thick bundle tied in a harness, dangled from the
  sensor frame. It was lighter than Mueller thought it should be if it were
  made out of aluminum. Titanium, possibly.
  Zerkel tossed down his tools, and then eased himself off the wing. "Let's
  get out of here. I've got a bad feeling."
  "Are you finished up there, and inside?" Mueller asked calmly.
 "I said I was-"
  "You left no outward traces? Nothing that a casual inspection would
  uncover?"
 "Christ."
 "Think about it."
  Zerkel started to say something, but then he looked up atthe engine
  cowling, and back to the nose gear well, and nodded. "It's cool, man.
  They'd have to tear this plane down to find out what happened. I even
  tucked the loose wires out of sight."
 "Then it's time to go."
 "What about the hole in the fence?"
  Mueller smiled. "As you say, they'd have to tear this aircraft apart to
  find out what you did. I don't think they'll do ten thousand."

 Air Force One, the Presidential seal on her tail and the American flag on
 her fuselage, was trundled out of her hangar at Andrews Air Force Base.
 At two hundred eighteen feet in length, she was nearly as large as
 Boeing's 747, and in her various configurations could
                HIGH FLIGHT 485

 carry up to four hundred passengers. Except for the two accidents in seven
 years, the 522's safety record was perfect. The engines had been replaced
 by a Guerin AOG team three days ago, and no one this morning expected any
 trouble. Yet everyone on the maintenance team and flight crew was nervous.
  The pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Bob Wheeler, went through the extensive
  pre-flight checklist one meticulous step at a time with his co-pilot,
  Major Larry Marthaller. On this flight the maintenance crew aboard would
  backstop every move that was made on the flight deck. Test equipment
  monitored every electrical, hydraulic, mechanical, and electronic
  function of the jetliner's 3.7 million parts. A crew on the ground would
  monitor everything from their vantage point. As the saying went, the
  President was a hundred times safer aboard Air Force One than he was
  riding out to the base on his chopper, and ten times safer than in his
  limousine.
  "That line of thunder bumpers to the southeast isn't breaking up as fast
  as we thought it would," Chief Master Sergeant Mazorsky said.
  Wheeler looked up from the checklist. "What'd meteorology say?"
  "They'll hang around a couple of hours. You might swing that way, Tops
  at less than forty thousand."
  Wheeler shrugged. "We've got the time if you've got the stomach, Chief."
  "I hate these goddamned things, Captain, but I want to see what shakes
  loose. We'll tear the airframe apart when we get back."
  "Scuttlebutt is that we might fly in two weeks. President may be moving
  his Tokyo trip up."
 "We've got plenty of time. I just want to make sure."
  Major Marthaller had been talking to ground control. He looked up. "You
  know something we don't, Chief?"
 "Not a thing."
 "But?"
  Mazorsky hesitated a moment. "After the incident at Dulles I want to make
  sure about this bird."
 486 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Has anything turned up?"
 "Nada. I just want to make sure about her."
  "So do we, Chief," Wheeler said. "One thunderstorm coming up."

 Getting off the base was no problem. By ten in the morning they had driven
 the one hundred twenty miles to Phoenix where they rented a Ford Taurus at
 the airport. They transferred the frame and harness plugs to the car, and
 turned the van in where they'd rented it at the Hertz counter downtown. By
 lunch they were headed north on Interstate 17.
  "It'll be a long haul back to the East Coast," Zerkel said. He drove.
  "It's too risky to take that thing on a plane." Mueller laid his head back.
  "When you get tired I'll drive."
 "It'll be awhile. I'm too keyed up. But we did it."
  "What do you think about that?" Mueller mumbled, and he fell asleep.

 TWENTY-SIX

 Have you talked to your friends in Washington?" Kennedy asked on the way
 down the hall to Vasilanti's office.
  "I wanted to update you first. You're going to have to make another hard
  decision," McGarvey said. "What did Carrara tell you?"
  "They want you in Washington. Has something to do with your trip to Tokyo,
  but he wouldn't be more specific."
 "Did he warn you off?"
  "Wouldn't have been very politic. They recommended you:1
                HIGH FLIGHT 487

  "Things have changed again, David. Maybe now you won't want me on the
  payroll."
  "Thank God that's not a decision I'm going to have to make alone,"
  Kennedy replied. "But for what it's worth, I still have confidence in
  you. It's the situation that has me worried. It may be out of our hands.
  Out of your hands."
  "You may be right," McGarvey said, and Kennedy gave him a strange,
  penetrating look.
  McGarvey had met with Guerin's chairman of the board and chief executive
  officer only once since the Dulles crash, so he wasn't prepared for the
  drastic change in the man. Where before Vasilanti had been a tough old
  buzzard with an acerbic tongue, now he appeared subdued, even withdrawn.
  His eyes darted around the room to his executives as if he were looking
  for their approval. Or, McGarvey thought, their sympathy. Besides Gary
  Topper, George Socrates, and Newt Kilbourne, who glared at McGarvey,
  Kennedy introduced Tony Glick, who had taken over as Guerin's general
  legal counsel, and Maggie Drewd, who'd taken over as chief financial
  officer. No one seemed happy. Their conversation died when McGarvey came
  into the room, and no one said much when Kennedy made the introductions.
  They were expecting more bad news. One thing he had learned about
  airplane people was that they were an emotional breed. Much more so than
  the intelligence community. They were boys and girls playing with toys,
  and when something went wrong they pouted. He knew that wasn't exactly
  right, but it seemed that way. Especially now.
  "Mr. McGarvey has just returned from Tokyo. He's warned me that we're
  going to have to make some tough decisions," Kennedy said.
 No one responded.
  "The Dulles crash and the American Airlines crash in 1990 were both acts
  of sabotage," McGarvey said. "By the Japanese in an effort to bring this
  company down."
 "Christ," Vasilanti said softly.
 488 DAVID HAGBERG

  " Rolls-Royce is under intense pressure to stop engine deliveries to
  you-including the hydrogen engineuntil we get this business straightened
  out."
 "Sir Malcolm tell you that?" Socrates asked.
 :'Yes."
 ,:He told me the same thing," Topper interjected,
  That's it then," the design vice president said in resignation. "I don't
  build gliders."
 - "But he's agreed to try to figure out how his engines are being
 sabotaged," McGarvey told them. "In the meantime Rolls will keep to its
 delivery schedules."
  "Wait a minute," Vasilanti said looking up. "You mean to say that Malcolm
  O'Toole wouldn't listen to Gary, but he would you?"
  11 That's right. I told him that I had proof that the Japanese sabotaged
  his engines, that I just didn't know how they did it. I asked him to
  figure it out."
  "Do you have this proor" Tony Glick asked. He was a blond, blue-eyed
  California lawyer who'd been Howard Siegel's assistant.
  "Sokichi Kamiya, the head of Mintori Assurance, admitted it."
  "Extraordinary," the company lawyer said excitedly. "No witnesses, of
  course. Just you?"
 "Just me."
  "So it's your word against his. Lay it on your friends in Washington. The
  State Department is slavering at the bit about anything having to do with
  the Japanese. Somebody will listen."
  "It won't be that easy," McGarvey warned. "I was set up over there, so
  I don't think my word is going to carry much weight. At least not until
  I can get the hard evidence."
  " You're saying there's nothing we can do about it?" Kennedy demanded.
  "Not that at all. But it's going to get a lot tougher from here on out.
  I'm going to get a lot more unpopular than I already am. Might even
  become a fugitive. And there'll almost certainly be some more deaths."
                HIGH FLIGHT 489

 Vasilanti sat up. "Another crash?"
  "Possibly," McGarvey said. "I'm going to stir things up, and Kamiya's
  people will probably come after me. Or at least I hope they will. Maybe
  we'll get lucky, maybe they'll make a mistake."
  Maggie Drewd shuddered. "Jeff wasn't very keen on hiring you," she said. "I
  guess I can see why. Is there any other way out for us? Short of this
  violence, I mean?"
 "Stop building airplanes, stop flying,"
  "What about your pals the Russians?" Kilbourne asked.
  Kennedy said that Dominique had returned to her job in Washington, and that
  she and her brother were not talking. The new product development vice
  president blamed McGarvey.
  "They pointed us in the right direction. Knowing who we're fighting helps."
  "What good is it if no one will believe you?" Kilboume looked at the
  others. "I don't know if I do."
 "Then fire me, and go about your business."
 Kilbourne flared. "I'd just as soon see you in jail-"
 "For what? Upsetting your sister?"
  The airplane executive half rose from his seat. "For taking advantage of
  her. You're sleeping with her . .
 Socrates waved him off.
  "We build airplanes, Newton. Mr. MeGarvey catches spies," the designer
  said. "Let's all of us get on with it." He turned to McGarvey. "'Nine days
  from nowSunday, February ninth-America flies. Portland to Honolulu. I think
  you have that much time to help us. After that it will be too late. Once
  our airplane flies, we will have won. Nothing will hurt us."
 "I'll do what I can. But it'll get ugly. Guaranteed."
  McGarvey walked down the hall to Kennedy's office where he tried to call
  Carrara, first at Langley and then at the DDO's home without luck. His old
  friend was either not in, or he wasn't taking calls.
  Next he tried to get through to Danielle or the General, but neither of
  them was accepting his calls
 490 DAVID HAGBERG

 either. Which was odd, he thought, if they wanted him in Washington.
  Kennedy came from Vasilanti's office a minute later. "When are you
  leaving for Washington?"
 "Not just yet. Is Yamagata still here in Portland?"
  Kennedy looked startled. "Has he got something to do with this?"
 "He's connected with Mintori."
 "He's here. At least I think he still is."
 "What's wrong, David?"
  Kennedy shook his head miserably. "Tit for tat, I guess. Only if it's
  true he's using her."
 "What are you talking about?"
  "My wife and Yamagata. I think they're having an affair."

 "He's made four calls here," Carrara told the DCI. "One to my office, one
 to my home, one to Larry's office, and finally one to you, General."
  "From Portland?" Howard Ryan interjected. He was practically licking his
  chops.
  "David Kennedy's office at Guerin's headquarters. We lost him at Narita,
  and this is the first we've heard from him."
  "That's been more than twenty-four hours, Phil. He could have gotten into
  a lot of mischief in that time," Ryan suggested.
 "Doesn't mean he did."
  "Greg Isaacs was a good man, from what I'm told. His body was broken up
  by the long drop onto the rocks."
  "I don't have to listen to your fucking histrionics, Mr. Ryan," Carrara
  sparked. "He was my field officer. I read the reports. I talked to Cort
  Gates and Steve Pelham."
 "All right, Phil," Director Murphy said placatingly.
  "No, sir, it's not all right. Kirk McGarvey deserves at least the benefit
  of the doubt from us, considering everything he's done for this country.
  Some fucking New York corporate attorney-"
 "That will be enough!" Murphy roared.
                HIGH FLIGHT 491

  Ryan was grinning behind his teeth. "Phil, for God's sake, we're all on the
  same side here. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: just
  because McGarvey and I have a personality conflict doesn't mean I don't
  respect what the man has done for this Company. And I appreciate your
  friendship with him. And understand it, too. All I'm saying is that this
  time there have been too many coincidences surrounding him to ignore. I say
  we turn this over to the FBI and let them handle it as a counterespionage
  investigation."
 "As a criminal investigation," Carrara countered.
  Ryan raised his hands in defeat. "Okay, Phil, we'll do it your way. But
  let's get the investigation -whatever sort you recommend-out of the realm
  of emotions. Considering everything that's at stake I think it's terribly
  important."
 "That's fair," Murphy acceded.
 "If he's found innocent, we back off," Ryan said.
  "You're forgetting something, Mr. Ryan," Carrara reminded the attorney
  coldly. "That surprises me, especially coming from a man of your training
  and background."
 "Yes?" Ryan asked languidly. "What's that?"
  "In this country a man is still considered innocent until proven guilty.
  Don't forget it. I won't."
  Carrara went back to his bailiwick on the third floor and instructed his
  secretary that he was not to be disturbed for the next half-hour. He poured
  a stiff measure of brandy from a bottle in a sideboard and set the glass on
  his desk. He looked at it for a long moment, then turned away to stare out
  the window. He had been a sober alcoholic for the past eleven years.
  Whenever he was in crisis he poured a drink as a test of willpowerhis, over
  whatever problem he was facing. He had beat the booze. He could beat
  anything else in his path.
  McGarvey had been placed on at least two occasions in the company of a
  Japanese national by the name of Arimoto Yamagata.
 He had made inquiries about the man.
 492 DAVID HAGBERG

  He'd met an unidentified Japanese man at his hotel in Tokyo. They'd had
  dinner and drinks together at an exclusive club, and that evening
  McGarvey had been involved in a street brawl in which at least three
  Japanese were killed.
  He'd been arrested and released within hours, and had shown up at
  Yamagata's home outside of Tokyo, to meet with a so far unidentified
  Japanese.
 Isaacs was dead.
  McGarvey had shaken their leg men at Tokyo's airport, and now he was back
  in Portland trying to call in as if nothing had happened.
 Yarnagata was presently in Portland.
  What was going on? Was Mac finally around the bend? Had he finally
  snapped? Gone freelance, in the parlance? Or was there some other
  explanation?
  If there was, Carrara thought, it would be ominous. He shivered. He'd not
  felt this bad for a very long time. It was time to look a little deeper
  into McGarvey's background. A lot deeper, as a matter of fact.

 The sensor frame was clamped to the bench in the basement workshop at the
 Sterling farmhouse. Mueller and Reid watched from the foot of the stairs
 as Louis hooked test equipment to the several dozen wires connected to
 various parts of it. For the moment he ignored the main wiring harness,
 which would have to be reconstructed from the connector plugs that Glen
 had snipped from the frame and from the heat monitor unit in the
 airplane's electronics bay. It would have to be tested as part of the
 entire assembly, including his decoding and triggering circuits.
  "Each of these has a diode on the frame side," Louis said to, his brother
  who was helping.
  "What does that mean?" Glen asked. "Does it tell you something?"
  Louis looked up, a wide-eyed expression on his face. "You clipped the
  ends of all these smaller wires because they were connected to
  self-locking plugs on various parts of the engine. Right?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 493

 "We didn't have much time."
  "No sweat. What I mean is that each of these wires comes from the engine.
  Information is coming down these wires, across the frame, and out the
  main harness."
 "I still don't understand."
  "A diode lets a signal move in only one direction. In this case from the
  engine to the wiring harness and heat monitor's CPU. The only reason
  you'd design a diode into this circuit is if there were stray signals
  floating around the frame that might accidently find their way back into
  the engine. Probably bum up the thermocouples that measure the heat
  output at various sections of the engine."
  "Is that how they fuck with the engines?" Glen asked. "By sending an
  overriding signal to bum out the diodes and then the thermocouples?"
  Louis looked at his brother with new respect. "Nice idea, and it'd work,
  but I don't think that's going to happen here. The sensor wires are also
  electrically isolated from the frame. In fact they've gone to a lot of
  trouble to completely isolate the frame."
 "Go on."
  "Think about it. Every electrical circuit needs a twoway path. The hot
  side and a common ground. The frame, in this case, should be the common
  ground. But it's not. It's electrically isolated for some reason."
 14Why?"
  "I don't know," Louis admitted. "But I'm going to find out as soon as I
  finish running down the rest of these connections."
  "How long before you will be ready?" Reid asked from the stairs.
 "Few hours," Louis said, glancing over.
  "I mean with everything. With the entire detonating setup."
  "Depends on what I find out when I test the frame with the monitor and
  my circuits. I'll probably do that later today, maybe tonight." Zerkel
  grinned. "Don't worry, Mr. Reid. Won't be long now and you'll get what
  you want. More than you want."
 494 DAVID HAGBERG

  11 Very well," Reid said, and he and Mueller went back upstairs.
  "No use in putting the repeaters in place until he's ready," Mueller said.
  " I agree." Reid poured a drink of Irish whiskey at the sideboard in the
  living room. "The chances of discovery would be too great if we had to wait
  long." He took a deep drink. "February ninth is the day we go. Guerin is
  sending its new airplane on a flight from Portland to Honolulu. A lot of
  VIPs will be aboard, including the Vice President of the United States."
 "That will create a lot of attention."
  Reid smiled. "Indeed it will, my friend. Indeed it will."

 "What's going on with Ed Reid?" U.S. Representative John Davis asked on the
 phone. He'd become increasingly worried about his own vulnerability since
 speaking with the former deputy undersecretary of state.
  "You've got to see Harding on that one," Dwight Coster said. He was legal
  counsel for the Bureau, and a friend of Davis's.
  " Ed's damned worried about what's going on over there. Someone put the bug
  in his ear that it had to do with his stand on the Japanese. Either State
  or the White House is trying to sit on him."
  "Come on, you know I can't discuss an ongoing investigation with anyone
  outside the shop. Not even
 YOU."
  "Then you're saying it's true that Reid is under investigation? What the
  hell's he done?"
  " Nothing, so far as I know. His name just popped out of nowhere in another
  investigation."
  "What kind of an investigation? Does it have anything to do with the
  Japanese? Because if it does it's going to look damned suspicious when the
  dust settles that someone was out to put the ax to Reid."
  64 1 wouldn't answer that even if I could, John. All I can say is what I've
  already told you."
                HIGH FLIGHT 495

 "This is counterespionage, right?"
  The line was silent for a long time. Davis almost thought he had lost the
  Bureau lawyer. But when Coster came back his voice was guarded. "Where'd
  you get that?"
  "Does the name Kirk McGarvey mean anything to you? Former CIA spook on
  contract to Guerin Airplane Company. Does a deal Guerin's cutting with
  the Russians have anything to do with it? Or a French Action Service
  inquiry into the whereabouts of a couple of former East German spies?"
  It was all the stuff Harding had given him in confidence, but Davis
  figured Coster didn't need to know his source.
 "I'm not going to talk about this on the phone."
 "Fine. Name a time and place."
  "Ten minutes. The atrium bar at the Grand Hyatt Washington Center. It's
  public enough that nobody'll notice."
  "Ten minutes." Davis took a cab over to the hotel and arrived just as
  Coster was sitting down at a table near the front where everybody could
  see that they had nothing to hide.
 "I could get my ass in a major jam here," Coster said.
  "When we signed on the dotted line for this town we took that
  responsibility. Nixon found out the hard way. You don't beat the system,
  you just play the odds."
  When their drinks came, Coster eyed his old friend speculatively. "Is
  that what this is all about, John? Odds? You owe Ed Reid a favor?"
  "Sort of. But I also want to cover my own ass. If he's in trouble I want
  to know about it."
 "Where'd you get all that information?"
 "Harding. Said it was confidential."
 "Why the hell don't you go back to him?"
  "Because I figure he's already given me as much as he's going to give.
  And two calls in one week will start him wondering."
  "And I'm the boy who's got to play ball with you and lie to his own
  director."
 406 DAVID HAGBERG

 "We're friends."
  "Yeah," Coster said. "In this town that's more expensive than a mistress.
  McGarvey is under investigation for industrial espionage, selling or
  trading secrets to the enemy, and murder. That's just for starters. The CIA
  called today to turn up the heat. They want him burned. Somebody over there
  has a grudge."
 "What's Reid's involvement?"
  "Nobody knows, but he's on the top of the hit list because of State's
  queries, the White House's interestand by rights I should throw your name
  onto the list."
 "That's his only connection?"
  "One more. When Reid was stationed in Germany in the sixties he knew Karl
  Schey, who was a deep-cover East German intelligence agent working for the
  West German Secret Service."
 "Did Reid know that he was a double agent?"
  "I don't know. But Schey is one of the East Germans who is missing."
  Davis sat back with his drink. "Shit," he said softly. Knowingly or not,
  Reid was up to his elbows in this one. The question was what to do about
  it?

 CIA Director Roland Murphy rode his limousine to the White House. The
 President had agreed to see him immediately. He wasn't going to like what
 Murphy was bringing over, not so soon before the Tokyo Summit. But that's
 what being President was all about: making the tough decisions when no
 matter what you did was wrong. This one, Murphy thought, was doing a better
 job than most.
  There was trouble enough without McGarvey's meddling, which was on a much
  larger scale than ever before. Despite the fact that Howard Ryan could be
  an asshole at times, he was essentially correct in his fears about McGarvey
  screwing up the works. Negotiations with the Japanese were at a critical
  stage. A wrong move on our part could push the United States one step
  closer to bankruptcy. Not in any real sense, but in the sense that
                HIGH FLIGHT 497

 trying to pay down the national debt would cut even further into such basic
 services as health care, entitlement programs, and aid to states.
  Murphy was damned glad that he wasn't President. In fact he thought any man
  who aspired to the job had to be certifiably nuts.
  "Go right in," the President's Appointments Secretary, Steve Nichols, said.
 "Ask Harold Secor to join us," Murphy said.
 "He's already inside."
  "Good." Murphy entered the Oval Office. The President and his National
  Security Adviser were hunched over a series of documents spread out on the
  desk. They looked up.
 "Hello, Roland."
 "Good afternoon, Mr. President. Harold."
 "What crisis are we facing this afternoon?"
  "The situation with the Japanese military. It looks as if it's beginning to
  heat up."
  The President exchanged glances with Secor. "What have you got for me this
  time?"
 . "National Reconnaissance Offfice satellite photographs, along with the
 latest batch from our own KH15."
  Secor moved the documents he and the President had been studying.
  Murphy opened his briefcase and spread out a dozen high-resolution photos
  on the desk. "These are Japanese Air Self Defense and Maritime Self Defense
  bases. Atsugi, lwakuni, Komatsujima, Shimofusa, Hachinowe, and
  Tanegashima."
 "What am I looking at here?" the President asked.
  "It would appear that there's a lot of activity," Secor suggested. "An
  exercise?"
  "That's right," Murphy replied. "Every base we've looked at is on alert,
  only no one is calling it that."
 "What do you mean?" the President asked.
  "When the Japanese military stages an exercise it always informs us well in
  advance. More often than not
 498 DAVID HAGSERG

 we're invited to participate, or at the very least, observe. Not this
 time. Seventh Fleet Intelligence at Yokosuka spotted this for us."
 "All right, Roland, spell it out for me."
  Murphy took another series of photographs out of his briefcase and laid
  them on top of the first. "Russian naval and air force bases at Korsakov,
  Kholmsk, and Yuzhno-Sakhatinsk on Sakhalin Island. Svetlaya,
  Sovetskaya-Gavan, and Vladivostok on the mainland. And Kurilsk on Iturup
  Island in the Kurils. All on alert, all gearing up for an exercise."
  The President was stunned. "You mean to say that they're going to shoot
  at each other over the Tatar Strait thing? The Russian ambassador sat in
  this room last week, and there was no mistake that he understood
  perfectly what I told him."
  11 1 don't know if it'll come to that, Mr. President, but something else
  has caught our attention."
 "What?"
  41 Half the Japanese bases that are on alert are in the South and east.
  Nowhere near the Russian threat."
 "What's that supposed to indicate?" Secor asked.
  " The same submarine that sank the Russian frigate in the strait is now
  heading toward Okinawa in the East China Sea. One of our ships is
  shadowing it, but we were overflown by a pair of fighter/interceptors
  from Tanegashima."
  "What do the Japanese have to say about it?" Secor demanded.
 "Nothing."
  "Let's put a different spin on this, Roland," the President said. "The
  Japanese and Russians have apologized to each other for the incident in
  the strait. But we've upgraded Seventh's readiness status to a DEFCON
  FOUR. Perhaps the Japanese forces are simply following suit, which has
  made the Russians wary. We've heard nothing from Moscow?" the President
  asked Secor.
 "Not a word."
 "Are any of their other bases on alert?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 499

 "We've had no indications of that," Murphy said.
  The President nodded. "As far as the submarine is concerned, the East
  China Sea is its home waters. It's got every right to send a patrol down
  there. Isn't that correct?"
  "Yes, sir. But this time is different. We ought to keep an eye on it." -
  
 "I agree," Secor said.
  "Very well. We need to hold the status quo for another nine days, that's
  all."
 "Sir?" Murphy said.
  "I'm going to Tokyo several days before the summit is scheduled to begin.
  Prime Minister Enchi and I have several things to work out between us
  before we get started. I'll discuss this with him."
  "We won't make an announcement until the last minute," Secor said.
  "Sunday, February ninth."

 "The conspirators appear before me."
  "Do not be so certain in your judgment, or so quick to make it," Sokichi
  Kamiya said. He and Hiroshi Kobayashi, who'd come from Kobe for the
  meeting, sat across the low table from Hideyoshi Nobunaga, the director
  of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, and Tadashi Ota, the
  Deputy Director General of Defense. They met in a private room at
  Fukudaya, Tokyo's premier rotei restaurant.
  Nobunaga, a short thin man with a deep bass voice, took a thick envelope
  from his coat pocket and tossed it imperiously on the table in front of
  Kamiya. The rude gesture was an insult. "Your connection to Rising Sun
  and what we have managed to gather so far about your project Morning Star
  is there."
  Kamiya did not even look at the envelope. "Shall we meet with the Prime
  Minister, Nobunaga-san? Or debate before the Diet?"
 "I forbid this insanity."
  "Amusing, coming from a man who directs spy efforts against the United
  States and every other Western industrialized nation. Your efforts would
  be better spent
 500 DAVID HAGBERG

 against China and North Korea. Leave the real work to those of us who have
 the intelligence and the stomach for it."
  Their attendant, a beautiful young woman in an immaculate flowered
  kimono, entered the room on her knees to serve them tiny lacquered trays
  of artfully arranged seafood and vegetables. She poured each of them saki
  in Imari porcelain cups and then gracefully withdrew. She glanced up at
  the hanging scroll in the alcove before she closed the rice-paper door.
  "He prospers who values another's life." The Deputy Director General of
  Defense motioned toward the printing on the scroll. "Fifty years is not
  such a long memory for a man of your ... wisdom, Kamiya-san. "
  "I have not forgotten, but you were a snot-nosed kid. You can't
  remember."
  "Whatever you think of me, I am a student of history. Perhaps I can see
  the past better for not having been prejudiced by living through it.
  These are not such simple times."
  "I disagree. These are the 1920s and 1930s all over again. Dai Nihon is
  again faced with terrible choices for her survival. If you do not
  understand, then come with me to the stock exchange and I will explain
  the facts of our life to you, Deputy Director General!"
  Ota wanted to argue, but Nobunaga gestured for him to be still.
  "We are working toward the same ends, Kamiya-san, the MITI director said.
  "Many of our methods are similar. But yours will surely end in
  catastrophe."
 "Think what you are saying."
  "I have. But you must think what you are doing. Your misadventures are
  ego-driven. The last acts of an old man."
 Kamiya smiled. "Then why are you here?"
  "Because you and your foolish friends are powerful men."
 "Patriots," Kobayashi spoke for the first time.
 "Misguided."
                HIGH FLIGHT 501

 "No. I remember as well."
  "Do you fools want to start that all over again?" Ota blurted. "Don't you
  remember the privations? The humiliations? The patronizings?"
  Kamiya leaned forward and stabbed a blunt finger in Ota's direction.
  "Tell me who we share Yokosuka with? Tell me who we defer to on Okinawa?
  Tell me whose television, and blue jeans, and pop culture our young
  people are being force fed?"
  Nobunaga leaned forward, his palms on the table. "And tell me who buys
  more manufactured goods from us than any other nation on this earth? Tell
  me who provides jobs? Tell me who has become friend from enemy?"
 "Then why are you spying on them?" Kamiya asked.
 "It is business. It is war. But not your kind of war."
  "We'll see." Kamiya and Kobayashi got up and made to leave.
  "Don't forget your envelope," Ota said. "If you look inside perhaps you
  will gain some respect for loyalty."
 "We will stop you," Nobunaga warned sternly.
  Kamiya looked down at him. "I would not suggest you try to arrest us. It
  would tear the country apart. We have many more friends than you can
  possibly imagine."

 McGarvey spent the afternoon with Socrates and the team of crash engineers
 that had been assembled after Dulles. Every system on the airplane had
 worked to its design parameters up to the moment of the crash. The only
 possible conclusion was that somehow the engine's composite turbine blades
 had failed.
 "But I don't like it," the chief engineer said.
  "Maybe Sir Malcolm will come up with something for us," McGarvey replied.
  "I'm glad you talked to him, and made him see our point. Hell, we're all
  grateful. But everything is so bollixed up around here that nobody can
  think straight."
  "Maybe you people should think about postponing the Honolulu flight."
 502 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Believe me, that's the only thing keeping us going."
  It was almost five when McGarvey went up to Kennedy's office, but his
  secretary said he would be in conference for at least another two hours,
  after which he, Mr. Vasilanti, and Mr. Kilbourne would be having dinner
  in the executive dining room.
 "If it's urgent, I can break in on him."
 "Tell him I'll see him tomorrow."
 "Yes, sir."
  From his own temporary office downstairs next to security he tried again
  to call Carrara without luck. The Deputy Director of Operations was away
  from his desk.
  Next he telephoned Dominique's office, but they would tell him nothing.
  Her secretary was even hesitant to take a message. Nor was Dominique's
  answering machine switched on at her apartment. He could understand why
  she was avoiding him. It was probably for the best. But he wished she had
  remained in Detroit. In Washington she was impossible to protect.
  Before he went out there, however, there were a few things he wanted to
  take care of here.
  Guerin supplied him with a Buick Riviera. He drove south to the affluent
  suburb of Lake Oswego and was just pulling into the Kennedys' driveway
  when the garage door opened and Chance Kennedy backed out in a metallic
  green Mercedes 560SEL.
  She stopped when she saw him and powered down her window.
  McGarvey got out of his car and went over to her. "Can I have a couple
  minutes of your time, Mrs. Kennedy?"
 "David's not home."
  "I know. I came out to see you. I'd like to ask you a couple of
  questions."
  She eyed him with mistrust. "You're the spook they hired. What do you
  want with me? Shouldn't you be chasing bad guys?"
 "I am.,,
 "Peachy. But I have to run now. Maybe if you can
                HIGH FLIGHT 503

 corner my husband long enough to sit down for dinner you can come back
 Sunday." She hit the garage-door switch.
 "Arimoto Yamagata."
  An abject look of terror crossed her face, and was gone.
 "Are you going to see him now?"
 She shivered. "What are you talking about?"
  "You're having an affair with him, Mrs. Kennedy. But I have to warn you
  that he represents the people who want to bring Guerin Airplane Company
  to its knees. His people sabotaged that airplane that went down at
  Dulles. Some good people were killed. Even more may die."
  "I don't believe it," she said, regaining some of her composure. "Why'd
  you come here?"
  "To warn you. And to find out how much you've already told him."
  "I don't know where the hell you got the idea that I was having an
  affair. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph-"
 "Your husband told me."
  For just a moment Chance looked up, but then her face sagged, and she
  averted her eyes. "He wouldn't have told you something like that, even
  if he believed it was true. Not my four-square David."
 "What have you told him?"
  "David's a forty-three-year-old Boy Scout. True blue, loyal to the
  platoon, or corps, or whatever." She looked up again. "But not to me. Can
  you understand that?"
  McGarvey felt sorry for her. But then, he thought, he wasn't such a hot
  judge of women. He'd never been able to sustain a relationship. Thejob
  comesfirst. Hadn't that always been the line?
 "Yamagata is a dangerous man."
  "Somebody give me at least a little credit," she said, once more in
  control. "I've not told the man a thing that he couldn't get out of a
  newspaper or an aerospace magazine. But he will tell me what I want to
  know. What David wants to know."
 504 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Stay away from him, for your own sake."
  She laughed. "Even if I were having an affair with him, it wouldn't be any
  of your business."
 "I'll follow you if need be."
  She laughed even louder now. "Go ahead. I'm having drinks downtown with the
  girls. But you're welcome to tag along." She powered up her window and
  backed out of the driveway.
  When she was gone, McGarvey glanced up at the house. Nine days, he thought.
  He wondered where they'd all be on the day after.

 TWENTY-SEVEN

 The sensor frame was set up in the wine storage room forty feet from the
 heat monitor unit. Louis had rewired the connector plugs. The thick cable
 snaked across the basement floor from the workbench.
  "This probably seems like a waste of time, but it isn't," Louis said,
  adjusting a signal generator's output. "I'm not sure about that first
  incident. Could have been a fluke. Could have been a real accident, not
  caused by me.,,
 "Is that possible?" his brother Glen asked.
  Louis looked up. He stank of stale sweat, garlic, beer, and perfume from
  the whore he'd been with. He hadn't taken a shower in days. "Anything's
  possible. This is a lot more complicated than you think."
 "I know,"
  "No you don't," Louis said sharply. "It's complicated in a different way.
  This circuit is designed to look like one thing so that even an expert
  would be fooled. Really it's something else. And I've got most of it
  decoded. Most of it, Glen. We're not there yet."
                HIGH FLIGHT 505

 "It'd be a hell of a coincidence."
 Louis smiled grimly. "Would you bet your life on it?"
  Glen held his silence for a long moment, but then he shook his head.
  "Let's get on with it. What do you want me to do?"
  "There's a hundred thirty-two leads coming out of the monitor. Almost all
  of them are interrogators. Asking the frame to ask the engine
  thermocouples what the temperatures are. The CPU processes the data, and
  sends it up to the cockpit. I want to check each of those wires, one at
  a time, for any surprises."
 "You say almost every lead checks temperatures?"
 "One should be the common ground to the frame."
 "But it isn't?"
  "It comes from the modified CPU in the monitor, but there's a signal on
  the line when my encoder keys the circuit."
 "To shut down the thermocouples?"
  "I thought that. Or to bum out the diodes, like you suggested. But it's
  not that. The goddamned signal is modulated."
 "What do you mean?"
  "I mean when I key the encoder, a tone is sent from the CPU to the sensor
  frame. When I say hello or boom, or when I send an audio frequency
  signal, the CPU sends out a stream of information, The monitor talks to
  the sensor frame. It tells it something."
 "Like what?"
  Louis shrugged. "I don't know. If I put it up on a speaker the signal
  sounds like a bunch of monkeys in a zoo all getting pissed off at once.
  Gibberish."
 "Then what?"
  "That's what we're going to find out tonight, just as soon as we finish
  with the first hundred thirty-one interrogators." He was being overly
  cautious, but he didn't want to admit that he was totally at a loss.
  Whoever had designed this circuitry was cunning as well as intelligent.
  Alien, the notion popped into his head. It was the Japanese. They thought
  differently from us.
 506 DAVID HAGBERG

 Their culture and background were vastly different from ours, so their
 engineering would be different too.
 "I don't understand, Louis."
  "I was hoping to find something on the frame. Something that would explain
  how it works. Something that would make it clear. But I can't see a fucking
  thing. Wires, diodes, and metal. Aluminum, magnesium. I don't even know
  that. I'm no metallurgist."
 "If anybody can do it you can," Glen told him.
 Louis flashed a hard, angry look at his brother.
  "Don't let it get to you. Take it a step at a time. You're smarter than
  they are. You've already proved that."
  "If I can't figure it out it becomes a moot point. We won't have anyplace
  to go."
  Glen lowered his voice. "You worry about the circuit and let me take care
  of getting us out of here. Just do it, Louis."

 "Nothing," Louis said.
  One hundred thirty-one tones, one hundred thirty-one zeroes. Each of the
  leads from the monitor to the frame came out exactly as they should if they
  were doing the legitimate work of keeping an eye on conditions in the
  engine. Nothing in the circuitry would bring down an airplane.
  "Maybe we should wait until morning to finish up." It was midnight, and
  Glen looked haggard. His eyes were bloodshot.
  "All that's left is the modulated ground wire. We'll do it now."
 "Same drill?"
 "Yes. 11

  They had tested all but the ground lead three times. The first with a
  signal from the monitor, down the harness to the plug before it was
  connected to the frame. A second time with the harness plugged in. And a
  third with a signal generated, wire by wire from the engine side of the
  diodes back to the monitor. Each time Glen watched an oscilloscope attached
  to the leads for a spike,
                HIGH FLIGHT 507

 a tone, or a modulated signal, which on the scope looked like the odd
 shapes the old lava 16mps made.
  Louis clipped the O-scope's leads to four different spots on the frame.
  If there was any response to the modulated signal sent from the monitor
  it would show up here. He adjusted the four traces, each at a different
  potential, from a few millivolts to 1.5 volts, the same as from an
  ordinary flashlight battery. Glen, his hand resting on the frame, watched
  intently.
  "Don't touch the frame," Louis ordered. "Might screw up the results."
  Glen did as he was told and Louis walked back to the workbench on the
  other side of the basement. "Watch the scope-."
 "Right," Glen called back.
  Louis keyed the decoder, got the trigger pulse, and a few milliseconds
  later the audio frequency tone went out.
  An intense white light suddenly bloomed in the wine storage room, and an
  instant later Glen screamed, the inhuman sound tom out of his throat.
  Louis had to fall back behind his equipment, because the heat blasting
  across the basement was so intense. He knew what was happening! He knew
  how it worked!
  Glen's screams died as abruptly as they'd begun, and the brilliant light
  faded.

 Saturday morning after breakfast, McGarvey decided to drive back out to
 Gales Creek to talk with Socrates and Kilbourne about the 2622. Since the
 Honolulu flight was only eight days away he figured they'd be out there.
 He wanted to know if the 2622 shared any parts with the 522. Especially
 engine components that had anything even remotely to do with heat
 management systems. It would be the perfect plane to knock out of the sky
 on its first VIP flight. Whatever was sabotaged could already be built
 into the jetliner, and all their searching on the day of the flight would
 be for nothing. He suspected that line of thinking would be a dead end
 because Kilbourne
 508 DAVID HAGBERG

 had made the point that the hypersonic jetliner was a brand-new design from
 the wheel struts up. Nonetheless he wanted to make sure.
  Guerin had put him up in an executive turnkey apartment downtown. Within
  two blocks after leaving the underground parking garage he realized that he
  had picked up a tail, a black windowless van alternating with a brown Chevy
  Caprice. He'd tried again this morning to reach Carrara without luck, but
  there were automatic traces on all lines to CIA headquarters and to its top
  deputy directors, so his location had been pinpointed. But it was extreme,
  even for the General, to cut off all contact and then have him followed.
  Besides, these guys weren't very good.
  Instead of heading west out of the city, he stayed in the downtown area
  between the Hawthorne and Burnside bridges on the west side of the river.
  When the Chevy was behind him, he slowed enough to be caught by a red light
  on Salmon Street a few blocks from the World Trade Center. The van was
  already through the intersection and had to continue with traffic.
  McGarvey got out of his car and walked back to the Caprice. The driver
  hesitated, then lowered his window. He and the passenger wore dark suits,
  their overcoats tossed in the backseat. Neither of them looked happy that
  they'd been made.
  "You're too obvious to be Company. What are you, Bureau or local cops?"
 "What the hell are you talking about?" the driver said.
 McGarvey stared at him.
  The passenger pulled out his ID and showed his badge. "We're FBI, Mr.
  McGarvey. Could you tell us where you're headed?"
  "Your office," McGarvey answered. "Call your S-A-C and tell him to meet us
  there."

 It took a half-hour for the FBI's Portland Special Agent in Charge, Jack
 Franson, to get downtown. When he came through the door he motioned McGarvey
 to come
                HIGH FLIGHT 509

 into his office, but for the others to remain where they were.
  "I understand you gave my agents a hard time this morning," the older man
  said. He wore a USC jogging suit. He took off his jacket and tossed it
  on the couch, then motioned for McGarvey to have a seat in front of his
  desk.
 "I don't like being followed."
  "Nobody does," Franson said. He picked up his telephone. "Roger, see if
  we can borrow Kathy or one of the other stenos from downstairs. Have her
  come up on the double, please."
 "Am I being charged with something?"
 "Not at this time, Mr. McGarvey."
  "Are you investigating me in connection with some crime?"
 "Sorry, I can't tell you that."
  "Then this conversation ends now," McGarvey said, coolly. "Before the
  steno arrives."
 "Where were you going this morning?"
  "The next time somebody comes up behind me, I'm going to break their legs
  just below the knees. Then I'll disarm them. When I find their IDs, I'll
  apologize. But the streets aren't safe these days, and a man has got to
  protect himself."
 Franson was unimpressed. "We'll keep that in mind."
  "Do that. In the meantime you obviously know who I am, and you know that
  I'm working for Guerin and what I'm doing for them. So where's the
  problem?"
 "I'm not going to discuss that with you."
  "Somebody in Washington is pulling your chain. Probably John Whitman,
  unless I miss my guess. He has pals at Langley, the people who are most
  interested in me. They must have told you something, S-A-C. Warned you.
  Told you I was dangerous."
 "Will you answer a few questions?"
 "No. But I will exchange information with you."
 "It doesn't work that way."
 "Your call," McGarvey said getting to his feet. "But if
 510 DAVID HAGBERG

 you want something from me, all you have to do is tell me what you're
 working on. I'll be happy to give you whatever help I can."
 Ton't screw with us, McGarvey," Franson warned.
  'Tell them in Washington that I'm available anytime for a trade of
  information. In the meantime I've got work to do, so stay out of my way."
  McGarvey left the S-A-C's office just as a young woman pushing a court
  reporter's typewriter got off the elevator. No one tried to stop him.

 Chance Kennedy had been asleep last night when David finally came home, and
 waking now she could hear him in the shower. She didn't know what to say to
 him, but they could not go on like this much longer.
  Any pretense she might have had about getting information from Yamagata had
  been dashed by Kirk McGarvey yesterday afternoon. As incredible as it
  seemed, David somehow knew or suspected she was ,having an affair. What she
  couldn't fathom, however, is why he had told someone. And how many other
  people had he discussed her with? How could she look any of them in the
  eye?
  She felt like public property. Like a common tramp. A slut.
  The shower stopped, and a couple of minutes later David came out of the
  bathroom. Chance feigned sleep. She heard him cross to the closet, get
  something, then go back. She opened her eyes. He was looking at her from
  the bathroom door.
 "Did I wake you?" he asked.
  She glanced at the clock. It was after nine. "It's time to get up. Where
  are you going?"
 "I have to get back to the office."
  She sat up and propped the pillows behind her back. "Stay home. Let's do
  something today. Maybe take a drive."
  "Sorry, Chance, I can't. Not this close to the flight. But it'll slow down
  afterward. We'll take a vacation. Europe maybe. How's that sound?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 511

 "When?"
 "In the spring."
  "What about the hydrogen engines?" she asked sarcastically. "Someone will
  have to keep on top of Rolls, won't they? You'll have to make the decision
  whether to start production. You could end up like Boeing with dozens of
  planes on the ramp waiting for engines. Remember the problems they had with
  the 747? And you've got a big job ahead of you on the sell-through. What's
  your break-even point this time? A hundred airplanes? Two hundred? Three?
  Lots of travel, David. Meetings. Conferences. Arm twisting. Not to mention
  keeping the Russians on the straight and narrow. And the Japanese out of
  your hair."
 "It's what I do. It's my job."
  Chance could feel tears well up in her eyes. But she didn't want to cry in
  front of David. "What about our marriage?"
 "What about it?" he asked.
 "You're never home!" she snapped, her voice brittle.
  "If I did come home, would I find you here?" he demanded.
  For a second she was speechless. She hadn't thought he'd bring it up so
  fast. It wasn't his style. She figured there would be days or weeks of
  hints and arguments about every subject but that one. David was something
  of a prude, and naive. Only once in their marriage had he strayed, and he
  had been so miserable for so long that Chance had ended up comforting him
  when it should have been the other way around.
 He stormed into the bathroom.
  Chance threw back the covers and went after him. "What do you mean by
  that?" she screeched.
  David refused to turn toward her. Instead he faced her reflection in the
  mirrors above the sink-. "Arimoto Yamagata."
  "I've had lunch with the man twice, and dinner with him once. For you and
  the company."
 "What the hell are you talking about?"
 "He's here spying on us. He told me that the people he
 512 DAVID HAGBERG

 works for back in Tokyo want to buy Guerin and build an airplane factory in
 Japan. He wants to know everything about us. Especially about you, and about
 McGarvey. But that's a laugh."
 ,David turned. "What?"
  "McGarvey was here. Warned me away from Arimoto. He's trying to protect his
  friend. Did you know that?"
 "When was McGarvey here? What'd he want?"
  "You told him I was having an affair. If you want to discuss our marriage,
  David, discuss it with me. Not the people who work for you."
 "Are you?"
  "Am I what?" Chance asked, her voice disdainful. But she was frightened
  that he was willing to take this so far.
 "Sleeping with Yamagata?"
  Her breath caught in her throat. She raised a hand to her mouth. "Why do
  you think that?"
  "I saw the way you reacted to him at Saunders' party. I know the signs."
 "Like what? Have you had me followed?"
  "No need for it. Somebody mentioned to me on Thursday that they'd seen you
  in Holbrook. You and Yamagata."
 "I told you I met him."
  "Lunch and dinner. Not overnight. Are you sleeping with him to get back at
  me? Is that what this is all about? Tit for tat?"
 "What if it's true?" Chance blurted, surprising herself.
 "Is it?"
  "Are you going back to that bitch Dominique Kilbourne?"
  David shook his head sadly. "That was a mistake that I'll never live down.
  But I didn't love her then, and I don't love her now. I love you."
  "You love airplanes and jet engines and rockets more than you love me!"
 "That's not true."
 "I'm trying to help!"
 "Don't. I mean it. Stay away from Yamagata. These
                HIGH FLIGHT 513

 people are out to hurt us, and they'll do whatever it takes to win.
 Including using you."
 "Then stop him!" Chance cried.
 "We're trying."
  Stop me, she wanted to say, but he looked away, and after a moment she
  went back into the bedroom.

 Chance Kennedy got to the newly opened Hyatt Regency Hotel downtown on the
 riverfront about noon and took a seat in the bar overlooking the water.
 Her emotions were badly bruised. She wanted to hide in a dark comer
 somewhere until everything worked itself out. Maybe they would take a
 vacation in the spring after all. If she could hold out that long.
  David was right, of course. She was out of her league trying to deal with
  Yamagata. Yet being with him was like nothing she'd ever experienced or
  even imagined. He was so different. So caring. So knowledgeable. No
  fumbling, no hesitation, he knew exactly what pleased her.
  She ordered a glass of champagne, and when it came she had to force
  herself to sip it and not gulp the whole thing down at once. She was
  being an absolute fool to think that she could outwit the man. The first
  time she'd laid eyes on him she'd been captivated. And since the tea
  ceremony she'd not been able to stop thinking about him.
  David was respectful of him, and even MeGarvey had warned her away. Which
  meant he probably had the key to their problems. Break him and they'd
  have the answers. Sex, after all, was a powerful persuader. She was no
  slouch. Her breasts were small, and though she often went without a bra,
  they were still firm. Her tummy was reasonably flat, her ass wasn't
  sagging, and her legs were in great shape because of tennis, He wouldn't
  get so aroused if she were unappealing. The trick would be to make
  herself alluring to him. There wasn't a man she knew who couldn't be
  brought around by sex, or the promise of a lack thereof. And when it was
 514 DAVID HAGBERG

 over she would make David understand what she had done and why she had done
 it. Hadn't he said that he'd never loved Dominique? Well, she certainly
 didn't love Yamagata. That was ridiculous.
  When they came out here to see about a position with Guerin, Al Vasilanti
  had told them that working for an airplane company was more than just a
  job. Because of the complexity of the product, and because of the religious
  commitment to safety, building airplanes was a way of life that involved
  the entire family. Chance would have to be like a doctor's wife: on call
  with her husband twenty-four hours a day. At first she thought it was a
  bunch of macho bullshit, but now she was starting to think that maybe the
  old fool had something after all.
  Chance paid for her drink and took the elevator up to the
  twenty-first-floor penthouse with the key Yamagata had given her. The suite
  had already been cleaned, but he wasn't there.
  She stood in the middle of the big living room, her heart beating rapidly,
  torn by two emotions. She was sorry she'd missed him, and yet she was glad
  he wasn't here. She was frightened of him. And of herself.
  His clean, sandalwood scent was in the, air. She could almost feel his
  touch, his caress.
  She needed help, but there was no one to turn to. This time she was on her
  own.
  It was for David, she told herself. Otherwise she would not be here. For
  David and for the company.

 "The certificate is ready for my signature?"
  4' It will be by this afternoon," the FAA's Flight Stan~ dards Service
  Director Archie Darden said. "Are you going to stop down, Jay?"
 :'Monday morning will be soon enough."
  'The Renton, Washington, regional office gave the bird a clean bill of
  health."
  "This one's got to be right for them," Federal Aviation Administration
  Administrator Jay Hansen said from his house. "And for us too."
                HIGH FLIGHT 515

  "Nothing more we can do with this budget. Every time one goes down they
  scream for our blood. But in the interim they cut our funds so we can't
  do the job they expect of us."
  "That's called politics. Nothing we can do about it. But if our Northwest
  office says Guerin's plane is ready to fly, then I'll sign off on their
  recommendation."
  "Yes, sir," Darden said. He was in shirt-sleeves, his thick red hair
  tousled. A 2400 color photograph of the P/C2622, America painted across
  her fuselage, was propped up on a chair across the room. She was stun-
  ning.
 "It's my own neck as well."
 "You flying to Honolulu on Sunday?"
  "That's right, Archie. So I've got a vested interest to watch."
  "Well, we've done our job." He looked at the photo. "I can tell you that
  I wish it was me instead of you on that flight."

 Lieutenant Sattler watched over the radarman's shoulder as the slow-moving
 target passed across the very top of the screen. The aircraft was an Orion
 P-313 on a parallel track just under one hundred miles southsouthwest of
 the Thom's position,
  "Fifteen- thousand feet at two hundred twenty knots, he's mushing along
  up there," the radar operator said. "He's not one of ours, L-T."
 "Japanese?"
  "Not Chinese or North Korean out here. I'd say ASDF. I can try their
  patrol frequencies."
  "Go ahead. Ask them if they've lost something," Sattler ordered. He
  turned to the ECM's console. "Is he looking at us?"
  "His radar just went active," the rating said. "He has us. Shall we jam?"
 "Negative.'
  "There's his IFF. We've been interrogated. He wants to know who we are."
 516 DAVID HAGBERG

 "As if he didn't already know," Sattler said.
  The radar operator looked up. "Negative response on the regular channels.
  Want me to keep trying?"
  "Stand by," Sattler said. He called the bridge on the growler phone.
 "Hanrahan."
  "We've just detected what appears to be an ASDF Orion one hundred miles
  south of us. We've been illuminated and interrogated, but we're getting
  no response on any of their patrol frequencies."
 "Is he one of ours out of Okinawa, Don?"_
 "Negative. We can jam his radar."
  "He knows we're here, and he knows what we're doing. Keep an eye on him."
 "Will do, Skipper."
 "What about the Samisho?"
 "Same as before."
  "This might get interesting after all," Hanrahan said. "Keep me posted."

 "We have to talk," Reid said from the doorway. "We've just eight days to
 get everything into place."
  Louis Zerkel sat at the bedroom window watching the lights of Dulles
  Airport in the distance. "Ending up buried in a fucking garbage dump
  isn't right. He deserved better than that."
  "There wasn't much else we could do. I'm sorry, Louis."
 "I owed him."
 "Do you believe in God?" Mueller asked.
  Louis turned away from the window. The German leaned against a work
  table, a hint of compassion in his expression that was probably fake. "Of
  course not."
  "Then it doesn't matter where his body ended up. Your brother is dead,
  and you killed him."
 "Jesus," Reid said softly.
 "It was an accident," Louis blurted.
  "Glen knew that a bullet in the head from some cop somewhere was always
  a possibility. It's better than
                HIGH FLIGHT 517

 spending the rest of your life cooped up in a prison, being fucked up the
 asshole."
  Louis wanted to throw up. He had nobody to rely on now that both Dr.
  Shepard and Glen were gone. He had no idea where he could go, or what he
  could do. He was lost.
  "Question is, are you capable of finishing the project?" Mueller asked.
  "If the tables were reversed do you think Glen would give up?"
  "No. He'd rather die than quit." Louis stopped. "Christ." He couldn't get
  the sight of Glen's horribly charred body out of his mind's eye. The heat
  had been so intense that there'd been very little left that could have
  been identified as human.
  "That's right, Louis. So now it's up to us to finish the job. Otherwise
  his life would have been in vain."
  Louis wanted to tell Mueller to shut his lousy lying mouth. But if they
  quit now all the work would go to waste. The Japanese would continue to
  threaten us, and no one would do a thing about it. Worst of all the
  devious ones, the devils, the power-mad money brokers of the world would
  have won.
 "Eight days."
  "That's the day of Guerin's VIP flight to Honolulu," Reid explained.
 "I built an extra repeater for Portland."
  "You're a very strong man," Mueller said. "I'm impressed."
  Louis looked at the German to see if he was kidding. But Mueller was
  deadly serious. Reid had brought him over from Europe, and even Glen
  respected him. Something in the set of the man's jaw, in the confidence
  of his manner, was frightening and yet comforting in an odd sort of way.
  Louis could see that Mueller had something that neither Dr. Shepard nor
  Glen had. Experience in the real world of international struggles.
  Mueller knew the score. He'd been a soldier for practically all his life.
  He wasn't afraid to kill or be killed. He was a force unto himself.
 He'd been an East German intelligence officer. But
 518 DAVID HAGBERG -
 when the Wall came down and East Germany ceased to exist, Mueller hadn't
 quit. He'd taken the fight elsewhere.
 Mueller was a soldier.'
  "My life for yours," Louis mumbled, a part of him afraid that he would be
  rejected.
  "What do you think about that?" Mueller smiled, warmly.

 TWENTY-EIGHT

  m here unofficially, Mr. Kennedy," Jack Franson said.
   "Right now that sounds ominous."
  "I can't say there's no problem, but it's something I think we can handle
  here in Portland without taking it any further. At least for the moment.
  But I have to tell you up front that Washington is taking an interest in
  Mr. McGarvey. A serious interest. It's just that they don't have as full an
  appreciation for Guerin as we do here."
  "Then maybe you can answer a few questions for me," Kennedy said on the way
  into the board room.
  "That's what I'm here for, sir. But I've got a few of my own. I just want
  to head off any repercussions for you. Right now especially."
  Kennedy motioned the FBI agent to a seat at the long table. Nancy had
  brought in coffee for them. It was Sunday, but Guerin was fully staffed and
  would be until America flew to Honolulu and safely returned. "I appreciate
  your concern."
  "Like I said, this is an unofficial visit. But McGarvey is going to become
  a problem for you. Some of the things I'm hearing are just incredible.
  Yesterday he actually threatened me. He sat right in my office and told me
  that if we continued to follow him, he'd retaliate. My boss
                HIGH FLIGHT 519

 didn't take it lightly." Franson hesitated a moment. "I want you to be clear
 on one thing, Mr. Kennedy. We take this very seriously. Mr. McGarvey is
 presumed innocent until he's proven guilty."
  "I wasn't aware he was under investigation. What is he being charged with?"
  "His case file hasn't been sent out yet, but he is under investigation.
  Washington has asked that we keep an eye on him."
  "What can I do for you?" Kennedy asked. His stomach was tied in knots.
  "Do you know about his background? I mean before you hired him, did you do
  a background investigation?"
  "We know that he worked for the CIA. It's the main reason we hired him to
  deal with our ... special security concerns. Internationally."
  "How did his name come to your attention? This kind of guy doesn't
  advertise in the positions-wanted column. Did he approach you? Or what?"
  "He was recommended to us by someone in Washington, as a matter of fact. It
  was a personal friend of Mr. Vasilanti."
 "May I ask who that was?"
 "Roland Murphy. The director of the CIA."
  "I see," Franson said. If he was affected by Murphy's name, he didn't show
  it. "May I also ask what those special security concerns are? I mean I can
  imagine some of the problems a company this size has gotta face. But
  McGarvey is something more than just a night watchman or cop. His talents
  are, shall we say, unique?"
  Kennedy studied the FBI agent. "I don't know if I should discuss this with
  you, on an unofficial basis. We're in an extremely competitive situation
  just now, especially in light of the dollar's position against certain
  foreign currencies."
  Franson held up his hands. "I understand, completely, Mr. Kennedy. But I'm
  talking about a criminal investigation of one of your employees."
 "On what charge?"
 "I'm not at liberty to say at this time."
 520 DAVID HAGBERG

  "In that case I'm afraid I can't be of much help. But if you could be more
  specific."
 "McGarvey is a bad apple."
 "Should we fire him?"
  "Let's just say that despite his talents I wouldn't want him working for
  me."
  Good advice or bad, Kennedy asked himself. But considering the problem they
  faced, McGarvey might be the only one who made any sense for the job. Fight
  fire with fire.
 Kennedy got up. "Thanks for coming out."
  "One thing, Mr. Kennedy," Franson said, rising. "I'd appreciate it if you
  didn't mention our talk to Mr. McGarvey."
  "I'll. keep that in mind," Kennedy replied. "And I'd appreciate being kept
  informed."
 "Sure," the FBI agent said, and he left.
  Kennedy sat down. If the Bureau had something on McGarvey, it would have
  arrested him instead of coming out here with vague innuendoes and warnings.
  It would have been more of a surprise, however, if Washington had not been
  interested. McGarvey stepped on toes. He irritated people. His own
  admission, because irritated people made mistakes. But that wasn't what
  building airplanes was all about. Nobody was happy about hiring McGarvey.
  It had simply come down to dealing with what they all perceived as a
  necessary evil.
 It came down to survival.
  As long as McGarvey wasn't being formally charged with any crime he would
  stay on the payroll. If Franson told him what McGarvey was being
  investigated for, and what evidence the FBI had, he might make a different
  decision. As it was, no matter how uneasy the man made them feel, he was
  making progress, Kennedy hoped.

 "Are you okay there?" Phil Carrara asked.
 "Probably not," McGarvey answered, and he hung up.
  Carrara was calling from the untraceable number at his home, or he wouldn't
  have asked if McGarvey's
                HIGH FLIGHT 521

 phone was clean. It meant he finally had something to say and he didn't
 want anyone else to know about it.
  A dark-blue Chevy sedan followed McGarvey at a discreet distance from his
  apartment to Union Station just off Fareless Square where he used a pay
  phone in the arrivals hall to return his old friend's call. No one
  approached him.
  "The Bureau is taking an interest in me these days," he said. "Your
  doing?"
  "Ryan's got the General convinced that you've finally sold out."
  "That's why nobody's been in for me? Maybe I have, Phil."
  "Don't fuck with me. One of my people bought it outside Tokyo a few days
  ago," Carrara said, a sudden hard edge in his voice. "Found his body,
  what was left of it, at the bottom of a cliff. You were placed at the
  scene."
  It was Kamiya's doing, which meant the Japanese probably had an informant
  at the CIA's Tokyo Station. "That's not my style, Phil. Was I being
  followed?"
  "We just got word that you threatened the Portland SA-C."
  "That's bullshit, and you know it. I was set up in Tokyo, which means
  your operation there is rotten."
  "Leaks like a sieve," Carrara admitted. "But your name keeps popping up
  all over the place. Like you're pulling in all your chips. Like you're
  getting back at everyone who ever crossed you. One minute you're in
  Moscow dealing with the old KGB at the same time their navy is involved
  in a shootout with the Japanese. Then your name comes up in connection
  with a couple of former East German spies who could be involved with Ed
  Reid, at the same time he's shouting about a war with the Japanese. And
  finally you get yourself involved in the deaths of three Japanese
  nationals. Talk to me, Kirk. Japanese cops don't take hard crimes
  lightly. Especially not now, and especially not involving an American.
  Yet someone in the government over there had you sprung and the charges
  dropped, and a few hours later one. of
 522 DAVID HAGBERG

 my people is murdered. Ryan is going nuts. What the hell is going on,
 compar?"
  "Sokichi Kamiya. He's the power behind something called Mintori
  Assurance. They're the ones targeting Guerin. The East German thing is
  a coincidence."
  "Why kill one of my people? What's he gain by taking such a big risk?"
 "To shut me up."
 "It would have been easier to have you killed."
  "Would have started you thinking that maybe I was right after all. This
  way instead of getting help, I'm being investigated for murder and
  counter-espionage."
  "You took the offer to Tokyo. It wasn't the other way around."
  "I was trying to push them into making a mistake, which they did. We fly
  next week, and Kamiya is going to do everything in his power to stop us."
 Carrara was silent.
  "Think about it, Phil. What the hell would I have to gain after all these
  years?"
  "The President is going to Tokyo early. We just got that word this
  morning. The official announcement won't come for a few days yet. But we
  were asked about you.,,
 "When is he leaving?"
 "Sunday. 11
  MeGarvey tried to think it out. The coincidence of America's flight to
  Honolulu with the Vice President aboard on the same day the President was
  leaving for Tokyo was ominous.
 "If I'm the chief suspect why tell me?"
  It took Carrara a moment to answer. "Because I think Ryan is wrong. But
  you're being set up in an even more sophisticated way than you can
  imagine."
 "Let me come to Washington to talk to Murphy."
 "He won't listen to you now."
  -Goddammit~ Phil. Whatever's coming down will happen next Sunday. I think
  they're going to try to knock Guerin out of the sky."
                 HIGH FLIGHT 523

 "Then you'll have to stop them, but we can't help
 YOU."
 "Air Force One is a Guerin 522."
  "Oh, Christ," Carrara whispered. "It never occurred to me."
  "Murphy's got to convince him to wait until Monday."
 "Nobody will listen to you now, Kirk. It's too late."
 "What are you talking about?"
 "Ryan's got the headhunters after you."
  "That's Internal Affairs. What's my past got to do with this?"
  441t's your deep background, Kirk." Carrara's voice was distant. "I
  pulled your initial background investigation, and they picked up on it.
  They're just about back to the forties. When they get to the Manhattan
  Project ... shit, there's no hard evidence, but there'll be enough for
  Ryan."
  McGarvey had been hit in the gut with a battering ram. All these years
  he had managed to keep a lid on it, hoping against hope that it would
  pass, as all things do, but never really believing he'd ever be safe
  until he was dead. Now they were going to use his past against him.
 A father's sins after all did pass to the son.
 He hung up.

 "We've got a problem."
  Al Vasilanti looked up tiredly from the spreadsheets on his desk. His
  skin was pale, his eyes watery. "So what else is new, David? Is it
  Rolls?"
 "The FBI was just here about McGarvey."
 "Are they going to help us?"
  "He's under criminal investigation," Kennedy said. "I was all but told
  to fire him or we'd find ourselves in trouble. They're coming at us from
  all directions. It's getting crazy."
 "What are you suggesting?"
 "I think we should postpone the Honolulu flight."
 "Not a chance."
 524 DAVID HAGBERG

  Kennedy shrugged. "Then it beats me what I'm supposed to do."
  Vasilanti eyed him coldly. "Lead, follow, or get out of the way. The
  Commercial Airplane Division is yours as long as you think you can handle
  it. Can you?"
 "Yes. 11

  " We design and build airplanes. Safe airplanes. If there's a problem with
  that, we fix it. Now talk to me. Is there a problem getting America ready
  to fly?"
  Kennedy remembered the aftermath of the shuttle Challenger disaster. He'd
  been on the investigating team. "Technically no. But after Dulles it's hard
  to be sure what to do."
  " A different airplane, David. One that either flies or breaks us. What
  have they got on McGarvey?"
 "Franson wouldn't say."
 "Do you trust McGarvey?"
  "Not any farther than I could throw this building. But he knows what he's
  talking about. He set up the deal for us with the Russians. He identified
  our enemies in Japan. And he turned Sir Malcolm around. But it's like
  there's a dark halo over his head. He's a dangerous man."
  " That's what we were told before we hired him. But he came highly
  recommended. Do you think he can do the job?"
 "If anyone can," Kennedy admitted.
  "Then support him anyway you can, or cut him loose and we'll do this on our
  own. It's your decision, David. But make it, and then stick with it. We fly
  on Sunday."
 "Then that'll be my decision too, Al."
 Vasilanti's eyes narrowed. "Don't cross me."
  "So long as I'm president I'll decide whether we go or stay. In the end if
  you want it any different, you'll have to fire me. But for now, I'm in
  charge."
 "Make it work."
 "One way or another, I will."

 Louis Zerkel powered up the encoding circuitry and then the triggering
 interface. The first five repeaters ready to
                HIGH FLIGHT 525

 be tested were stacked up on the workbench waiting for their fresh
 batteries. He'd held off installing the batteries until he was sure of the
 mission date. They only had a useful life of thirty days, and he wanted
 a safety factor of at least three. He'd have at least that because Reid
 had confirmed that they were a definite go for next Sunday. Seven days.
 Mueller was leaving for the West Coast sometime tonight.
  He slit the seam at the bottom of the first repeater with a razor knife
  and carefully peeled the paper back, exposing the plain cardboard.
  Clipping the paper aside with a clothespin, he slit the glue joint at the
  top edge and lifted the cardboard top away from the old battery, which
  looked like a black plastic credit card with no markings except for a
  gold stripe at each end. Holding the cardboard aside, he lifted the
  battery away from its bed with a pair of tweezers and inserted a fresh
  battery in its place. Reversing his steps he reglued the cardboard top
  and refastened the paper covering. Next he switched on a field-strength
  meter, which he placed next to the repeater, and then keyed the encoder
  and trigger generator. A few milliseconds later, an audio tone went out,
  and the repeater kicked out a duplicate of the signal, but piggybacked
  on the same VHF-FM frequency that the seven airport noise-reduction
  research units they'd targeted were using.
  He looked up. Mueller and Reid had come down again to watch. "It works."
 "How long before you're finished?" Mueller asked.
 "With this batch a couple hours. I'll do the rest later."
 "What about the closed-circuit camera shunt?"
  "It's ready," Louis said. "I'll show you how it works as soon as I'm done
  with these. Now get out of here."
 "No mistakes."
 "None. Leave me alone."
 Reid and Mueller went back upstairs.
  "His brother's death hasn't affected him as much as I thought it would,"
  Reid said when they got to the living room.
 "In California he depended on his psychologist. Here
 526 DAVID HAGBERG

 on his brother. But now he's transferred his trust to me.,,
 Reid poured an Irish whiskey. "He's unstable."
  Mueller watched Reid toss the liquor back. "But brilliant. Without him we'd
  have nothing."
  "He's to be eliminated when he's finished. His safeguards need to be
  neutralized."
  "I don't think that will be a problem. But it'll have to be soon. Before
  Sunday. Because afterward we may have to move very quickly."
  Reid poured another drink, his hand shaking slightly. "You'll have to be
  very careful placing the repeaters."
  "I'll leave tonight. Oakland first because I know it, Los Angeles, and
  Portland. On the way back, Chicago and Minneapolis."
 "How long will it take you?"
  "Three days. Still gives us plenty of time for La Guardia and JFK in New
  York."
 "Dulles?"
  "I'll do that last. Security there must still be very strict."
  "The blame must fall on the Japanese," Reid said. "Not so much as a hint of
  any of this can come back to me. Not if my ultimate plan is to succeed."
  Mueller looked at him. "All those Guerin airplanes have been sabotaged to
  be destroyed. Have you given thought to that? Someone has come before us.
  Someone else has the same plan as you do."
 "The Japanese."
 ,'I don't think it's the government."
  Reid shook his head. "Neither do I, but someone has gone to the trouble.
  And whatever their thinking is, it's definitely long range."
 "To embroil the U.S. and Japan in a war?91
 "It's possible. But there's no way of knowing."
  "Still time to walk away from this, Reid. Let the others do your work for
  you. Now that you know that every Guerin airplane flying with that device
  can be knocked out of the sky, you have the advantage."
                HIGH FLIGHT 527

  "No," Reid said, girding himself. "It's too uncertain. It could be
  years."
 "Which you don't have?" Mueller suggested.
  "Which I'm not willing to give," Reid responded sharply. "You hold up
  your end of the plan, and I'll take care of mine. I'm returning to the
  city tonight."
  Mueller glanced toward the basement door. "Do you think it's wise to
  leave him here alone?"
  "There's no choice." Reid finished his drink. "You have work to do, and
  so do 1. My part in this does not end on Sunday. It just begins."

 Newton Kilbourne showed up in Kennedy's office at four. "Tell me we're
 postponing the Honolulu flight, and you'll make me a happy man,"
  "I wish I could, Newt, but I want to talk to you about something."
  "Sir Malcolm talked to George, said he might have come up with a couple
  of possibilities. But we're torn both ways at the Creek."
  Socrates had split his engineering staff into two teams: one studying the
  Dulles crash and the other working around the clock in an effort to make
  sure America would be ready to fly on Sunday. The strain was showing on
  all of them, including Kilbourne.
  "This is about McGarvey. Has he been told about Sir Malcolm's call?"
  Kilbourne's jaw tightened. "I haven't seen him all day. But he's no
  engineer. When he's out there he gets in everybody's way. I don't know
  what he said to Sir Malcolm, but frankly, David, I don't give a shit."
  If you had your way, you'd take him out back and settle your differences
  with fists, Kennedy thought. Or at least try. "Will we be ready to fly
  Sunday?"
  "Unless some more unk-unks show up, or unless you can talk some sense
  into the old man."
  "If the plane is ready to fly, we go. But this is about McGarvey. You and
  he have a problem. I want to know what it is."
 "You know."
 528 DAVID HAGBERG

 ::Tell me."
  He's in bed with my sister, and he's got her head so messed up she's become
  afraid of her own shadow. No matter what I say to her, or try to do, she
  tells me to mind my own fucking business."
  "He didn't want her involved in the project in the first place. It was my
  decision, and hers."
  " That's right, she's a grown-up woman doing a damned fine job for us in
  Washington. Who she sleeps with is none of my business. When it was you, I
  didn't approve, but I understood. With McGarvey it's a whole different ball
  game."
  Kennedy held himself in check. He'd never known that Dominique's brother
  knew about their relationship.
  "Ah, shit, I'm sorry, David. I was way out of line. But McGarvey is a
  spook, for Christ's sake. He's killed people. Not like a soldier on a
  battlefield, but like some stinking weasel in the night. Dominique's no
  match for him. She's already been mentally hurt. I'm scared shitless that
  one of McGarvey's enemies will try to hurt her physically."
  "She can't be protected against her will." Kennedy's heart was aching.
  Twice in two days he had been hit with his affair.
  "Bullshit. Before McGarvey went to Tokyo he saw Dominique at my place in
  Grosse Pointe. Convinced her to return to Washington because she wasn't
  doing anybody any good hiding out. He doesn't give a flying fuck about her.
  She's nothing more than insurance against your firing him. And probably
  cannon fodder against anybody gunning for him. She needs to be pulled off
  the firing line, and right now. And we need to get rid of McGarvey-by any
  means, fair or foul."
 "What about the Japanese?"
  Kilbourne shook his head. "Maybe Dulles was nothing more than an accident
  after all. Sir Malcolm admitted that he's running around in circles.
  Finding out how an airplane could be sabotaged doesn't mean someone
  actually did it."
 "Do you believe that?" Kennedy asked gently.
                HIGH FLIGHT 529

  Kilbourne started to make a quick reply, but bit it off. It was clear he
  was deeply troubled. "I don't know what I believe anymore, David. All I
  know is that we seem to be headed hell bent for leather down the toilet.
  I've got this bad feeling that it's all coming apart at the edges, and
  I don't know how long we can hold out."
  Paraphrased Yeats, Kennedy thought. Just as disturbing then as it was
  now. "McGarvey warned us."
  "We shouldn't have hired him. Greg and the others might still be alive."
 "He's helped already."
 "How?"
  "By identifying our enemies, At least we know who we're fighting. Maybe
  he'll finish it for us."
 Kilbourne said nothing,
 "Do you have any confidence in him?"
 "No," Kilbourne said. "Do you?"

 McGarvey telephoned Viktor Yemlin from a phone booth a few blocks from his
 apartment. It was the blind number the Russian had given him. "Has Abunai
 given you anything new?"
  "I'm glad you called, Kirk. I'll be pulling out of Washington in a few
  days."
 "What's happened, Viktor Pavlovich?"
  "Are you aware that the FBI is - investigating you for the murder of a
  CIA operative in Tokyo? And presumably for having some dealings with a
  former Stasi assassin?"
 "I just spoke with Phil Carrara."
  "One of our operatives was murdered in Tokyo last night. If you'd still
  been in Japan we would have suspected you."
 "Was he working for Abunai?"
  "I'm told he was one of the best. He'd managed to get inside Mintori. His
  death was made to look like a suicide."
 "Was he Japanese?"
  "Yes. His double cover was as a MITI operative. But listen very carefully
  to me, Kirk. In his last drop he said
 530 DAVID HAGBERG

 he was getting proof that Mintori was behind the crash of the American
 Airlines flight in 1990. But he was just as certain that Mintori knew
 nothing about the Dulles crash."
  "That means someone else is involved. Another Japanese zaibatsu?"
  "Mintori is just as confused as we are. No one knew anything, except that
  the Japanese seemed to be getting ready to go to war. Against us. All of
  their military installations are on alert status."
  "What about Russian bases along your far eastern coast?"
  "They've been on alert since the incident in the strait. But, Kirk, this
  goes beyond any agreement between my government and Guerin Airplane
  Company. I'm sorry, but I do not know how much longer I can help you, or
  even if I should be helping you now."
 "What about Abunai? Has it been shut down?"
  "I don't know. But something very strange is about to happen that has us
  all worried. My suggestion to you is to convince Guerin to ground its
  fleet. Now, before it's too late. God only knows what will happen if more
  of your airplanes fall out of the sky. Are you listening to me, Kirk?"
  "I need more information, Viktor Pavlovich. Before you leave Washington."
 "I don't know."
  "The Japanese must have some idea who was responsible for the Dulles
  crash. Even a suspicion, a hint. Anything. Find out."
 "I'll try," Yemlin said. "It's all I can promise."

 Mueller had three new sets of identification. Whatever problems Reid was
 facing he still had very good connections. So far as Mueller could tell
 the driver's licenses and Social Security and voter registration cards
 were authentic. He'd been assured that they were not on any hot sheet.
 Even the credit cards were valid and had substantial balances. He packed
 lightly, and this time since he would be doing most of his travel by air,
 he took
                HIGH FLIGHT 531

 no gun. No real need, he told himself, packing a straight razor with his
 shaving things. If he was caught with it he would have no recourse except
 to run. He had a substantial amount of money now, enough for his
 retirement. But he wanted to see this job to its end. And he wanted to
 eliminate Louis, and of course Reid, so that he would not have to spend
 the rest of his life looking over his shoulder because they talked.
  He took his bag down to the front hall and listened to the silence of the
  house for a few seconds. The highpitched whine of computer printers that
  they'd lived with for the past week or so was gone. Irritating, he
  thought. A noise he would never have to put up with again. He was
  old-fashioned. It was his East German upbringing. Time now to step away
  from a world that had become entirely too modem.
  Downstairs Zerkel was seated at the workbench, drinking a Coke. "I'm
  finished," he said.
 "Good. I'm ready to leave." Mueller walked over.
  "What are you going to carry these in?" The five repeaters were stacked
  next to a Sony Walkman and earphones.
  "My overnight bag. Will there be a problem with airport security
  equipment?"
  "Lead foil baffles. They'll show up hollow. And the radio will look like
  a radio." Zerkel picked up the Walkman and switched it on. It was tuned
  to a countryand-westem station. "Switch it to tape play anywhere within
  a ten- or twelve-foot radius of a closed-circuit television camera and
  the monitor will freeze on its last image."
 "How does it work?"
  "This picks the image off the camera tube, digitalizes it, and sends it
  right back, blocking out whatever's happening in real time. Seamless."
 "Wonderful."
 Zerkel grinned. "What do you think about that?"

 Zerkel finished the last three repeaters a few minutes after midnight.
 Before he continued he searched the
 532 DAVID HAGBERG

 entire house room by room to make sure he was alone. Back in the basement
 workshop he took a ninth repeater, which he'd built in secret, out of its
 hiding place, installed a fresh battery, and tested it.
  Sooner or later the President would fly Air Force One to Tokyo for the
  economic summit. Somehow, against all logic and wisdom, he'd been convinced
  by traitors in the White House that the Japanese were our friends. The
  situation was impossible.
  The President's plane would depart from Andrews Air Force Base southeast of
  the city. If Dulles were to be shut down after the air disasters, Air Force
  One would still fly, controlled by the Air Force at Andrews. Louis was not
  going to let that happen.
  He got up and went to the wine storage room, the walls deeply charred.
  They'd had a hell of a time stopping the fire from spreading to the rest of
  the house. It would have been a total disaster.
 "Sorry, brother," he said. "I didn't know."

 TWENTY-NINE

 Mueller took the red-eye flight from Baltimore,
      arriving in Oakland at midnight. An hour
      later he retrieved his bag, rented a Chevy
 Lumina from Budget, and drove across the airport to the
 industrial                        park. He left the car behind the
 Mirimax
 Distributing Company's warehouse, took one of the
 Roach Motels, the Walkman, and a small set of tools
 from his bag, and made his way in the darkness to the
 rear of the Oakland Airport Commission building. The
 closed-circuit television camera was stationary, focused
 on a spot                         in front of the door, so Mueller was
 able to
 approach                          it from the side without being seen. He
 acti
 vated the                         Walkman, set it down beneath the
 camera, and
                HIGH FLIGHT 533

 went to work on the security-card door lock. Within a minute and a half he
 had the cover off and the code reader shunted. The door lock clicked, and he
 let himself in.
  He went directly to the equipment room in the basement, defeated the
  security-card door lock, and placed the Roach Motel behind one of the
  electronic bays, pushing it as far back as he could reach.
  Retracing his steps, he relocked the equipment-room door, and outside
  relocked the back door, switched off the Walkman, and hurried back to his
  car.
  By 2:00 A.M. he was on the San Jose Freeway heading south.

 Louis Zerkel presented himself to the Andrews Air Force Base public-affairs
 office a couple of minutes before eight in the morning. He had telephoned a
 few days ago about base tours. Nine other people were there, one of them a
 reporter for a small Midwestern newspaper who kept flashing his press card
 around and asking if it would be okay to take pictures for his readers.
 Their young WAF sergeant tour guide gave them packets containing brochures
 on the base's history, maps, charts, an Air Force recruiting poster, and a
 visitor badge. This was the base that protected Washington, and from this
 base presidents flew to and from the world's capitals on the "business of
 democracy." By 9:30 they had toured the operations center, meteorology, a
 fighter/interceptor hangar, and then headed to the top of the control tower
 for a view of the base. Louis held back so that he was the last one up the
 stairs into the glass-enclosed observation center. There was a moment when.
 the reporter was posing the operators for a picture when no one was looking
 toward the door. Louis slipped the Roach Motel out of his coat pocket and
 slipped it behind one of the consoles, pushing it way out of sight with his
 foot. He didn't think it was likely that the repeater would be found anyt1me
 soon. He'd had a brief look behind the console and had seen at least an inch
 of dust.
 534 DAVID HAGBERG

 Mueller got a few hours of sleep at a Holiday Inn outside of Oxnard, then
 drove into Los Angeles to the public library a few blocks from Pershing
 Square. He went up to the information desk on the second floor in the non-
 fiction collection and asked one of the librarians about a history of Los
 Angeles International Airport.
  "LAX," the pleasant young black woman said. "Quite a colorful past, what
  with movie stars and all."
  "So I'm told," Mueller replied diffidently, slipping into a thicker
  German accent. "I'm doing a freelance piece for Die Stern. "
  "I get it." The woman grinned. "We see a lot of German tourists here. Is
  there a specific era or subject you might be interested in?"
  "The present-day facility. The terminal, the traffic, the electronic
  controls, all the safety aspects, you know."
  "They're just about done with the renovation. We have some material, but
  you really should talk to.someone at the airport commission. I'm sure
  they'd be happy to help."
  "I wanted to stop here first for the preliminary background. I don't know
  so much about the airport yet. I'm just beginning."
  "I'm with you. You don't wanna look like a fool asking the wrong
  questions."
 "Something like that," Mueller said.
  "Well, you just come along with me, and we'll see what we can find." The
  woman jumped up and hurried off.
  Mueller thought she was shaped like a pear, small on top and large on the
  bottom. Her skin was very black. Most Germans were just as prejudiced
  against Schwartzers as was the average rural Mississippian. But this one
  seemed reasonable.
  She found several files of brochures, pamphlets, maps, photographs, and
  magazine and newspaper clippings, which she laid out for Mueller on a
  table. Then she came up with a thick sheaf of blueprints and a bundle of
  aerial photos.
                HIGH FLIGHT 535

  'Before and after," she said. "I brought you both sets, in case you
  wanted to compare."
  She stood, smiling shyly, as if she were a waitress waiting for a tip.
  Mueller returned her smile. "You have been very helpful. I can't tell you
  how much."
  She beamed. "You need anything else, you come see me.,,
  "I'll do that," Mueller said. When the woman was gone he started working
  his way through the mound of material she had brought to him. It was
  incredible. No matter how long he was in this country, he never ceased
  to be amazed at its openness. The material he'd been so freely given
  would have been highly classified in any Eastern European country less
  than ten years ago, and still on a restricted list in almost every other
  country in the world. Now the problem wasn't so much one of access but
  one of volume. There was so much information available that espionage had
  become an endeavor for the computer expert.
  Within the hour, Mueller had what he needed, and he checked into a Hyatt
  near the airport, after booking a ticket on United to Portland leaving
  LAX at 11:30 P.m. Los Angeles, tonight, would be a near carbon copy of
  Oakland, and he was getting the feeling that the others would be just as
  easy.

 George Socrates felt his sixty-seven years. Working around the clock on
 two projects at the same time was taking its toll not only on him, but on
 both of his crews. Tired engineers made mistakes. And in this business
 mistakes sometimes cost lives, a fact he was reminded of every time he
 looked at a 522. But it was the safest airplane in the history of
 aviation. He had designed it that way, and it had been built that way. The
 learning curve had been very shallow. Before the assembly plant had gotten
 up to full speed, eighty of the jetliners had gone out the door. At every
 stage of the manufacture and assembly, Socrates had demanded and gotten
 perfec-
  536 DAVID HAGBERG

 tion. Now Sir Malcolm was telling him there could be flaws in the engine and
 in the way the engine was installed.
  "Only two possibilities," McGarvey cautioned. "Sir Malcolm said nothing
  about probabilities." Engineering had told him that Socrates was in the
  research hangar where a 522 was being disassembled one nut and bolt at a
  time.
  Socrates said nothing as the port engine was lowered out of the wing onto
  a maintenance stand. It was a little smaller than a military
  fighter/interceptor engine. About fourteen feet long and four feet in
  diameter at the widest, it weighed nearly forty-five hundred pounds dry.
  But it was a hot engine, producing seventy-five percent more thrust than
  the old-style jet engines. There were only two stages, instead of the
  normal four, in the turbine section: a high-pressure blisk and a
  low-pressure blisk that counter-rotated against each other. It had been a
  major breakthrough for Rolls in design efficiency.
  When the engine was secured the technicians removed the exhaust nozzle and
  then the inspection plates around the turbines and, just forward of them,
  the ceramic combustor. Next they removed some of the plumbing and sensors
  blocking a cowling that covered a section of bypass ducting.
 "The NTSB should be doing this," Socrates grumbled.
  "If you find something we'll pass it on to them," McGarvey said.
  The engineer looked at him. "We shouldn't be doing any of this. There
  should have been no crash."
 "But there was. Quit now and they win."
  I don't care, Socrates wanted to say, but he bit it off. He did care. In
  1990 when the American Airlines 522 had gone down, it was as if his child
  had been killed. And when their own equipment went down at Dulles someone
  had ripped his beating heart out of his chest. The bastards!
  The first of Sir Malcolm's suggestions was that someone had tampered with
  the bypass duct air-flow channels. High-pressure air and fuel were mixed in
  the
                HIGH FLIGHT 537

 combustor to create a controlled explosion, the mixture burning as high
 as thirty-eight hundred degrees Fahrenheit. This was too high a
 temperature for the ceramic turbine blisks, so more air was ducted to the
 combustion gas to reduce its temperature. If this airflow were to be
 interrupted the engine would overheat, swallow its blisks, and
 disintegrate. Literally blow itself to pieces.
  The technicians blocked the duct intake forward of the low-pressure
  compressors, placed a pressure gauge just aft of the combustor, and
  powered up the test rig that Sir Malcolm had outlined. It took a few
  seconds for the system to fully pressurize.
  "It's normal," one of the technicians reported, looking up. "Air flow is
  well within specs."
 "Double the pressure," Socrates ordered.
 "It'll pop our seals."
 "Or something else."
  The technicians did as they were told, slowly adding more pressure to the
  system until at one hundred eightyfive percent the pressure seal they'd
  used to block the forward intake ruptured with a bang.
  "Followed us all the way up, Mr. Socrates," the technician said. "Nothing
  wrong with the airflow on this engine."
  "Could it be the material that the walls of the bypass duct are made of?"
  McGarvey asked. He'd taken a crash course on engine design, manufacture,
  and operation before he'd gone to Tokyo, and then to England to see Sir
  Malcolm, so he knew something about what he was watching.
  "We tested this particular engine on a static stand at full thrust and
  didn't find a thing," Socrates said patiently.
  "But that's different than in actual operation. No vibrations from the
  wheels against the pavement, No landing shocks. No air turbulence."
  "There's better than seven hundred 522s flying. That's fourteen hundred
  engines. We've only had trouble with two."
 "Were there enough pieces found of both of those
 538 DAVID HAGBERG

 engines that sections of the bypass duct could be identified?"
 "I imagine there were."
  "What if something was wrong with the metal? If the bypass duct were to
  fail the engine would blow."
 "Sensors would shut it down first."
  "Not if the failure were catastrophic. Not if the entire bypass duct
  disintegrated because it was designed and built that way. Was the bypass
  duct wall on either engine magnafluxed to see if it was good?"
  Socrates looked startled. "I don't know," he said, thoughtfully. "But I'm
  going to find out."
 "It could be nothing."
  "We'll check everything." Socrates stepped away from the noise of the
  compressor and made a call on his cellular telephone.
  McGarvey walked over to one of the technicians. "Are you going to run the
  same test on the other engine?"
  "Probably. We'll tear this one down first. Rolls wants us to check the
  thermocouples. If they're bad it could send faulty readings to the on-board
  monitor."
 "Any of them critical?"
 The technician looked at him. "A few."
  "What about the bypass duct on this engine? Any way of magnafluxing the
  walls?"
  "Not without pulling the engine completely down. Which we'll probably end
  up doing."
 "These are different engines from those on the 2622?"
 "Totally," the technician said.
  "I see," McGarvey said. He walked around to the boarding ladder and climbed
  up to the open hatch just aft of the cockpit. All the seats had been
  removed from the main cabin and the floor pulled up so they could inspect
  the hydraulics and wiring. Even the two seats on the flight deck had been
  pulled out and the deck removed. Much of the control panel had been
  dismantled as well, many of the electronic instruments removed and hanging
  free, connected only by their cables.
  McGarvey peered down into the electronics bay beneath the cockpit. A
  trouble light was on, casting harsh
                HIGH FLIGHT 539

 shadows. He climbed down the ladder. The cramped space smelled of
 electronics, hydraulic fluid, and kerojet.
  Something was here, he thought. Something had been done to the American
  Airlines flight in 1990 and the Dulles flight last week to bring them down.
  Someone knew, and someone was still stalking them. Someone besides the
  Japanese.
  There had to be a connection between those incidents, this airplane, and
  the 2622 that would fly to Honolulu next week. He could feel it just as
  thick on the air as the strange smells down here.
  Something was coming. Some malevolent beast was raising its ugly head,
  threatening to devour them all.

 President James Lindsay met with Edward Reid in the Oval Office. It was an
 impressive room, and everyone who came here was moved. But Reid did not
 delude himself into believing that the President had agreed to see him
 because he was a former State Department official, or because he was any
 friend of the administration. Steve Nichols, the President's Appointments
 Secretary, had been very specific about it. "He'll give you fifteen minutes
 if you're prepared to leave your newsletter histrionics at home and give him
 some straight talk. Japan is very important to him at this point."
 "And to me, Steve."
  The President was behind his desk. "You're looking fit, Edward. How do you
  do it?"
  "Clean living, Mr. President. That and a fifth of good Irish a day." They
  shook hands.
  The President motioned for him to have a seat and then picked up the
  telephone. "Harold, why don't you come o~er now? Ed Reid is here." He hung
  up. "Harold might be able to lend some insight."
  "By all means, Mr. President," Reid said, not surprised. Lindsay and his
  National Security Adviser were nearly inseparable.
  Harold Secor came in and shook hands with Reid. "It's been a while since
  we've talked, Ed. Things are going well for you?"
 540 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Can't complain. I have a lot of happy readers."
  "So we've been hearing-from State, among others. Carter said you and he
  had a little chat a couple of weeks ago."
  Reid forced a smile. He was on very dangerous ground. He could not afford
  the scrutiny of a full-scale Bureau investigation, This was his last
  chance to stop it. "Which is why I'm here. Somehow what I've been writing
  lately has gotten distorted. I want to clear the air."
  "I read your stuff. Frankly, it's got me concerned," the President said.
  "I'm flattered. But I want my readers to be concerned."
  "You're advocating something we could not do, even if we wanted to. I've
  had my fill of Japan bashing, and I won't tolerate it. They're our major
  trading partners, and right now they're touchy as hell. Can't say as I
  blame them."
  "Then, respectfully, Mr. President, I'm being misread. I am anything but
  a Japan basher. By the way, that's a term invented by the Japanese,
  before the Second World War. 19
 "What's your point, Ed?" the President asked, coolly.
  "The Japanese are having their own financial troubles. They're getting
  themselves into a position where they'll either have to start calling in
  their notes, all of them, or start an aggressive round of expansion.
  South Korea, the Malaysian peninsula, the Philippines, Borneo, maybe even
  Australia."
  "You heard Prime Minister Enchi's free trade announcement," Secor said.
  "He can't possibly make that happen," Reid replied. "In the first place
  the Diet would never go along with it. There are enough hotheads in Tokyo
  to block him. But for the sake of argument, if he somehow got it passed,
  Japan would face bankruptcy. Either that or it would have to take over
  a significant percentage of the same markets we're trying to develop in
  the region."
 "I didn't just get off the banana boat," the President
                HIGH FLIGHT 541

 retorted angrily. "I understand what he's trying to do, and I understand
 what's at stake for us. It's one of the things we'll discuss at the
 summit. But we can hardly block them from Subic Bay. That's what you're
 calling for."
  "You're right, Mr. President, and I was wrong. They're a peaceful
  sovereign state, and we can no more stop them from developing a defensive
  military force than we can block Germany from doing the same."
  "Then you admit you were wrong?" Secor asked suspiciously,
  "In that, yes," Reid said earnestly. "I'm an old man, and I tend to get
  carried away in the past." He sat forward for emphasis. "But I don't
  believe I'm wrong in warning about the potentially dangerous climate
  that's developing in Japan. We have our Japan bashers, as you so rightly
  point out, Mr. President, but the Japanese have a growing anti-American
  sentiment that could get out of hand."
 "Tokyo is aware of that. It doesn't change anything."
  "Potentially no. Providing there are cool heads at the tiller. And
  providing we all understand the differences between protectionism and
  simple common sense."
  "Jesus Christ-" Secor said, but the President held him off.
 "What the hell are you telling me?"
  "Half this country thinks that you're going to give away the farm in
  Tokyo. That when you're finished, our balance of trade deficit will at
  least double. America is for sale, and you are going to broker it. Just
  like Truman did with our nuclear advantage. Like Kennedy did with Cuba
  after the Bay of Pigs. Nixon did with Vietnam. Carter did with the Panama
  Canal. The list isn't endless, but it's sufficiently long and harmful
  that we can't afford another addition."
 The President and his NSA exchanged glances.
  "You're not doing such a hot job clearing the air, Ed," Secor said. "From
  where I sit you're digging yourself a pretty deep hole. Would you mind
  explaining just what the hell you're doing here this afternoon?"
 542 DAVID HAGBERG

  "I've come to offer my support and assistance. I think you need it."
  "You may be old by your own admission, but you're a gutsy SOB," the
  President commented wryly. "I'm listening."
  Reid's stomach was beginning to cramp, and he wanted a drink more than
  anything else. But from the start he'd known that the path he'd chosen
  was a dangerous one. "I'm not in the timid business," he'd told his wife,
  years ago. Her counsel was that if he truly believed in what he was
  doing, then he should never hold back. Admiral Farragut.
  "Mr. President, as you know the readership of my newsletter is
  international. Politicians, financiers, scientists, journalists. People
  in the know. Men and women of varying interests-and agendas. I depend
  upon them for feedback. For information. For news tips. Two months ago
  I received a warning that a Japanese terrorist 6rganization was
  responsible for the 1990 crash of an American Airlines flight out of
  Chicago and that there was more to come."
 "Did you tell the FBIT' Secor asked.
  "I didn't take it seriously. The NTSB said the crash was an accident. But
  considering what's happening in Japan now, I started to wonder. A few of
  my readers are Japanese. Businessmen. All of them opposed to Prime
  Minister Enchi."
 "They can't be your friends," the President said.
  "No, sir. But they are my subscribers, and they do provide me an insight
  that I would like to offer to you."
 "I'll be damned."
  "I don't want to be an enemy of this administration, Mr. President. I'm
  here to serve."
 "How?" Secor asked.
  "Prime Minister Enchi needs to be made aware of the nature of his
  opposition. Coming from you, he'll owe you one. And so will my grateful
  readership. Take me with you to Tokyo. If nothing else, my presence just
  might polarize Enchi's enemies so they will be easier to spot and deal
  with."
                HIGH FLIGHT 543

  "You've got a deal," the President said, before Secor could comment.
  "You won't regret it, sir. I'll be ready in a couple of weeks."
 "Sunday."
 Reid looked blankly. "Mr. President?"
  "The announcement will be made in a couple of days. But we're going over
  early. I leave on Sunday from Andrews. Are you with me?"
  Reid was flabbergasted. "Yes, Mr. President," he mumbled. It was all he
  could say.

 Mueller arrived in Portland a little past 1:30 A.M. Instead of waiting
 until morning to do his research at the public library downtown, he looked
 up the Portland Airport Commission's address in the telephone book and lo-
 cated it on the map at the head of the Yellow Pages. Like at Oakland and
 Los Angeles, the commission was housed in a modem building across the
 airport from the terminal. He rented a car from Hertz and drove directly
 over, parking in back of an office building a block away. In the distance
 he could see a huge complex all lit up. It was Guerin Airplane Company's
 worldwide headquarters. Glen had told them how big the place was, and
 Mueller decided he hadn't been exaggerating. The facility was awesome.
 There was no television camera on the rear entrance to the Airport
 Commission building, but there was one just inside the corridor that
 Mueller almost missed. When he spotted it he stepped back into the
 shadows, waited several moments for an alarm, and when nothing happened
 he switched on the Walkman. He made his way down to the basement, and
 after searching four rooms he found the noise-management project
 transmitters and placed the repeater. He was away from the airport by 2:30
 and checked into a nearby hotel by 3:00. The first flight to Chicago left
 at 6:45 A.M.

 America was bathed in strong lights, her muslin shroud removed. She
 crawled with people, inside and out. Scaffolding surrounded her, and many
 of her cowlings
 544 DAVID HAGBERG

 and inspection plates were off. Heavy cables snaked across the floor to
 her from dozens of test and diagnostic stands, and her starboard subsonic
 engine had been removed and lay naked on a test stand beneath her delta
 wing. Newton Kilbourne and George Socrates stood to one side talking with
 Kirk McGarvey. None of them seemed happy, but they were not interfering
 with the work in progress. Even as Socrates' engineering team was checking
 every single system aboard the hypersonic jetliner from the bottom up,
 interior decorators were feverishly racing to finish the coach and
 first-class cabins and heads. An FAA-designated inspection team worked
 around the clock alongside Guerin's prep crew. Most of them were Guerin
 engineers. The FAA could not afford to field its own inspection teams, so
 it relied on the commercial airplane industry to check itself. As odd as
 the system was, it worked. And as stripped as America was at that moment,
 she still looked as if she were flying Mach five at the edge of space.
  Kennedy stood in the shadows on the balcony in front of Engineering
  looking down at the activity on the assembly floor. Nothing was the same,
  nothing could ever be the same, since they'd hired McGarvey. No longer
  were they simply in the business of designing, manufacturing, and selling
  airplanes. Now they were in the business of survival. What a terrible
  price they were paying just to keep the company alive, or more accu-
  rately, just to keep the company here in America. It would have been so
  much easier if in the beginning they had worked in cooperation with the
  Japanese like Boeing. But of course they were beyond that now. Way beyond
  that.
  McGarvey turned and looked up. Kennedy stepped farther back into the
  shadows although there was no possible way that he could be seen from
  below. They'd been warned that while McGarvey always got the job done,
  no one connected with him would come out unscathed. Kennedy hadn't really
  believed that until now. The entire company had been affected by the
  man's presence. Yet Kennedy couldn't think of any other way
                HIGH FLIGHT 545

 out for them. He shook his head. "Christ," he said, under his breath, and
 he headed through Engineering to the back stairs and his waiting car. Time
 to go home. After a few hours sleep the situation would look different.
 He hoped.

 Loneliness was a familiar feeling to McGarvey. One that he'd figured he
 had control of. It had begun in Kansas after his parents' funeral when
 he'd returned to the ranch to straighten out their affairs. From that day
 forward he'd carried a secret with him that was so heavy at times he
 thought he would stumble and fall. But it wasn't until Carrara's admission
 that Internal Affairs would probably find out, that the real loneliness
 hit him like the weight Atlas had to bear. Crushing.
  He stood, smoking a cigarette at the window of his eleventh-floor
  apartment, looking toward the river and the sparse early morning traffic
  on the Burnside Bridge. During the day the city was pretty, the views
  toward the mountains spectacular. But at night Portland was like any
  other city with its shadows and secrets, most of its people safely locked
  away against harm.
  But there really were monsters in the world. Creatures that could hurt
  you even if you were securely hidden.
  He knew about them. He'd been dealing with them for most of his adult
  life. But had he made any difference, he wondered? Most of the time he
  thought he had. But on nights like these he wasn't so sure. McGarvey got
  the cordless phone from the kitchenette and entered Dominique Kilbourne's
  Washington number as he walked back to the living room window. As it
  started to ring he lit another cigarette.
  For instance, was the world any safer for people like Dominique because
  of him? He thought not. In fact because of him the sanctity of her
  apartment had been violated, and she would carry that fear with her for
  the rest of her life. In Detroit she'd looked haunted, angry.
 "Hello?" she answered, her voice thick with sleep.
 "It's me.,,
 "Are you here in Washington?"
 546 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Portland," McGarvey said. "How are you?"
 The line was silent.
 "Dominique?"
  "Leave me alone," she said, her voice strangled. "Just do your job and keep
  me out of it. I've spoken to David, and he agrees."
  46 I'm sorry. I wish it were different. But I'm worried about YOU."
 Again the line was silent.
 "Dominique?"
  She didn't answer, and a second later he had a dial tone.
  It would be morning soon, and he would have to make a decision. Stay or go.
  Maybe, he thought, he'd finally gotten involved with something beyond his
  abilities.
 The telephone rang, and he answered it. "YesT
 "This is David Kennedy."
 McGarvey looked toward the river. "Good morning." :'We're terminating your
 services."
 'Has something happened?"
  " Too much," Kennedy said, his voice strange and distant. "We'll send a
  check to you care of the college at Milford. I'm sorry it didn't ... work
  out."
 :'David?"
 'What?"
 "Be careful," McGarvey said. "And good luck."

 THIRTY

 The winds and seas had risen all afternoon and into the evening from the
 northwest, so that by 10:00 P.m. the Fair Winds, her rail buried, was making
 six knots on a long tack to the northeast. They'd left their anchorage off
 the Island of Yoron at midmor-n-
                 HIGH FLIGHT 547

 ing hoping to make the one hundred twenty miles to the city of Naze on
 Amami-O-Shima by the next morning, but what the locals called the
 Kuroshio-Black Current-had set them farther to the south than Stan Liskey
 had expected and had sharply reduced their speed of advance. All he was
 hoping for now was to make the lee of Okinerabu Island, barely thirty
 miles from their morning anchorage, and take shelter from the storm.
  The companionway hatch banged open, and Carol Moss, dressed in yellow
  foul-weather gear, deftly hoisted herself up on deck. She slammed the
  hatch shut and clipped her safety harness to the jack line that ran from
  the cockpit forward to the bow, before slumping down next to Liskey on
  the low side. "Some show," she shouted over the shrieking wind.
 "What's the SatNav say?"
  Carol glanced at the compass. "Three miles on this course and we'll be
  home free. Okinawa weather predicts the winds will top forty-five
  sustained, with gusts above that."
  The Aires windvane was still managing to hold the boat on course, so
  despite the noise, and the violent motion, which made life below decks
  nearly impossible, they were in no immediate danger. And within a half-
  hour, if the Magellan GPS satellite navigation unit was doing its job,
  they would be in the island's wind shadow. By midnight they would be
  anchored safely out of the building storm.
  "How are you doing, kid?" He studied her eyes. She looked nervous but not
  frightened.
  She grinned. "I'd feel safer walking on Times Square. But what the hey,
  a girt only lives once."

 Howard Ryan was on a witch hunt, but he'd been strangely aloof for the
 past two days. Phil Carrara was getting concerned. He knew the Agency's
 counsel well enough to understand that when the noise from the seventh
 floor stopped, something big was on the wind.
 548 DAVID HAGBERG

 As Deputy Director of Operations he figured it was his business to know
 what was going on. There was no other way he could do his job. Rumor was
 that Internal Affairs had come up with a phone intercept involving McGar-
 vey. He called upstairs to Ryan's secretary who said he was with the
 General, but that he'd be back at his desk in a couple of minutes. It was
 a very busy day, though, she warned.
  He was always busy. The question this afternoon was busy with what? Ryan
  was in his office when Carrara came up.. He didn't look happy to see the
  DDO.
 "A minute of your time, Howard," Carrara said.
  "Can whatever you have wait until later?" Ryan asked. "I'm simply stacked
  to my ears here."
  "No, it can't wait. But I'll make it short." Carrara closed the door.
  Ryan eyed him coldly for a second or two, then withdrew a file from his
  drawer and handed it across. "You want to see this?"
  It was the Internal Affairs telephone transcript of a conversation
  between McGarvey, who'd called from Portland, and Viktor Yemlin at his
  blind number here in Washington. It was brief and to the point.
  "Confirms what we're getting from the satellites," Carrara said.
  "I'll tell you what it confirms, mister. It confirms our suspicions that
  McGarvey has become a wild card and he's waging a one-man war on Japan.
  He's got the goddamned Russians so riled up they don't know whether to
  shit or go blind. He's got Guerin convinced they're under attack. And
  he's got the Japanese government screaming for blood. They don't even
  know what's going on in their own backyard, and they've got their fingers
  on the triggers of a whole bunch of military hardware. I'd say he's done
  a pretty fair job of screwing us. Don't you agree?"
  "That's not the way I read this," Carrara said, keeping his voice even.
 "I didn't expect you would."
                HIGH FLIGHT 549

 "Tokyo is my operation."
  "True, but this is an internal Affairs investigation in cooperation with
  the FBI's Counterespionage Division."
 "We'll see what the DCI has to say."
  "The General is on his way to the White House. If you want to wait for
  him, that's your prerogative. But as of this moment you are to consider
  yourself on administrative leave. And that, Mr. Carrara, comes directly
  from the man. Dick Adkins will take over your duties for the moment."
  "Puta, " Carrara said softly, every muscle in his body screaming to leap
  across the desk and beat the sonofabitch to a pulp.
  "What does that mean?" Ryan shouted, but Carrara turned on his heel and
  left.
  Downstairs in his office he telephoned John Whitman at FBI headquarters.
  It took a minute for the call to go through. Internal Affairs probably
  had a monitor on his phone, but he didn't give a shit.
  "I just hung up with Howard Ryan. He said you'd probably be calling,"
  Whitman said. He and Carrara went back a few years.
 "What's going on?"
  "I can't really talk about this with you, Phil. But McGarvey is heading
  for a big fall this time."
 "He's been set up."
  "That's not how we're seeing it," the FBI special investigator said.
  "Come on. He wouldn't have been involved in the first place if Guerin
  hadn't come to him. He didn't go looking for this."
  "Well, that's a moot point. Guerin fired him this morning. So now he's
  on his own."

 Mueller arrived at Chicago's O'Hare Airport a few minutes after one in the
 afternoon. After he retrieved his bag, he went upstairs to the main floor
 of the terminal to book his late-night flight to Minneapolis and from
 Minneapolis back to Washington first thing in the morn-
  550 DAVID NAGBERG

 ing. As he headed across the main concourse to the Northwest ticket
 counters he passed a large display showing the proposed new airport
 expansion for completion in 2010. "Chicago Metropolitan Airports Com-
 mission working for you." Alongside the display were maps and photographs
 showing a history of the airport, including the present-day layout. The
 Airport Commission was located near the terminal, on this side of the
 airport. But something else caught his eye. The commission was to be
 headquartered in a new building when the expansion was completed.
 Color-coded tags corresponded with the functions that the commission was
 responsible for. A yellow tag, representing the noisemanagement program,
 wasn't on this side of the airport with the commission's other offices.
 Mueller searched for it on the present-day map, finding it in a building
 adjacent to the control tower. Security would be more difficult here than
 it had been at Oakland, Los Angeles, and Portland. But not impossible, he
 decided.
  He rode a shuttle over to the Airport Marriott Hotel, where he took a
  shower and tried to get some sleep. But another thought intruded, and
  after a while he got dressed and called the Sterling farmhouse from a pay
  phone in the Holiday Inn lobby a quarter-mile away. He was worried about
  Zerkel.
  Reid answered out of breath. "Get back here as soon as possible," he
  said. "We've got a problem."

 Carrara had a drink alone in town at the Grand Hyatt. He telephoned his
 wife to say that he would be late and then phoned David Kennedy at Guerin
 Airplane Company in Portland. He got Kennedy's secretary, who after
 Carrara identified himself said that her boss was in Washington at the Hay
 Adams. He called the hotel, but although Mr. Kennedy had checked in an
 hour before, he did not answer his phone. Next he telephoned Dominique
 Kilbourne's office, but her secretary said that Ms. Kilbourne had gone
 home. Back at the bar he tried to work out his feelings. All his life he
 had fought to control
                HIGH FLIGHT 551

 his Hispanic temper. He sparked easily, and he hoped that Ryan would never
 know how close he had come to physical harm this afternoon. Now Carrara's
 anger had lost its edge, but it had deepened. It was his overblown sense
 of justice. Ryan and Murphy were dead wrong about McGarvey. They all were.
 And Carrara found that wrapped like a poisonous snake around his anger was
 fear. He'd never known his old friend to exaggerate. Never. If McGarvey
 was concerned, he told himself, then they all should be concerned. He
 drove over to the Watergate complex, parked in one of the visitor's slots,
 and took the elevator up to Dominique's apartment. She answered her door
 only after Carrara held his CIA photo ID up to the camera lens.
  "If he's left Portland, I don't know where he is," Dominique said. "You
  people are going to have to find him on your own, and leave me out of
  it."
  "If you're talking about Kirk McGarvey, Ms. Kilbourne, I'll find him.
  Right now I'm trying to catch up with David Kennedy."
  "What makes you think he's here?" she flared. "Why don't you leave me
  alone?"
  "Kirk told me that you and Mr. Kennedy often worked together. He's here
  in the city, and I thought you might know where he was. I'd like to talk
  to him about Kirk."
 "David fired him. So he's no longer our concern."
  "You're wrong about him," Carrara said, reading the hurt in Dominique's
  eyes.
  "Don't tell me," she snapped. "He's a goddamned saint."
  Carrara couldn't suppress a grin. "He's anything but that. But he's not
  a traitor. And he genuinely wants to help Guerin."
 "You're not trying to arrest him?"
  "No, but the Bureau might try to bring him in. If that happens someone
  might get hurt."
 "So what?"
 "He needs friends, Ms. Kilbourne. More than just me.
 552 DAVID HAGBERG

 He can't fight the whole world alone. But he'll try. I'll guarantee it.
 He's done it before and almost gotten himself killed."
  ,q don't want to bear it," Dominique said, turning away in anguish.
  "Just tell me how to get in touch with David Kennedy and I'll leave you
  alone." ,
  The door opened the rest of the way, and David Kennedy, in shirt sleeves,
  his tie loose, stood there. "You'd better come in. This can't get any
  worse."
 "I'm afraid it can, Mr. Kennedy."
  Carrara followed them into the living room, where drinks were laid out
  on the coffee table in front of the long white couch. They offered him
  nothing. Dominique sat alone at one end of the couch, Kennedy at the
  other end, Carrara in a thick leather chair across from them. He could
  see the deepening afternoon sky out the big windows. The Watergate was
  an expensive address, but the airplane business involved very big
  money-so big that many governments couldn't afford to maintain viable
  airlines. The stakes were high, but Carrara reminded himself that for the
  most part it was ordinary men and women who operated the world's
  institutions; from the President in the White House to the janitors in
  the Kremlin, all were born, lived their lives the best they knew how, and
  then died.
  "I've talked to you on the phone," Dominique said. "Just who are you?"
  "I'm the Deputy Director of Operations for the CIA. I've known Kirk
  McGarvey for a long time. He's a good man. He's done a lot for this
  country."
  "Why are you here, Mr. Carrara?" Kennedy asked. "What do you want from
  me? It was you people who recommended McGarvey to us, and now I'm finding
  out that the FBI has him under investigation. What the hell do you want?"
  "I have a pretty fair idea why you hired him. He talked to me about it.
  As a matter of fact he asked for my help. But why did you fire him?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 553

  "Unless you're here officially, which I doubt, that's company business."
  "No doubt someone from the Bureau talked to you, but is that the only
  reason, Mr. Kennedy?"
 "Why is the FBI investigating him?" Kennedy asked.
  "Kirk has his enemies at the Bureau and at Langley. Especially at
  Langley. People he's crossed before, and who'll believe what they want
  to believe."
 "Murphy?"
  "No," Carrara answered, which wasn't quite accurate. "But it's someone
  who has access to him. The point is that whatever evidence they think
  they have against him, will never hold up in court. All that'll happen
  is they'll pull him away from what he's working on until it's too late."
  Kennedy shook his head. "It may already be too late. If McGarvey is right
  they're going to hit us again on Sunday."
 "What are you talking about?"
  "He's convinced that the American Airlines crash in 1990 and our crash
  last week at Dulles were engineered by a Japanese consortium of
  businesses working under the banner of Mintori Assurance."
  "The American Airlines crash was probably engineered by Mintori, but not
  Dulles. That was either an accident, or caused by someone else trying to
  bring you down."
 "Where did you get that?"
 "Kirk got it from his Russian contact."
 "He never told me."
  "Not until he had the proof, Mr. Kennedy. The Russians are working on
  it."
 "But not us?" Dominique asked. "Not the CIAT'
  "No." Carrara turned back to Kennedy. "What's this about Sunday? Are you
  talking about the Honolulu flight?"
  "That's right. McGarvey thinks that whatever is going to happen, will
  happen then."
 "Like bringing that flight down?"
 554 DAVID HAGBERG

  "And maybe some others. Enough to wipe us off the map." Kennedy sat
  forward. "But Dulles was no accident. MeGarvey is convinced of it, and
  so am 1. We just can't find out how it happened."
  "Ground the fleet. The FAA could be convinced to issue the order. At
  least our carriers would have to comply."
  "The net effect would be the same," Kennedy said tiredly. He was strung
  out. "And I don't know what I would tell the FAA, not to mention my board
  of directors and stockholders. All that, providing McGarvey is right. He
  could be wrong. Hell, even my own government doesn't believe it."
 "I do," Carrara said quietly. "Why'd you fire him?"
  "There was a lot of dissension because of him, which we don't need. But
  McGarvey's a dangerous man. He's an assassin. We build airplanes, not
  sniper rifles."
  "Excuse me for saying that firing McGarvey because he's dangerous is like
  pulling the lightning rods off the barn because they attract lightning.
  If anybody is going to find out who's after you, it's him,"
  "Our real troubles didn't start until after we hired him."
  "You're wrong. Otherwise why'd Al Vasilanti ask the General for help? And
  why'd you hire Mac in the first place? You understood what you were
  getting into. You were told about him, about what he does, and how he
  goes about his business. You must also have been told that he doesn't
  give up so easily."
  "We hired him, we can fire him," Kennedy said doggedly. "He's caused us
  no end of trouble. One of our airplanes went down for Christ's sake. We
  lost some very good people at Dulles. There's no end to it."
 "Not the way you want to go at it."
  "I'm here in Washington to officially ask the FBI for help. Hiring some
  maverick sharpshooter was a bad idea at best. It should never have
  happened. Whether or not he's guilty of anything, the man is bad
  business."
 "Why didn't you go to the Bureau for help in the first
                HIGH FLIGHT 555

 place?" Carrara asked, although he already knew the answer.
  Kennedy seemed a little uncomfortable. "Without evidence there was nothing
  they could do for us."
 "Do you have the evidence now?"
 "Yes, we do."
  "Where did you get it, Mr. Kennedy? Who supplied it to your company?
  Because if you tell the Bureau that McGarvey came up with it, I don't think
  they'll be very impressed. After all, they think he's a bad apple."
 "He's innocent until proven guilty."
  "The Bureau doesn't investigate people they believe ,are innocent. And I
  don't suspect you fire them."
  "I didn't fire McGarvey because I thought he was guilty of any crime. I
  fired him because I can no longer justify keeping a murderer on the
  payroll. My job is to build and sell safe airplanes, nothing more. I don't
  need someone like McGarvey to fuck us up."
  "Someone like McGarvey," Carrara repeated. "I don't think either of you has
  any idea who he is, what he's gone through."
  "He's a loser," Dominique said angrily. "The CIA fired him!"
  "Yes. And since then we've given him assignments that our people simply
  couldn't manage. Without exception he's come through for us, because ... he
  loves his country. He's one of the best men I know. Even his exwife will
  defend him."
 "Then why's she his ex?"
  "Because she couldn't stand seeing what the job was doing to him. She had
  a hard time living with a man who has the habit of putting his life on the
  line for nothing more than an ideal while the people around himsupposedly
  his friends-have the habit of stabbing him in the back."
  "You're taking a big risk coming here like this," Kennedy said.
  "Yes, I am," Carrara admitted. "But before you write McGarvey off-which I
  think would be the biggest
 556 DAVID HAGBERG

 mistake you've ever made-I want you to hear me out. The Bureau knows that
 you fired him, which is a strike against him. And they know that he spoke to
 his Russian contact on Guerin's behalf, which is another strike against him.
 When the CIA's Internal Affairs Division finishes with its witch hunt, it'll
 be all over unless he can find out who's after you and stop them."
 "He's got a dark secret . . ."
  "That's right, and it's all crap, but they'll use it against him. When it
  comes time to comer him he'll fight back, and he'll lose. They'll kill him.
  I can guarantee it."
 "Does he know?" Dominique asked.
 "Yes, he does. I told him."
 "When?" Kennedy asked.
 "Before you fired him."
 "God," Dominique said softly.
  "Don and Elsie McGarvey, Kirk's parents, were graduate students of
  engineering at the University of Chicago. They worked with Enrico Fermi on
  the first atomic pile, and then went down to Los Alamos during the war to
  help develop the atomic bomb. They weren't outstanding, but they were
  bright enough to stick around for Teller's hydrogen bomb program. That was
  the big deal back then, and they stuck it out. Saved their money, and when
  Kirk's sister was bom they headed north and bought a big cattle ranch in
  western Kansas. Did okay for themselves.
  "Funny thing about them. They were friends with Oppenheimer. And Don
  MeGarvey was an avid student of Russian history and the Russian language.
  It was in their security clearance files. But at the time no one took much
  of an interest. They were just engineers, not scientists. When Oppenheimer
  fell, and when Klaus Fuchs was arrested, nothing ever happened to the
  McGarveys. Nobody thought much about them."
  "Are you telling us that Kirk's parents were spies for the Russians?"
  Dominique demanded.
  "Kirk and his sister were raised on the ranch, and all they ever knew about
  their parents was that they were a
                HIGH FLIGHT 557

 loving, very intelligent couple who doted on their children and who had
 a deep interest in Russia.
  "They were killed in a car accident in the sixties. Left their money to
  their daughter, who by then was married and had a family of her own, and
  the ranch to Kirk. But a few days after their funeral, he put the place
  up for sale, and took the first offer."
 "He found out they were Russian spies?"
  "He was working for us by then, and since he spoke pretty good Russian,
  and he understood them, he was on a debriefing of a KGB; defector. The
  man was one of the bankers for North American operations. He brought out
  a list of agents, identified only by code names, and what and when they
  had been paid. One of the names on the list matched something he found
  going through his parents' files and records. Some of them, I guess, were
  hidden on the ranch. But he found out."
 "He didn't tell anybody?"
  "No," Carrara said. "That was the first time someone he loved and trusted
  betrayed him. There were others. Still are. There was also some evidence
  that his parents had been assassinated, to keep them quiet."
 "By the Russians?"
 "It pointed that way."
  "So he became a super-spy not only to atone for what his parents did but
  to get back at the Russians."
  "That's right. He's taken a lot of hits since then. Damned near died
  several times. Lost just about everything he ever had. His first wife
  died of alcohol poisoning. His second wife and daughter were almost
  killed by someone trying to get to him. A woman he lived with in
  Switzerland for five years was killed by the East Germans. And one of his
  best friends, a man named John Lyman Trotter, who was his control
  officer, turned out to be a double agent for the Russians."
 Dominique glanced at Kennedy. "Now us."
  "It's even worse than that. Could be the Russians didn't kill his parents
  after all. Might have been us. A lot of crazy shit happened in those
  days."
 558 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Does he know?"
  Carrara shook his head. "There's no proof. And I don't think I'd care to be
  in the same room with him when he was told."
  "What do you want?" Kennedy asked Carrara. "I don't know what to do
  anymore. Where to turn. Should I rehire him?"
 "No," Carrara said. "Just don't write him off."
 "I was wrong ...
  "We were wrong, David," Dominique interrupted. "What happens next, Mr.
  Carrara?"
  "I'm going to help out. But we don't have much time, so I'm going to need
  your cooperation."
 "You've got it," Kennedy said.
  Dominique nodded. She had started to cry, but she cut it off. "What can we
  do?"
  "Mac cares about you, and they probably know it. Makes you a target. So
  you're going to have to disappear for a while."
 She wanted to protest, but she didn't.
  "I'll talk to him first, and then arrange something. In the meantime both
  of you should go back to what you were doing."
 "Should I go to the Bureau for help?" Kennedy asked.
 "Definitely, and then return to Portland."
  "It's going to be difficult-" Dominique was shivering.
  Carrara felt genuinely sorry for her, but she was one tough woman. "Welcome
  to the club," he said, not unkindly.

 Arimoto Yamagata was sitting cross-legged on the floor in the middle of the
 Hyatt Regency penthouse when Chance Kennedy let herself in. The afternoon
 sun slanting through the windows gave his skin a golden glow. God-like, the
 thought popped into her head, and she shivered despite her resolve that she
 would be objective. She didn't want him to leave, but if he stayed she was
 convinced that he would get hurt. They were talking about a multibillion
 dollar business that Al Vasilanti
                HIGH FLIGHT 559

 would do anything to save. He'd hired McGarvey, some ex-paramilitary thug.
 God only knew who else was out there ready to pounce.
  She watched him from the entry hall. He was doing something to the
  branches of a very small tree, his movements precise, very liquid. It was
  the same each time they made love. He made it an experience. Something
  more than sex. Something almost transcendental. She knew that she was
  gushing like a teenager, but she couldn't help herself.
  "The bonsai tree is a horribly mutilated, terribly misshapen dwarf that
  lives in particular agony for many years," Yamagata said without turning.
  "But look closely, and you will see that all of its parts-its stems, its
  leaves, its flowers-are in perfect proportion. It glories in its
  perfection."
 "You have to leave Portland," Chance said.
  ,"Only through patience can come perfection. In the doing, one receives
  tranquility and beauty as a reward."
  "Did you hear me?" Chance asked, coming into the living room. "My husband
  knows about us. And Guerin has hired a CIA agent or something to come
  after you. He knows about us too. He warned me about you."
 "Are you distressed?"
  The question caught her off guard. "For God's sake, Ari, aren't you
  listening to me?"
  Yamagata got smoothly to his feet and turned to her. He wore a black
  kimono with a red rose embroidered over his left breast. "The feeling of
  distress is the root of benevolence. This is very important in my
  society, Chance." He brushed her cheek with his fingertips.
  The intimacy of his touch was staggering. She opened her mouth to speak,
  but the words caught in her throat.
  He pushed her coat off her shoulders, and she let it fall to the floor
  with her purse. Next he unbuttoned, her blouse.
  "This man's name is Kirk Collough McGarvey, is this correct?"
  She nodded. Her entire body was humming, as if she'd been plugged into
  a high-tension circuit.
 560 DAVID HAGBERG

  He removed her bra and brushed his fingers so lightly against the nipples
  that she could barely feel it. Her knees were weak. She wanted to sink
  to the floor with him and make love now.
  "He knows that I am your lover?" Yamagata asked, his voice distant,
  dreamy.
 "David told him."
 "Has David spoken to you about this?"
  "He can't do a thing until after Sunday, except send McGarvey after you."
  Chance's breath caught in her throat as Yamagata touched her just above
  the waistband of her skirt. She was more than ready for him.
 "What did Mr. McGarvey tell you about me?"
  "You're here to hurt Guerin, and you'll use anything or anyone."
  Yamagata slowly unzipped her skirt and eased it off her hips. He steadied
  her as she steppedout of it. At
 "Do you believe him, Chance?"
 "Business is war."
  "Yes, I know that you learn well. But do you believe the man?"
  It was difficult for her to concentrate. He slid her pantyhose and
  panties down together, and she held his shoulder as she lifted one foot
  at a time so that he could pull them all the way off. "I don't know," she
  murmured. "I mean, I'm not sure . . ."
  He was kneeling in front of her, looking up, his eyes smiling. She took
  his head in her hands and gently pulled him forward until his lips found
  her vagina, and she arched her back and sighed with pleasure, all other
  thoughts gone from her head.

 "Do you know who this is?"
  The voice was muffled, and McGarvey could hear traffic noise in the
  background, but he knew it was Carrara. "I'm not at a secure number."
  "Doesn't matter. Have you made any progress out there since you were
  fired?"
 "I have a couple of leads," McGarvey said, not
                HIGH FLIGHT 561

 surprised that Carrara had found out. "They're good people, but they're
 running seared. Sunday's a big day. Do you know about it?"
  "More than I did yesterday. But you may be better off out of Portland,
  unless your leads are solid. I spoke with some of the ... principals.
  They're behind you now, one hundred percent. Understand?"
 "Might be too little too late. What about your end?"
  "Nothing officially, but I'm told Guerin is going to ask the Bureau for
  help."
 "Will they get it?"
 "No. Can you get out of there clean?"
 "Sure.,,
  "I'll meet you where you met Viktor. Tomorrow, 8:00."
 "Take care," McGarvey said.
 "You too."

 Reid picked Mueller up at Dulles, but neither of them said much until they
 were safely in the car heading away from the airport. Reid was extremely
 tense, and he kept searching in the rearview mirror as if he suspected
 they were being followed. His actions were as unsettling as his telephone
 message.
 "Is the Sterling house still safe for us?" Mueller asked.
  "Yes, of course it is," Reid answered sharply. But then he backed off.
  "I think it's as safe as it's always been. Nobody's been out there
  snooping around."
  "Then what's the problem? Is it our young friend, Louis?"
  "You can say that again. He built an extra repeater, and he placed it at
  Andrews Air Force Base. I didn't know about it until yesterday."
  "Andrews . . ." Mueller was drawing a blank, but then suddenly he had it.
  "The President's airplane, Air Force One, operates from there. It's a
  Guerin 522."
  "That's right. The sonofabitch is gunning for the President."
 Mueller shrugged. "It fits your plans."
 562 DAVID HAGBERG

 ::No!"
  You are willing to kill the Vice President."
  Larry Cross is a twit. Lindsay is different. He can be predicted.
  Besides, I'm scheduled to be on that flight. I'm going with the President
  to Tokyo."
 "When?"
 "Sunday.
  Mueller could barely suppress a laugh. In addition to being a sociopath,
  he had no sense of humor. But the irony of Reid's predicament was too
  rich to ignore. "Make your excuses."
  "Don't you see that by jumping on Lindsay's bandwagon the Bureau will
  have to drop its investigation of me.
 :'Didn't help your President Nixon."
  'That was different. Wasn't the FBI brought him down. It was the media.
  Thank God they're not after me. 11
  Mueller thought it over, looking for the advantage. "We could convince
  Louis to exclude Andrews on his program."
  "We can't trust him. He could bury the command in his computer somewhere.
  We'd never know for sure."
  " You'd never know," Mueller corrected. "I'll kill him before Sunday."
  "Still couldn't be sure. His programs could be automatic."
  "How did he find out that Air Force One would be fl ying on Sunday?"
  Mueller asked.
  "I don't know. But you'll have to go out to Andrews to retrieve the
  repeater."
  "It might be difficult to find. It could be anywhere or nowhere. Maybe
  he is lying."
 :'I don't think so," Reid said.
 ,:Did he say why he did it?"
  Just that if we were going to do a job, then let's do it all the way."
  " He's right," Mueller replied, but Reid said nothing else.
 A light in the kitchen of the farmhouse spilled out into
                HIGH FLIGHT 563

 the hallway, and one in an upstairs room partially lit the second-floor
 corridor. There was a fire on the grate in the living room that gave the
 place a comfortable, homey feet. It struck even Mueller odd that from such
 a setting mass murder was being arranged.
  Louis was drinking a glass of white wine in front of the fire. An empty
  bottle, and one half full, were on the floor next to the couch. He was
  drunk. He looked up blearyeyed. "Are you done already?"
  "Just the West Coast." Mueller perched on the arm of the couch. "Mr. Reid
  thought I should come back and have a chat with you."
  "I don't know what the big fucking deal is. He wants to stick it to the
  Japs. Let's do it."
 "Killing the President may be a bit extreme."
  "Bullshit." Louis slurred the word. "We're all fucked anyway. What
  difference one murder or a thousand? The sonofabitch is in bed with the
  Japs anyway."
  Mueller glanced at Reid but the older man wouldn't meet his eyes.
  "We'd like you to tell us where you placed the repeater, Louis," Mueller
  said patiently. "I'll go out tomorrow and get it."
  "Not a chance. On Sunday Air Force One is a dead duck. Boom."
 "Mr. Reid may be on that flight with the President."
  Louis giggled. "It wasn't on the White House program."
 "We need your help."
  Zerkel looked up, his eyes flashing. "You've got my help! You finish
  placing the repeaters~ and on Sunday airplanes will fall out of the sky on
  signals that will definitely be traceable back to Japan!"
  Mueller waited a moment, then nodded. "Fair enough," he said evenly. "Is
  the signal train in place?"
 "Just about."
 "You'll show me how to work it?"
  Again Louis's eyes flashed. "Why? So you can kill me?"
 "You have your safeguard in place. It would be stupid
 564 DAVID HAGBERG

 of me to harm you. I value my freedom as much as you do yours. When we're
 finished Sunday I want to be well away from this place. I want to know how
 the system works in case you are incapacitated, or for some reason cannot
 get to your computers."
 "What are you talking about?"
  "If this farmhouse were to be stormed, let's say, and we had to get out. If
  we were separated I would want to make sure the signals were sent."
  Louis was breathing through his mouth, his complexion pale. He looked as if
  he were about to be sick. "All right," he said. "I'll show you."
 "In the morning," Mueller said.
 "What about me?" Reid asked.
  Mueller looked at him. "You'll make all the preparations you need for Tokyo
  on Sunday with the President. Unfortunately on the way out to the airport
  you will have an automobile accident that will be investigated by the
  Highway Patrol. You will have a perfect excuse, and a solid alibi."
 "What do you think about that?" Zerkel said.

 McGarvey stood on the engineering gallery looking down at America. This was
 a favorite haunt of everyone in the company with enough rank to get in. His
 security badges had not been yanked. That would probably happen by tomorrow
 morning, so he'd been able to drive in without subterfuge. He wanted to see
 the airplane one last time before he headed out.
  44 You're not supposed to be up here, Mr. McGarvey," Saul Edwards, the
  Gales Creek operations manager, said.
 "I know, I just had to see it again."
  "She's a beauty," Edwards agreed. He was a short, swarthy man with thick
  dark hair and wide dark eyes. Like the others he'd been working around the
  clock and looked it.
  " Tighten up your security. Even without a pass I could have gotten in here
  easily."
 "I'll see what I can do."
                HIGH FLIGHT 565

 "At least until Sunday."
  "For what it's worth, Mr. McGarvey, I think you have been a real gentleman
  around here. I don't know why you got the ax, but if we have a problem it's
  not going to disappear when you're gone. You know what I mean?"
  McGarvey nodded. "I'll do what I can, Saul. Just watch your security until
  Sunday."
 "Will do," Edwards said. "Good luck."
 "Thanks. You too."

 THIRTY-ONE

 McGarvey showed up at Kennedy's tomb in Arlington National Cemetery at 8:00
 sharp. Phil Carrara, wearing a light gray jacket and dark flannel trousers,
 was waiting for him, head bowed as if he were praying. The morning was gray,
 and damp, the wind off the Potomac raw. Very few visitors were in the
 cemetery at this hour.
  "Working spooks are supposed to be dressed in suits and ties on weekdays,"
  McGarvey said, coming up to him. "How's your field work?"
  "I'm clean, if that's what you mean." Carrara looked up. "But I'm no longer
  an employed spook. I've been placed on administrative leave."
 "Internal Affairs?"
  "They're not that far yet. It was Ryan. He convinced the General that I no
  longer have the spirit of my position firmly in mind. "
 "You have questionable friends."
 "That too," Carrara answered, staring at the flame.
 "How long have you known about my parents?"
  "Couple of days. I went digging and came up with a few things."
 "They were murdered."
 566 DAVID HAGBERG

 "No proof of that, compar. "
  McGarvey faced his friend. "They spied for the Russians. What made you
  dig that far back, Phil? Those were OSS days. Ancient history. Was it a
  case of nerves?"
  "I had to be sure about you. There are a lot of accusations flying
  around. Lots of coincidences, dead bodies here in Washington, out on the
  West Coast, and in Japan. All the time you were in and out, talking with
  your Russian ... friend."
 "Control officer."
 "That's right. But you came up clean."
  "You so sure the son hasn't followed in the father's footsteps?"
 "You came up clean."
 "Are you sure enough about that to risk your career?"
  Carrara's face fell a little. "I already have, compar. I'm here."
  "Ah, shit." McGarvey looked away for a moment. He felt like hell. "You
  didn't deserve that. Sorry."
  "You don't deserve the treatment you're getting either. But Ryan is right
  about one thing: you are a dinosaur. Things aren't done your way these
  days. Maybe that's good, maybe that's bad, I don't know. What I do know
  is that no matter what happens this time, when the dust finally settles
  you'll be cut completely adrift from the Company. No more assignments,
  no more favors, no bending the rules."
 "Are you telling me to retire?"
  "Compar, I'm calling in all my markers, and I'm going to get some of my
  old friends to do the same. All out this time, but it'll be the last
  time. Comprendes?"
  "Let's go for a walk," McGarvey said. They headed away from Kennedy's
  grave as McGarvey lit a cigarette, the smoke whipped away by the wind.
  The trees were bare, and there was still snow on the ground. The place
  seemed desolate.
  "I explained the situation to David Kennedy, and I think he understands,"
  Carrara said.
 "Is he here in Washington?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 567

  "He's going to ask the Bureau for help this morning. I don't think he's
  going to get very far, but he'll try. Business as usual. In the meantime
  he'll do whatever you want, short of grounding the fleet or canceling
  Sunday's flight."
  "Then that's the timetable," McGarvey said. He didn't like it, but only a
  major disaster would stop Guerin now, which was exactly what it was heading
  for. "You're going to have to help me get Dominique out of the firing
  line."
  "Already done. I took her to one of our safe houses in Falls Church last
  night."
 "She's agreed to keep her head down?"
  "Until Sunday night. I talked to her and Kennedy at the same time. She
  understands the situation just as well, if not better, than he does."
  Carrara managed a slight grin. "She's something else."
  "She's that, all right," McGarvey agreed. "Anybody watching her?"
  "The manpower would be missed. But the place is secure. No leaks from our
  end. As long as she doesn't do something foolish, she'll be okay. It's only
  a few days." Carrara gave him the location.
 "No chance you were followed?"
  "Even Ryan wouldn't dare. She's safe for the moment. The ball's in our
  court now. You said you had a couple of leads in Portland."
  "Arimoto Yamagata. He works for Mintori's Sokichi Kamiya, the man I was
  maneuvered into meeting with outside Tokyo."
 "What'd he say to you?"
  "Not much that made a lot of sense. But he said that destroying Guerin was
  only part of some grand plan."
 "Is the government involved?"
  "He said it wasn't, and at this point there's no reason to disbelieve him."
  "Except that the submarine that sank the Russian destroyer in the Tatar
  Strait is on the loose in the East China Sea. Apparently with the same
  skipper and crew."
 "Where are they headed?"
 568 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Okinawa."
 "Any connection between Kamiya and the navy?"
  "None that I could pin down. But, Mac, he's in tight with practically
  everyone in their government. Hell, half of them owe him big favors. He's
  got the power base to do whatever he wants."
  "If he were to be taken out it might slow them down," McGarvey speculated.
 "What about Abunai? Do you trust Yemlin?"
  McGarvey was startled. "Did someone get to Viktor's blind number?"
  "Ryan's got the transcript, but everybody upstairs is discounting the
  Russians. But if Abunai is right, then we've got another problem on our
  hands. Who brought down the plane at Dulles and why? The Russians?"
  "They'd be shooting themselves in the foot. Without Guerin they'd lose a
  billion-dollar assembly plant."
  "How about a separate Japanese group-assuming that Mintori was responsible
  for the crash in '90?"
  "Kamiya is too powerful for that to happen. He'd know about it. But it's
  one of the things I'm going to ask Yamagata."
 "Why did you wait?"
  McGarvey looked at his old friend and smiled wryly. "Still a few doubts?"
 Carrara held his silence.
  "Yamagata is having an affair with David Kennedy's wife."
 "Christ," Carrara said. "Does he know about it?"
  McGarvey nodded. "I wanted to give him a shot at getting her out of there.
  Could get ugly."
  "Still leaves Dulles. Whoever engineered it wants Guerin to take the fall."
  "Either that or blame the Japanese for it," McGarvey said. "If it was a
  second group that caused the Dulles crash why did they go through the
  trouble of making it happen exactly the same as the American Airlines
  crash?"
  "I don't know, but if the two groups never worked together it could mean
  that more than one Guerin
                HIGH FLIGHT 569

 airplane was fixed at some point for the engine to fail. Maybe all of
 them."
  "If that's the case they're smarter than all of Guerin's and
  Rolls-Royce's engineers put together. Those planes have been pulled apart
  piece by piece, and no one has come up with a thing."
 "Hide the thimble," Carrara muttered.
 McGarvey looked at him.
  "It's a game we played when we were kids. You take an ordinary object,
  like a sewing thimble, and while everyone is out of the room you hide it.
  The trick is to put the thimble out in the open, someplace so obvious
  that everyone who searches for it will see it but won't see it. Or won't
  recognize it. Might fool the best of them."
 "Did you tell that to Kennedy?"
  "No, it just occurred to me. Maybe Guerin's engineers are looking in the
  right places, they're just looking too hard."
  "Knowing something's there in the open and finding it are two different
  things," McGarvey said. "In the meantime what else do you have for me?"
  "A long shot, but maybe it's worth something. Do you remember the Action
  Service query we got on Bruno Mueller?"
 "The Stasi hit man."
  "There might be a connection between him and Edward Reid. It's thin, like
  I say. But Mueller was pals with a former West German intelligence
  officer by the name of Karl Schey. Schey and Mueller are both missing,
  but before the Bureau backed away from investigating Reid they found out
  he had some connection with Schey."
 "Why'd they back ofP"
  "State told them to, and the White House agreed," Carrara said. "But the
  interesting thing is that Reid is rabidly anti-Japanese. Thinks that
  we're going to be at war with them any day now."
  "Would he have the connections to hear about Mintori Assurance?"
 "Possibly."
 570 DAVID HAGBERG

  "If he somehow found out how Mintori brought down the American Airlines
  flight in '90, he might be planning on bringing down a bunch more and
  blaming them. It'd be a long time before Japan recovered."
  "Not only that, compar. Reid is very rich. Maybe he wants more. If Guerin
  planes go down, so does its stock. But if the Japanese take the blame,
  Guerin will recover. Someone who knew what was going on could make a
  bundle."
  "And come out the hero," McGarvey said. "You're right. It's a long shot,
  but anything's possible. Can you get the FBI file on him?"
 :'I can try. In the meantime, where are you staying?"
  'The Watergate. I lifted a spare key from Dominique's purse."
  Carrara managed a thin smile. "Sure is interesting back in the field."
 "That it is," McGarvey agreed.

 "The timetable has been set, but for the moment there is no need for you to
 know the exact day and hour," Russian Defense Minister Vyacheslav Solovyev
 said.
  "Shall I be told the target?" SUR Director Karyagin had been summoned to
  the Defense Ministry in the evening. It was one of the stunts the military
  liked to pull on civilians.
  "The Air Self Defense Force radar installation at Wakkanai."
 "I am not familiar with this place."
  Minister Solovyev handed him a sketch map of the Japanese north island of
  Hokkaido. Wakkanai was a small town on the island's extreme north end, at
  Cape Soya.
  "That base is responsible for monitoring all traffic into the strait, a
  capability that we will deny them."
  Karyagin looked up. Solovyev was one of the new breed who'd been too young
  for the Great Patriotic War but who had proved himself as a tactical
  commander in Afghanistan. He had a firm grasp of Russia's military
                HIGH FLIGHT 571

 strengths and weaknesses, but in Karyagin's estimation he was naive about
 almost everything else.
  "Have you read my reports on Japan's military readiness?"
  "It's why I called you here, Aleksandr Semenovich. I need an update, and
  I want your current assessment of the situation."
  "I'm not a military man." Karyagin shrugged to mask his excitement. The
  Defense Minister's request was nothing short of extraordinary. It meant
  the military was sticking its neck out and wanted civilian endorsement.
 "I mean the political situation."
 "Between us and Japan?"
  "Yes," Solovyev said. "And between us and the United States. What
  reaction will Washington have beside bluster?"
  "That is very difficult to predict, Minister Solovyev. Nevertheless, I
  think that if we put our heads together we will come up with something.
  But first I will need more information. We cannot work blind."

 Carrara had lunch with the new acting Deputy Director of Operations, Dick
 Adkins, at a Denny's restaurant in Bethesda. Dick was a short, husky man
 with pale skin and wavy hair. He'd always looked up to Carrara. Now he was
 nervous. Ryan had him on a short leash, so he had to be very careful.
  "You're my only shot at staying on top of this," Carrara said. It wasn't
  quite true, but he wanted to keep the need-to-know list small and
  compartmentalized. ,,Ryan is wrong and unless I can work independently
  he's going to maneuver us into making a colossal mistake. "
  "He's got a one-track mind when it comes to McGarvey, all right. And
  you're on his short list too. He wants you out. Permanently."
  "I know. In the meantime I need your help. Arimoto Yamagata, Sokichi
  Kamiya, and Edward R. Reid. I want
 572 DAVID HAGBERG

 all three of their files. You'll have to talk to someone over at the
 Bureau-anyone but John Whitman."
  "I can tell you right now that Reid's file is totally off limits."
 "Why?" Carrara asked.
  "It came after you left. Reid's on the President's Tokyo Summit team.
  He'll be on Air Force One on Sunday. Makes him an untouchable unless the
  Attorney General gives her nod, which I'm told she won't."

 David was in Washington again, probably with that bitch Dominique, so
 Chance had not bothered to go home. After their long talk last night
 Arimoto had not wanted her to stay. She'd seen it in his eyes. But he'd
 finally given in, and they'd made love several more times, her way, with
 some old Kenny G on the disc player.
  She'd slept late, and waking with the sun streaming through the penthouse
  bedroom windows she had a few moments of luxury before the terrible guilt
  returned. The fact is she was a~failure as a spy. When she was with
  Arimoto, when they were talking and making love, she had no control. Even
  last night, when she'd taken charge, her focus had remained on the sex,
  not on what she'd set out to do.
  Lying in bed, her mind racing, she knew that McGarvey was right to warn
  her about Arimoto. At some point last night, despite her self-indulgence,
  it came to her that Arimoto was no businessman. He was not here to
  negotiate a deal with Guerin. In fact he was here to spy on the company
  and do whatever it took to bring it down.
  She turned those thoughts over. So what? When Guerin fell, David would
  be free. One airplane company more or less would not have that much of
  an effect on the international balance of trade. Portland would be devas-
  tated, but as a whole the country would be just fine. After all, the
  Japanese already owned most of Hawaii, half of California, and a bunch
  of buildings in Manhattan.
                HIGH FLIGHT 573

  Chance got out of bed and used the bathroom. Putting on a white silk
  kimono, she went into the living room just as Yamagata was seeing a man
  to the door. They stopped and exchanged bows, Yamagata's back to her. But
  his guest spotted her and said something.
  Yamagata turned and smiled. "I hope we did not disturb you."
  "Not at all," Chance said. "I didn't mean to interrupt."
 "Run the bath, and I'll order us breakfast."
  "Okay," Chance said. She went back into the bedroom and closed the door,
  her heart beginning to race. The man was Japanese, and Arimoto's bow had
  been slightly deeper than his. Etiquette was very important, he'd taught
  her. It marked the difference between civilization and chaos. Respect for
  one's superiors was at the very top of the list. His bow had been deeper.
 What the hell had she gotten herself into here?

 The FF Cook and FF Barbey pulled out of Yokosuka at 3:00 A.M. with no
 fanfare. They headed down Tokyo Bay past the rest of Seventh Fleet in
 port, pouring on speed as soon as possible. Even before they passed the
 sea buoy and turned to the southwest, both Knox-class antisubmarine
 warfare frigates were making in excess of thirty knots. The wind and seas
 continued to rise and it promised to. be a rough eighteen hours until they
 rendezvoused with the DD Thorn, which was still well north of Takara Jima
 Island.
  The Cook's skipper called the Barbey's skipper on the encrypted
  radiotelephone. "How's it going back there, Jim?" The night was black.
  "Tough to keep coffee in a cup, but we're right on your tail," Lieutenant
  Commander James Otter replied.
  "We're painting two supertankers southbound eighty miles out."
  "Got 'em. Did you catch the illumination on the way out?"
  Lieutenant Commander Adam Zimmerman glanced at his XO and grinned. "Sure
  did. No guesswork where
 574 DAVID HAGBERG

 we're headed, so keep a sharp watch. Chrysanthemum may not be their only
 asset out here."
 "Won't happen until after the strait."
  "You're probably right. But we'll keep on top of this one."
 "Tanegashima," Otter warned.
  "They're not going to put anything into the air in this weather."
 "They'll be telling us something if they do."
  "That's for sure," Zimmerman said. "Keep your eyes open."

 Japanese Self Defense Force destroyer DD118 Murakumo was on full alert at
 her Yokosuka berth. The entire fleet was being held at the state of
 readiness because of the deteriorating situation with the Russians. Even
 in port, however, the Escort Fleet Headquarters flagship maintained an
 around-the-clock vigilance. Pearl Harbor had taught them that lesson in
 reverse. No place was truly safe, not even home port. When the two
 American frigates were finally out of radar range, the Murakumo's skipper,
 Commander Noburo Shirokita, and his XO, Lieutenant Commander Yashusi
 Morita, left the bridge for the skipper's battle cabin. This was how wars
 began, one confusing situation developing into another, like cherry
 blossoms suddenly popping out after a sharp change in the weather. Only
 long afterward, when the survivors picked through the rubble, could any
 sense be made of the situation, especially the first days. But what was
 happening now seemed especially senseless to Shirokita, whose father had
 survived the war as a young lieutenant and helped reestablish the navy
 under pressure from the Americans to do so in the fifties and sixties.
 They were supposed to be the first line of defense against a Soviet
 breakout into the Pacific. Just like West Germany had been the first line
 of defense against Soviet land forces moving in from the east. But those
 threats no longer existed. -
 "Unless we receive orders to follow them, there is little
                HIGH FLIGHT 575

 else we can do this morning, Kan-cho. " Morita poured their tea.
  "I'm told the air force will handle it from Tanegashima. We have no
  business running after them."
  "Pardon me, sir, but they know that we are on alert, and they know that we
  are monitoring their progress and their transmissions. Won't an Air Force
  fly-over be perceived as a threat?"
  "Certainly, but a threat to whom?" Shirokita asked. "The Americans or that
  bastard Kiyoda?" Nobody was claiming responsibility for allowing that fool
  to regain his command and actually sail out of here. But sooner or later
  heads would roll.

 Bruno Mueller arrived back at Chicago's O'Hare Airport a few minutes after
 six and went down to retrieve his single overnight bag from the carousel.
 The flight from Washington's National where he'd left his car had been less
 than half full, so the luggage came out quickly. He'd had a lot to think
 about on the way out, and he was still preoccupied as he turned to leave.
 Louis had run into trouble with the signal train out of Tokyo. At first he'd
 been annoyed, and he'd thrown one of his tantrums. But when he'd finally
 calmed down, he discovered that the Bank of Tokyo had installed what he
 called an "antivirus" program in its computer system. "Designed," Louis
 explained, "to stop the kind of shit we're trying to pull."
  "Do they know we're tampering with their system?" Mueller asked.
 "No. It's just a precaution. Means they're nervous."
 "Can you get around it?"
  Louis had a wild look in his eyes. He was losing it. "There isn't a program
  I can't defeat," he said. He studied his computer screen. "Twenty-four
  hours, man. The bastards won't know they've been raped. What do you think
  about that?"
  The operation was disintegrating. With Glen gone there was no one to
  control Louis, whose devotion to Mueller had been short-lived. Reid was
  falling apart and
 576 DAVID HAGBERG

 was about ready to crack. And Mueller was beginning to believe that he
 should kill them both and get out.
  But Reid's plan was charming. One last strike at the West. One final act
  of terrorism that would go down in the books as a day of infamy in
  America's history. Not that anyone but an Islamic fundamentalist would
  care.
 "Reston," someone called. "Tom Reston."
  Mueller was instantly alert. There were only a few people who knew him
  by that work name. None of them would do him any good here. He stopped
  as a short, gray-haired man with a neatly trimmed beard came over from
  a United carousel where he was waiting for his bags to come up. Mueller
  put a name to the face immediately.
 "Bill White. Air Traffic Control, Oakland."
  "That's right. Nice to see you again." They shook hands. "How's the
  article coming?"
 "Slow but steady."
  "If you're working your way east, O'Hare is a good stop," White said.
  "Damned fine crew. Earl Heintz, the chief controller, is one of the best
  in the country."
  "What brings you so far from home?" Mueller asked. If this one discovered
  that no one at High Technology Business or Aviation Week & Space
  Technology magazines had ever heard of Thomas Reston, the operation would
  definitely be in jeopardy.
 "Union meeting."
 "Here at the airport, tonight?"
  "Holiday Inn. Starts tomorrow, but some of the guys will be drifting in
  tonight. You might want to drop by, if you have the time. I'll introduce
  you around. For background."
  "That's a coincidence. I'm staying at the Holiday Inn. You can ride over
  with me, I'm going to rent a car."
  White glanced back at the still empty carousel. "I have to wait for my
  suitcase."
  "I'll get the car and meet you out front. There're a couple of questions
  I'd like to ask you on the way over."
 "Sounds good," White agreed.
  Mueller hurried to the Budget counter where he rented a Chrysler LeBaron
  for dropoff in Minneapolis,
                HIGH FLIGHT 577

 using his Howard Ellefson identification and credit card. White was waiting
 in front when Mueller drove up. He tossed his small suitcase in the back
 seat.
  "I hate those damned shuttle buses, but they're a lot cheaper than cabbing
  it," White said. "How come you had to rent a car?"
  "I want to get over to Meigs Field tomorrow sometime."
  "There's nothing much worth seeing there. Not for your article anyway."
  "I thought I'd take a couple of days off. See some friends. It's been a
  long time since I've been back here."
  "I know what you mean," White said. "But except for O'Hare, you can have
  Chicago. Too big, too dirty, too much crime."
 "Oh?"
  "It's getting as bad as L.A. Too dangerous to be anywhere near downtown at
  night."
 "How about this far out?" Mueller asked.
  White shrugged. "Who knows? There's no place really safe these days."
  It only took a few minutes to get over to the Holiday Inn from the
  terminal, and Mueller pulled around to the side of the hotel and parked in
  front of some bushes next to the building.
  "Hope you don't mind the extra walk, Bill. But I didn't want to register
  first and then have to move the car."
 "No problem," the air traffic controller said.
  Mueller got around to the passenger side of the car just as White was
  pulling his suitcase out of the back seat. The parking lot was nearly full,
  but for the moment no one was around.
  "Here, let me help you." Mueller took White's arm with his left hand and
  pulled him around. With his right, he plunged the nine-inch stiletto into
  the man's chest just below his left breast.
  White was surprised. He looked down at the stiletto in his chest and then
  up at'Mueller. "Why-T' he asked, then he collapsed. Moments later he was
  dead.
 578 DAVID HAGBERG

  Making sure that no one was coming, Mueller removed the stiletto from the
  dead man's chest, wiped the blade off, and then took the man's wallet and
  money from his pockets before hiding the body behind the bushes.
  He drove immediately to the rear of the hotel, where he rifled through
  White's suitcase and tossed everything into a garbage dumpster, along
  with the wallet after he'd taken the credit cards and a hundred dollar
  bill stuck behind the photograph of two small girls hugging Mickey Mouse.
  It would be hours before White's body was discovered. Possibly not until
  morning.
  An unfortunate happenstance that would, however, not slow him down, he
  told himself leaving the Holiday Inn parking lot. He would find a good
  steakhouse for dinner, place the repeater in the Commission's Noise
  Management Program office, and then drive immediately to Minneapolis.
  With luck he would be finished well before the morning shift arrived.

 Carrara telephoned McGarvey at Dominique's Watergate apartment. "Are you
 clean?"
 "For the moment."
  "No file on Reid. The Attorney General's office has quashed that part of
  the investigation for the moment on another strong recommendation from
  the White House. But listen to this, compar, Reid has switched sides.
  He's going to Tokyo on Sunday with the President. It changes everything."
 "I thought he was anti-Japanese."
  "He is. Which means he's probably covering his ass in case everything's
  worked out at the summit. But he can't be involved with this plot to
  bring down Guerin, or else Air Force One won't be a target. He wouldn't
  risk his own life."
  "Unless he comes up with a last-minute excuse not to go Sunday," McGarvey
  said.
  "I never thought of that," Carrara replied after a moment.
                HIGH FLIGHT 579

  "You know Reid's background better than I do. How likely is it that he's
  had a legitimate change of heart?"
  "Not very likely, Mac. He's been too long at it, and too vocal to switch
  sides overnight. He has a lot of supporters who read his newsletter. But
  the President evidently bought it."
  "He's worth a quick pass before I go back out to Portland and lean on
  Yamagata."
  "It'll have to be quick, if you're right about their timetable," Carrara
  cautioned. He sounded worried.
 "Is there any way of getting through to the President?"
 "The General, but he won't listen to either of us."
 "Do you think Ryan might be a part of it?"
 "No.,,
  "Neither do I," McGarvey said, although it would have given him a certain
  amount of pleasure to attend the Agency counsel's fall from grace. "Does
  Reid live here in Washington?"
  "Georgetown." Carrara gave McGarvey the address on R Street. "His
  newsletter is the Lamplighter. Offices in the Grand Hyatt Washington. Do
  you want me to go with you?"
  "Not this time, but I might need some help from Technical Services. You
  got anyone over there who owes you a favor?"
 "A couple of guys."
  "Good. In the meantime, I want you to try to get to Murphy one last time.
  Set up a meeting for the three of us. Anytime, anyplace, so long as Ryan
  isn't there."
  "I'll see what I can do. But watch yourself. If Reid is involved, and
  Mueller or Schey is nearby, they'll be tough. I saw their files."
 "I hope they are," M,cGarvey said.
 "Watch yourself," Carrara repeated.
 "Will do."

 MeGarvey found a parking place across the street and down the block from
 the driveway to Reid's Georgetown place. The house, set back in the trees,
 was visible from the road. A few windows were lit inside, and the yard
 580 DAVID HAGRERG

 floods were on, indicating that someone was home. But to do a proper job of
 monitoring the man's movements, Carrara's Technical Services friends would
 have to be called out.
  He had no gut feelings this time, but he was running out of options. Short
  of returning to Japan and taking Kamiya out, there wasn't much for him to
  do. One by one his moves were being sidestepped by the Japanese, by Guerin,
  and by his own government.
  If Reid were involved with Schey and Mueller, however, whatever they were
  up to would be big. The Germans had their backs to the wall. There were
  very few places left for them to run. But it did not mean that they were
  involved in the plot to bring Guerin down. There were no solid connections.
  Everything was different this time. Less precisely defined. The blacks and
  whites had turned to shades of gray.
  Time to get out for good. Time to quit chasing demons that hadn't been
  catchable in any event. Like a donkey with a carrot dangling in front of
  its nose, he'd made the moves but he'd never really accomplished anything.
  Headlights came on at the end of the driveway, and moments later a
  slate-gray Mercedes sedan emerged, Reid behind the wheel, and headed cast
  on R Street.
  McGarvey had to wait for a break in traffic before he could make a U-turn
  and catch up, but Reid was apparently in no hurry, nor was it likely from
  the way he was driving that he suspected he was being followed. Either he
  was a pro, or he had nothing to hide tonight.
  The man had good connections in this town. The very best. It was likely
  that he would hear about any investigation in which he was involved, and
  either cooperate if he were innocent or take steps to have the Bureau
  sidelined if he weren't. Such as signing on with the President. It wouldn't
  stop them for long, but Sunday was only five days away.
  Reid turned on Pennsylvania Avenue toward the White House, McGarvey two
  cars behind him in moderately heavy traffic.
                HIGH FLIGHT 581

 Up to this point the American had been extremely difficult to follow. His
 moves, apparently erratic, were those of a highly experienced intelligence
 officer. Yozo Hamagachi and Toshiki Korekiyo had been allowed to see a
 portion of McGarvey's file, and they were impressed.
  "Be very careful of this man," Yamagata had warned them. "Under no
  circumstances must you underestimate him. If you are discovered he will not
  hesitate to kill you."
 "There are two of us," Hamagachi had suggested.
  "Pardon me, but although your abilities are impressive, McGarvey would
  nevertheless kill you."
  They had their doubts, but they did as they were told, taking extra care
  with their tradecraft. McGarvey showing up at Edward Reid's house, however,
  had been a surprise.
  Korekiyo telephoned Yamagata in Portland on the scrambler. "Target Red is
  following Teardrop."
 "Teardrop," Yamagata repeated. "Are you certain?"
  Korekiyo had brought Reid's file up on his laptop after getting his name
  from the address listing in the Washington-area reverse telephone
  directory. He'd been assigned the codenarne because of his recent anti-
  Japanese writings. "Hai. "
 "Follow them to their destination and report to me."
 "They've arrived," Korekiyo said.
 "Where?"
 "The Department of State."
 "At this hour?" Yamagata demanded.
  "Hai, Yamagata-san. The building is busy. Many windows show lights."
 "Remain with them."
 "Which one?"
 "McGarvey," Yamagata ordered.

 Except for the glow from the computer terminals the upstairs rooms were in
 darkness. Louis Zerkel was chugging white wine from a bottle, his feet up on
 the desk, watching the streams of data crossing the screens.
 582 DAVID HAGBERG

 He knew that he was slowly sinking toward some point of deep insanity, a
 place from where he would no longer be able to reason rationally, but he
 could do nothing to stop the disintegration.
  He'd found Reid's extensive wine cellar in the basement, and had picked
  the dustiest bottles at the top of the racks. This one had a French label
  with a 1928 date. It gave him heartburn.
  Tokyo Bank's anti-theft virus was like a germ that attacked any
  unauthorized entry into the system. The entry would get sick, and when
  it returned to its source, the hacker's computer program would catch the
  disease and die.
  It was really quite simple, Zerkel told himself. He took another pull at
  the bottle. To beat the germ you played doctor and invented a magic
  bullet, such as penicillin, administering it to yourself first so that
  your system would become immune. The next part was trickier. Injecting
  penicillin directly into Tokyo Bank's system, thus killing their
  anti-theft germ, would almost certainly set off alarm signals. Instead,
  Louis had designed a penicillin-impregnated sheath, or condom, around his
  entry signal, so that only the germs that came in direct contact with him
  would die.
  "Like fucking a diseased whore," he muttered. He had to giggle. He was
  around the bend, but not stupid. Who'd they think they were screwing
  with? The stupid bastards hadn't learned a thing from Pearl Harbor. Well,
  they were going to get another Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
  He had not found the magic bullet yet, but the same multiplexed program
  he'd used to defeat the heat-sensor triggering code was working on this
  problem. It would only be a matter of time before the Japanese system
  would be breached.
 He giggled again.

 Mueller reached the Twin Cities shortly after 4:30 in the morning. He
 looked up the Metropolitan Airports Commission address in the telephone
 book at a roadside phone booth, located it on a map, and got over there
 a
                HIGH FLIGHT 583

 little after 5:00 A.m. The layout was similar to Oakland and Los Angeles,
 and by 6:00 he had returned his rental car and was heading back to the
 Northwest Airlines check-in counter for his early flight to Washington.

 THIRTY-TWO

j0MR& arrara telephoned Murphy from his car first thing in the morning, and the
 General reluctantly agreed to see him at home. The guards at the gate
 leading up to the DCI's house behind Gallaudet College were expecting him.
 They passed him directly through.
  "Good morning, General," Carrara said at the door. "Thanks for letting me
  have my say."
  Murphy was a good director, and although he was tough he was usually fair.
  Over the past couple of years, however, he'd drifted away from his military
  style of leadership to that of a politician. A lot of Agency officers,
  Carrara included, did not like the change.
  "I'm leaving for my office shortly, so you've only got a few minutes."
 "Fair enough."
  "We'll do this in my study." The DCI led Carrara back and closed the door.
  "All right, Phil, I'm listening."
  "General, I think you should talk the President out of leaving for Tokyo on
  Sunday. Air Force One is a Guerin 522, the same type of airplane that
  crashed last week at Dulles and in '90 out of O'Hare. The first accident
  may have been engineered by Mintori Assurance, but the Dulles incident
  could have been caused by another group. Someone who'd stand to profit if
  Guerin were to be hurt and it could be blamed on the Japanese. Right now
  Sunday seems to make a lot of sense on those terms, because Guerin is also
  flying its new bird out to Honolu-
   584 DAVID HAGBERG

 lu. If it were to go down, along with the President's plane, Guerin's stock
 would take a nosedive. And considering the fact that all of Japan's military
 installations are on alert the situation out there would become explosive.
 There's a lot of tension between our countries. This could be the incident
 that sparks a bigger disaster."
  " Are you talking about a shooting war between us and Japan?" Murphy asked.
  It was clear he wasn't impressed by what he was hearing.
  "If the President were to be killed aboard Air Force One, and the Vice
  President aboard the new Guerin airplane, and if we thought Japan was to
  blame ... yes, sir, I think a shooting war would be possible."
 :, How?"
  'Blocking Tokyo Bay would be easy enough, which would lock most of the
  Seventh Fleet in port. And if, let's say, a supertanker were to
  accidentally explode in the Panama Canal, destroying one of the locks, it
  would slow sending reinforcements out of the Atlantic. The Japanese would
  own the western Pacific."
 :'You're forgetting the Air Force."
  'Look how long it took us to get enough personnel and equipment over to
  Saudi Arabia in '91 to go up against Iraq."
 "Okinawa is well equipped," Murphy pointed out.
 And unless the Japanese sank the Seventh Fleet at the dock, there'd be
 nothing stopping us from heading back up Tokyo Bay right into the city. Have
 you considered that?"
 "No. But I'm sure someone has."
  " The crash in '90 and the one last week involved Guerin 522s, the same
  type of airplane as Air Force One. Where's the connection between them and
  their hypersonic plane?"
 "I don't know, General."
  "Has the Federal Aviation Administration made any suggestions about
  grounding Guerin airplanes?"
 "No. 11

  "Has Guerin thought about recalling its own airplanes?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 585

 "I think they've discussed it," Carrara replied.
  "But they're going ahead with Sunday's flight, isn't that right?"
 "Yes, sir."
  "So in effect, what you're saying to me is that you think McGarvey is
  getting the shaft from us. Which means that you've been in contact with
  him."
 "That's right, General."
  "Which is why I placed you on administrative leave. Nothing I' ve heard
  this morning makes me regret that decision." Murphy's attitude hardened.
  "McGarvey's going to take the fall this time. Watch out that you don't go
  down with him. I'm sure that you've already broken a few laws."
 "You won't speak to the President?"
 "No."
  "And you won't let McGarvey come here to explain what he's doing?"
  "You're a good man, Phil. Back away from this now, while there's still the
  chance."
  It was about what Carrara had expected. The Murphy of a few years ago would
  have listened. "Thanks for your time, General. I think we'll talk again on
  Monday."
 Murphy's eyes narrowed. "Yes, I believe we will."

 Sam Varells compared the findings from the 1990 American Airlines crash with
 the Dulles crash last week, for the fourth time in as many days, amazed that
 he had been so blind. That everyone else on his staff at the NTSB was so
 blind.
  Both crashes were apparently caused by the same set of physical
  circumstances. In both crashes the same section of the port engines
  received the same heat damage, causing the same catastrophic failures.
  Exactly the same. In both crashes. But that was a statistical
  improbability, if not impossibility.

 Mueller arrived back at the Sterling farmhouse before noon. All that was
 left to do was plant the remaining three repeaters at JFK, LaGuardia, and
 Dulles. There
 586 DAVID HAGBERG

 was plenty of time for that. In fact everything was on schedule.
  He parked in the garage and went in through the kitchen. The house was
  quiet. Although someone had done the dishes the place stank of food odors
  mingled with an electronic smell, the acrid stench from the fire, and
  something else that smelled like wine. A few more days and he would be
  away from here.
 "Louis?" he called from the stair hall.
 "Up here."
  Mueller left his bag downstairs and went up to the front bedroom where
  Zerkel was stretched out with a pillow on the floor. Several empty wine
  bottles were lined up in front of the window. "Are you celebrating?"
  "Damned straight. The deed is done. What do you think about that?"
  "You found a way to get into Tokyo Bank's computer?"
  "It was a snap." Zerkel sat up and got unsteadily to his feet. "Mr. Reid
  has got a horseshit wine cellar, I'm here to tell you." He rubbed his
  temples. "Headache. But I fixed his ass. Now he'll have to start his
  collection all over. I busted every fucking bottle down there."
  "I'm sure he'll be grateful to you," Mueller said. "Is he here?"
  "I haven't seen him since yesterday," Zerkel replied. "What about the
  repeaters?"
  "Three to go, which I'll do tomorrow. Are you certain that everything
  will work?"
  "You can do it from a pay phone, man. I'll give you the Tokyo number and
  access code. Soon as their tone comes on line, whistle and it'll happen."
  Zerkel gave a short whistle. "Like that."
  "Brilliant," Mueller said, and he sincerely meant it. The man was a
  genius. It was a shame he had to be killed. Mueller could think of any
  number of uses for him. "Get some rest now. You've earned it."
 "I want out of here."
 Mueller looked mildly at him. "When?"
 "I don't care. Just as long as it's before Sunday."
                HIGH FLIGHT 587

 "Where will you go?"
  "Buenos Aires," Zerkel said firmly. "And I want a million dollars in cash."
 "All right."
  Zerkel was surprised. It showed on his face. "Just like that?"
  "You've kept your end of the bargain. I'm sure Reid will keep his. After
  all, he's going to make a lot of money. A million is very reasonable."
 "Will you talk to him?"
  "Soon as I clean up and get something to eat. You might even be able to
  leave tonight. Or certainly first thing in the morning."
 "Christ."
 Mueller smiled. "What do you think about that?"

 Carrara parked behind the Georgetown Holiday Inn, locked his car, and walked
 back to the gray windowless van parked two rows away. He got in the
 passenger side. Roy Ulland, an operative from the Agency's Technical
 Services Division, was behind the wheel. He was a slightly built man with
 fair skin, blond hair, and huge, drooping moustaches. They headed out
 immediately.
 "Hello, boss. You're late."
  "I put JoAnn on a plane for Montpelier, and it was late taking off,"
  Carrara explained. He was sending his wife to Vermont to be with her sister
  through the weekend. "Did you run into any trouble?"
  "No. He has three incoming lines. One for his fax machine, one that didn't
  answer this morning, and a third that transfers calls to the Lamplighter
  offices at the Hyatt."
  Carrara studied the younger man. "If this goes bad I won't be able to do
  much for you. Still time to back off, Roy. 11
  Ulland grinned. "You've bailed me out before. I figure it's payback time.
  Besides, this is my job, remember?" He was, in addition to being a good
  second-story man, a barroom brawler. Carrara had taken a liking to him
  because of his expertise, his easy manner, and his
 588 DAVID HAGBERG

 loyalty, and had gone to bat for him more than once with the D.C. police and
 with Personnel.
 "Just so you know. Okay?"
 , 'Piece of cake, boss."
  They pulled up on 29th Street around the comer from Reid's house. From
  where they were parked they could see anyone entering or leaving the
  driveway. Daylight operations like this made Carrara nervous. But if
  MeGarvey's timetable was correct, they were running out of time, and they
  would have to take chances.
 Tow do you want to work this?" Ulland asked.
  'Let's establish where he is first. If I can stall him on the phone while
  he's away from the house, it'll give you a chance to get inside, plant a
  few bugs, and make a quick pass for anything on Japan, Guerin, or the two
  Germans."
 :'What are you going to say to him?"
 'I'll think of something."
 :'It'll sure as hell shake him up."
  'That's the idea, Roy," Carrara agreed. "Let's try his house number first."
  Ulland swiveled his driver's seat aft, handed Carrara a handset, then
  flipped a switch on a console that brought up a dial tone on a speaker, and
  entered Reid's number on a keypad. It rang five times. "He's still ' not
  home."
 "Try the rollover number. He's probably at his office."
  "Right." Ulland broke the connection, but before he could enter the second
  number it rang. "He's got an incoming."
 "Trace it."
  "Just a minute. There's a privacy screen on it," Ulland said.
  The call rolled over on the second ring and was answered on the fourth.
  "Good afternoon," a woman said. "Thank you for calling the Lamplighter. How
  may I direct your call?"
  "Out of state," Ulland whispered, as the number came up on a display.
  "Sterling, Virginia. Just across the river."
                HIGH FLIGHT 589

 "Let me speak with Mr. Reid," the caller said.
 "Who may I say is calling, sir?"
 "Tom Reston."
 "One moment while I connect you."
 "German accent?" Carrara asked.
  "Maybe," Ulland replied. "Okay, it's rural. Billing is to a P.O. box here
  in Washington. But the line location shows a fire number. I'll bring up a
  map."
 Reid came on the line. "Are you back?"
  "Yes. Our friend is finished. He wants his money and the means to get out."
  Reid was silent for a moment. When he came back his tone was guarded. "Can
  you ... take care of it."
  "You need to talk to him. He still has his safety procedures in place.
  He'll need to be convinced of your sincerity."
 "I'll come out within the hour."
 "With care," the caller cautioned, and he hung up.
  "Got 'em," Ulland said. He'd brought up a map on a computer console. It
  pinpointed the house. "South of Sterling, and east of Highway 28. Just off
  Highway 7. Looks remote. Maybe a farm."
  Carrara studied the map, a sudden chill playing up his spine. "Less than
  five miles as the crow flies from Dulles. Line of sight."
 "Maybe we'd better take a look," Ulland suggested.
 "Good idea."

 From where McGarvey was seated in the Grand Hyatt's lobby he could watch the
 elevators. Shortly before one, Reid came down in an obvious hurry. The man
 had spent much of the evening at the State Department and then had come
 directly here to his offices. McGarvey had booked a room and kept watch
 frorn'the stairs. on the Lamplighter's floor until this morning. He got up
 and headed across the lobby.

 Ryan switched off the tape recorder. "He can be charged under the Secrets
 Act. Trial in camera."
 590 DAVID HAGBERG

  "He's the Deputy Director of Operations, Howard. I can definitely see his
  point of view, even though I think he's wrong. But he and MeGarvey have
  both served this Agency well," Murphy said. He suddenly wondered if it was
  such a hot idea taping his conversation with Carrara and sharing it with
  Ryan.
 "Well, you warned him."
  "Yes, I did. I've trusted Phil's good judgment for a
 number of years, and he's never let me down. He knows
 the score. And he knows the limitations imposed on him
 because of his position. But w * e're not going to take any
 action against him unless and until he steps over the
 line."
 "I think you're wrong, General."
  "As always, I appreciate your candor. But this time I'm going to overrule
  you. I've relieved him from active duty for the time being, which cuts him
  out of the mainstream."
  "He's got plenty of friends here. I'm sure he's still plugged in to
  everything that's happening."
  Murphy didn't like the petulant note in Ryan's voice. "Nonetheless, he's
  still a top-level administrator with this agency. And he'll continue to
  have our trust and support. I expect that I've made myself clear."

 John Whitman was summoned to the FBI director's office after lunch. His
 people had worked hard on the Guerin case (as it had come to be known) for
 the past ten days, but they were still stymied by a lack of hard evidence.
 The State Department and White House had warned them away from Edward Reid,
 and now the CIA was dragging its feet about Kirk McGarvey. He was going to
 talk to the director to approach the Attorney General again for a little
 slack. Without some leeway they simply could not do their jobs. It was
 aggravating, he thought, and he was tired of giving his people excuses when
 they needed answers. The director's secretary passed him inside immediately.
 "I know that look on your face," FBI Director John
                HIGH FLIGHT 591

 Harding said. "But this time you don't have to say a thing. The CIA has
 agreed to cooperate."
 "That's good news."
  "The A.G.'s office is preparing a warrant for McGarvey's arrest on
  obstruction of justice and industrial espionage. But you're going to have
  to take it easy, John. All we've got is circumstantial evidence for the
  most part, and you've seen his file. I don't want anyone hurt."
  "I understand." Whitman could hardly contain himself. McGarvey mightnot
  have all the answers, but he'd be a start.
  "Get your people ready, and I'll let you know when we have the paperwork
  in hand."

 Phil Carrara and Roy Ulland headed out of Washington through Arlington
 toward the rural Sterling address that had come up on the
 computer-generated map. They'd tried to contact McGarvey at Dominique's
 Watergate number without success, which bothered Carrara, especially after
 his talk with the General this morning. If Mac were taken out, Carrara
 thought, they'd lose. Simple as that. He didn't carry a weapon and neither
 did Ulland. But he didn't really think they'd need to be armed. They were
 just going to take a look. If they needed reinforcements they'd call for
 them.

 McGarvey watched in his rearview mirror as the white Toyota van with
 darkly tinted windows came up the ramp to the Washington Memorial Parkway
 behind him. He thought it was the same car that had followed him from the
 Hyatt over to Reid's Georgetown house. He'd not slept in the past
 thirty-six hours, and he knew that his judgment was affected.
  Reid's gray Mercedes was three cars ahead, and following him was easy.
  His trail could be picked up at anytime either from his house or from the
  Hyatt. But whoever was in the Toyota was a different story. McGarvey was
  betting that they were Japanese. But who were
 592 DAVID HAGBERG

 they following, him or Reid? If it was Reid, it meant that the former State
 Department official was somehow involved with the Dulles crash. Or at least
 the Japanese thought he was and were investigating him. If not, it meant
 they were Kamiya's people sent to finish the job that had been started in
 Tokyo. If that were true it could mean that he was getting close, which led
 again back to Reid. The arguments were circular, and therefore worthless.
  A few miles north, Reid turned off the parkway and headed west on State
  Highway 123 toward the back entrance to the CIA. For a brief moment
  McGarvey had the wild notion that Reid was working with the Agency and that
  all this was some sort of gigantic setup engineered by the General and
  Howard Ryan. But the Mercedes passed the access road without slowing and a
  couple of miles later turned east, toward the airport, on the Dulles
  Airport Access Road.
  It was possible that he had gone home to pack a suitcase and was booked on
  a flight somewhere. If he were involved with the Dulles crash, and with
  whatever was going to happen on Sunday, he would want to get out of
  Washington or even the country until the dust settled. But that wasn't
  right. If Reid were going to end up the Monday-moming hero he would have to
  stick around.
  Perhaps he was going to the airport to meet someone, or perhaps he wasn't
  going to the airport at all. There were several other exits from the access
  highway before Dulles.
  McGarvey drove past the ramp Reid had taken, crossed under the highway, and
  turned up the westbound ramp, back toward the city.
  He looked in his rearview mirror. The Toyota passed the east ramp, and as
  he merged with traffic on the highway, it was two cars behind him.
 One question was answered.

 "I think I was followed part of the way out here," Reid said. He was
 agitated.
                HIGH FLIGHT 593

  "But not here to the house?" Mueller asked. They watched the highway from
  one of the front bedrooms. No one had come up the driveway.
  "It was a blue Saturn. Followed me from the Hyatt to Georgetown, then as
  far, as the Dulles highway. But it turned off."
 "Coincidence?"
  "Maybe," Reid said uncertainly. "I only got close enough once to see that
  there was only the driver. And it was a rental car. The Bureau doesn't
  operate that way."
 "Are you sure?"
  "I'm not sure of anything," Reid snapped. "But if I am being followed,
  and it's not the Bureau, then who? The CIAT'
  "It doesn't matter. If someone shows up out here, we'll be ready for
  them."
  "I'm getting out of here tonight," Zerkel said from the doorway. "Did you
  bring my money?"
  "As a matter of fact I did," Reid said, turning away from the window.
  "But first we're going to discuss your safeguards. They'll have to be
  neutralized."
 "What guarantees will I have-T'
  "You'll have a million dollars in cash, and my word, Louis. Isn't that
  enough?"
  Zerkel teetered on the brink of insanity. His eyes were wild, and his
  lower lip twitched. He nodded finally. "I want to see it first."
 I "Very well," Reid said. "The money is downstairs."

 "Kan-cho on the bridge," the XO announced.
  "As you were," Seiji Kiyoda said. All his best officers were present, he
  noted with satisfaction. He glanced at the clock. It was 0300 local. A
  steward handed him a cup of tea.
 "We're ready," Minori said.
  "Very well," Kiyoda answered. He stepped back into the sonar room. "How's
  it look on the surface?"
  "Pretty rough, sir." Chief Sonarman Tsutomu Nakayama brought up one of
  the displays. "Lots of surface clutter. I'd say they're sailing into
  forty-knot winds or
 594 DAVID HAGBERG

 more, six- to seven-meter seas. But it's hard to hold any target."
  The crewmen aboard the American destroyer would be fatigued fighting the
  storm, and their important officers would probably be asleep at this hour.
  The Samisho, on the other hand, cruised in comfort seventy meters beneath
  the surface, and her important officers had been ordered to rest for the
  last twelve hours.
 "How far back are they?"
  "Twenty-five thousand meters. Same course and speed."
 "They remain in passive mode?"
  "Yes, Kan-cho. They go active only when we shut down."
  Kiyoda studied the displays. "Anything else out there?"
  Nakayama brought up another display. Barely visible in the waterfall were
  a series of straight-line dots. "I think it's an oil tanker. One hundred
  thousand meters plus, to the south~southwest. She'll be out of our range
  within the next couple of hours. No designation."
  "Then it's just us and Sierra-Zero-Nine. Keep a sharp eye for anything else
  coming up behind him. They may have called for help."
 "Aye, aye, Kan-cho.
  Kiyoda returned to the control room, and brought their present course,
  speed, and depth up on his command console, then overlaid that data on a
  chartlet of their operational area. Their speed-of-advance had steadied to
  ten knots on a course just west of south that would allow them to clear
  Amarni-O-Shima Island and the off-lying reefs and islets. The waters here
  were treacherous, alternating between very deep and very shallow. Even
  experienced sailors could come to grief here because of the many uncharted
  shoals and dangerous currents.
 But these were Japanese waters.
  He looked up at his XO and officers and gave them a faint smile. Good men,
  he thought. Expert, dedicated,
                HIGH FLIGHT 595

 and loyal. No captain could ask for more. Sad that this would be the last
 time they'd sail together.
 "Sound battle stations."
 "Hai, Kan-cho. " Minori rang the Klaxon.
  "Come right to two-six-zero, dive to six hundred fifty meters."
  "Yo-so-ro, turning omo-kaji to two-six-zero degrees, down angle on the
  planes eighteen degrees."
  "Very well," Kiyoda said. His boat was coming alive. "Report when battle
  stations are manned and ready. Report when at course and depth. And
  prepare for silent running."
 "Aye, aye, Kan-cho, " Minori said, his eyes bright.

 Carrara steadied his shoulder against the bole of a tree as he studied the
 sprawling farmhouse and outbuildings one hundred yards across a clearing.
 The fire number at the entrance to the long driveway off the highway
 matched the one from the trace. Whoever had telephoned Reid had done so
 from here less than two hours ago.
  They'd confirmed the location and then had discovered the dirt track
  through the woods east of the house. So far as they could tell no one had
  used the road for a long time. The snow was undisturbed except for animal
  tracks.
  Someone was in residence. Smoke curled from the chimney, and Carrara
  could make out the rear bumper of what looked like Reid's Mercedes on the
  other side of the garage at the rear.
  He brought the glasses around to the south. The end of Dulles's main
  runway was five miles away. A fivehundred-yard-long blackened scar was
  plowed through the woods on the other side of the airport. Bits and
  pieces of glass, plastic, and metal debris from the crash still sparkled
  in the distance.
  "We can wait for darkness, if you want. But I think I can get to the
  house, put a bug on the phone line, and get back without detection,"
  Ulland said.
 596 DAVID HAGBERG

  Carrara looked up. Ulland was studying the open field through his
  binoculars.
  "The grass is tall enough so that if I keep down nobody in the house will
  spot me." The TS operative grinned. "Might be able to put a pickup on one
  of the downstairs windows."
  Carrara studied the approach across the field through his binoculars. The
  grass was tall enough. "I'll cover you from here. Anything goes wrong, I
  want you out of there on the double."
  "Gotcha," Ulland said. He went back to the van for his equipment.

 Takako Kunihiro and Masao Yakota, driving a white Toyota van with dark
 windows and identical to the one that was following McGarvey, made a second
 cautious pass by the driveway to the farmhouse Edward Reid had come to.
 Beside the fact that Reid was rabidly antiJapanese, they were only
 interested in him because McGarvey was. They'd had a difficult moment when
 McGarvey had broken off tailing Reid and had headed back into the city. It
 was obvious that he knew he was being followed, so Hamagachi and Korekiyo,
 driving the lead unit designated Sand Dollar, had kept with him. They now
 knew that they were of more interest to McGarvey than Reid was. It told them
 something.
 "Nothing," Yakota said.
  "I agree. Find out where Sand Dollar is, and if they need our help we'll
  join them, or we will return to the embassy," Kunihiro instructed.

 For the first time Carrara wished he had a weapon. From where he stood
 within the woods he could see where Ulland had entered the tall grass, but
 he could not spot him now. If Reid were involved with the Dulles crash, and
 if he were somehow involved with the former East German intelligence
 service, they would not take kindly to being spied upon. Especially if
 Colonel Mueller were here. The man was an assassin and would be armed.
                HIGH FLIGHT 597

  Ulland popped up at the far edge of the clearing, about ten yards from
  the back of the house, and keeping low hurried the rest of the way to
  where the phone line came in.
  Carrara studied the back of the house through the binoculars. Because of
  the angle of the sun there was nothing to be seen in any of the windows,
  either downstairs or upstairs. Nor was there any movement anywhere on the
  property that he could see.
  Ulland removed the cover from the telephone junction box on the side of
  the house, did something to the wires inside, and replaced the cover.
  Next he reached up and attached something to one of the windows and then
  melted out of sight back into the tall grass.
  The entire operation at the back of the house had taken less than sixty
  seconds, and Carrara breathed a sigh of relief.

 Mueller stood perfectly still ten yards behind and to the left of the man
 watching the back of the house through binoculars. The second man had
 probably placed a bug on the phone line and possibly a sensitive
 microphone on the dining room window and had started back across the
 field.
  Their van had made two passes on the highway and then had not come back.
  This was the only vulnerable approach, and Mueller had come up to wait
  for them. He did not think they were FBI. The Bureau conducted operations
  on a much larger scale. And except for the white Toyota van that had also
  made a couple of passes, no other vehicles of any interest had gone by.
  If they were CIA, however, they were working out of their charter, which
  made this a rogue action. Reid must have been mistaken about the Saturn.
  He'd gotten two clear looks at both men, and he was satisfied that
  neither of them were Kirk McGarvey, the only man he had any cause to
  fear.
  He raised up to sniff the air. A confrontation was coming between them.
  He didn't know how he knew it,
 598 DAVID HAGBERG

 but he felt that somehow they would meet, that their destinies were
 intertwined. Melodrama, he thought. But the feeling was strong, and growing
 stronger.

 "This is David Kennedy."
  "Sam Varelis, National Transportation Safety Board. I'm calling from
  Washington for Kirk McGarvey."
 :'Mr. McGarvey is not here."
 'I'm trying to reach him. Can you help?"
  Kennedy hesitated. "Mr. McGarvey is no longer in our employ. Has this
  anything to do with the accident last week?"
  Varelis wanted to talk to Mac, but Kennedy was the ultimate responsible
  party. "This is an unofficial call, Mr. Kennedy. Can you tell me what
  happened with McGarvey? Have you been pressured by someone here in
  Washington?"
 "If this isn't an official call, then what do you want?"
 "I'm trying to save lives."
 Again Kennedy hesitated. "So am U'
 "Where is he?"
 "You're a friend?"
  "Yes, he's a friend, so far as I'd trust him with my life. Or anyone
  else's."
  "I don't know where he is. But the Attorney General is going to issue a
  warrant for his arrest."
 "On what charge?"
  "Industrial espionage and obstruction of justice. I just received the
  call."
 "That's bullshit," Varelis blurted.
  "I agree," Kennedy said. "Have you come up with something?"
  "I think there's a possibility that your Dulles crash, and the accident in
  '90, were not accidents."
 "What have you found?"
  "Both crashes were caused by port engine failures. The exact same failures,
  which caused the same structural damage to the wings. That's nearly
  impossible."
 "Can you be more specific?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 599

  "I'm faxing you the material. But Mac has to be informed."
 "I'll see what I can do. How can I reach you?"
  Varelis gave him a number. "Be quick about it, Mr. Kennedy."
 "I will, believe me," Kennedy assured him.

 The snow muffled Mueller's footsteps as he came up directly behind the man
 waiting next to the tree. At the last moment Carrara turned. ,
  Mueller pushed him back against the tree and drove the stiletto through
  his throat hard enough to sever his spinal cord at the base of his skull
  and penetrate the tree trunk, pinning him Eke a bug on a specimen card.
  Carrara tried desperately to fight back, but Mueller held him in place
  until his body finally went limp, then propped his legs under him so that
  the knife through his throat would temporarily hold him upright.
  The second man suddenly rose up from the grass at the edge of the
  clearing twenty feet away and charged like a bull in an arena.
  Mueller languidly turned toward him and raised his left arm as if to ward
  off a blow. At the last possible moment he reached up with his right and
  yanked the stiletto out of Carrara's throat. He stepped quickly to the
  left, inside Ulland's guard, and plunged the blade into the man's chest,
  just below his left breast.

 THIRTY-THREE

 Reid was shaken to the core. "I know this one." Mueller had brought
 both IDs down to the house. "Phillip Carrara, was he someone impor-
 tant?"
 600 DAVID HAGBERG

  "He was Deputy Director of Operations. The third most important man at
  Langley."
 "What about the other one?"
  "I don't know. Probably a technician from the Technical Services Division.
  But you know what this means. There's going to be an all-out manhunt."
 Mueller shook his head. "I don't think so."
  "What the fuck are you talking about? Weren't you listening? We're done!
  Everything is down the tubes. My life ... everything. It's all over!" ,
  "Not unless you fall apart. They weren't here officially."
 "How can you be so sure?"
  "Think about it, Reid. Does the.CIA work this way? You said they didn't. If
  you were under investigation the FBI would have brought a team out here,
  not the CIA. These two were freelancing for somebody. McGarvey."
 "They'll be missed."
  "Yes, they will," Mueller said mildly. "But I'll take care of it."
  Reid wanted to believe everything was okay. But like Zerkel he was on the
  verge of a breakdown. "How?"
  "Leave it to me. In the meantime I want you to get ready to get out of
  here. You're going to go home to resume your normal activities until
  Sunday."
  "Nonnal activities?" Reid looked at the German as if he were crazy.
 "That's what you want, isn't it?"
 Reid opened his mouth, then closed it.
 "I'll be back in an hour. Be here."
  Mueller donned a pair of thin leather gloves, pocketed the wallets, and
  went outside. From the back porch he studied the woods across the clearing.
  There was no sign that anything had happened, nor, from where he stood,
  could he see the van parked at the end of the dirt track. The forecast was
  for more snow sometime this evening and tomorrow morning. If it was heavy
  enough the van's tracks would be covered. He removed the bug from the
  telephone junction box at the side of the house, and the pickup from the
  dining room window, then crossed
                HIGH FLIGHT 601

 the field on the same path Ulland had used to sneak down from the woods.
  The gray windowless Dodge van was equipped with sensitive electronic
  eavesdropping equipment, some of it low-lux cameras and
  infrared-sensitive recording devices used for nighttime surveillance
  operations. One rack contained telephone-tap receivers, tape recorders,
  and tracing apparatuses. Another contained two-way communications radios,
  at least two of which were highspeed burst encryption devices designed
  to maintain up- and down-links with satellites. Still another contained
  sophisticated computer equipment that could be
 atched into any number of bases. Mueller had seen or eard of a lot of
 this. His KGB training had been the best, and during his six months in the
 States he had gleaned information about such equipment then in the develo
 mental stage at the National Security Agency. One oTthe tape recorders had
 been used. He switched it on.
  "Thank you for calling the Lamplighter. How may I direct your call?" a
  woman said. "Let me speak with Mr. Reid," Mueller's own voice answered.
  He rewound the entire message and erased it. They'd probably had a tap
  on Reid's Georgetown house this morning. There'd been a two-ring delay
  before the call had been rolled over to the Lamplighter office. Next he
  went searching for the trace to the Sterling farmhouse, finding it
  without problem, and erasing any evidence of it from the computer memory.
  He could find no indication that anything had been sent back to Langley.
  He drove the van to the end of the dirt track and loaded the two bodies
  in back. Then he covered what blood had splashed on the snow and the drag
  marks from the bodies. By morning all traces of what had happened would
  be hidden until a meltoff and then would be washed away. Mueller got
  behind the wheel of the van, drove it around to the garage behind the
  farmhouse, and went back inside.
  "How is Louis doing with removing his safeguards?" he asked Reid.
 602 DAVID HAGBERG

  "He says he's working on it. I saw you put the van in the garage. It can't
  stay there. Sooner or later it'll be discovered."
  "That's right. When we leave I'll take it up to Baltimore and dump it."
  "If you're stopped, or if someone sees you, it'll be all over."
  "That's what you're paying me for. Before Sunday I want an additional two
  million dollars deposited into my Channel Islands account. Will this be a
  problem?"
 Reid looked at him sharply, but then shook his head.
 "I'll take the cash you brought for Louis as well."
 "I understand. What about the last three repeaters?"
  "I'll take care of them tomorrow." Mueller stepped closer. "You understand
  what I am capable of, Reid. If something happens and the authorities come
  after me, nothing on this earth will stop me from getting to you."
 "I'd be a fool to breathe a word-"
 "Believe me," Mueller said softly.
 Reid's eyes widened., He nodded. "I do," he said.

 "Bridge, CIC."
 "CIC, aye," the FF Cook's second officer answered.
  "I've got two airborne incoming, bearing one-sevenzero, twenty-seven miles
  out, speed five hundred knots."
 "Can you say type of aircraft and altitude?"
  "Sir, they look like F/A-18 Hornets, at two thousand feet. They've
  illuminated us."
 "Ours?"
  "I don't think so, Mr. Boyle. They're coming from the northeast. I'd guess
  Tanegashima."
 "Stand by."
 11 Aye, aye."
  Ensign Tim Boyle called the captain on the growler phone. This is Boyle,
  Captain. We have a pair of incoming aircraft that CIC thinks is Japanese."
 "Have the Barhey and Thorn been notified?"
 "Not yet, sir."
 "Do it. I'm on my way."
 "Aye, aye, Captain." Boyle hung up and called their
                HIGH FLIGHT 603

 sister ship, the FF Barbey, first. They too were painting the incoming
 fighter/interceptors, and they'd already informed the DD Thorn, thirteen
 thousand yards southwest.
  Captain Zimmerman showed up on the bridge a minute later, his utility
  blues rumpled as if he'd slept in them. "Get me Jim Otter on the Barbey,
  " he told Boyle. He called CIC on the growler. "This is the captain. How
  far out are they?"
  "A little under twelve miles, sir. Should be overhead in ninety seconds.
  But they've dropped to below five hundred feet."
 "Any chance they're ours?"
  "Negative, Captain. ELINT has intercepted a transmission to the aircraft
  from Tanegashima."
 "What'd they say?"
 "It's encrypted. We're working on it."
  Zimmerman hung up the growler phone and accepted a handset from Boyle.
  "Jim, we'd better stand by battle stations."
 "It'll be provocative."
  "Overflying us in the early morning without first establishing a comms
  link is aggressive enough for me. Especially now. Mike Hanrahan's got his
  hands full."
  "Has anyone tried talking to them, or to Tanegashima?" Lieutenant
  Commander Otter asked.
  "ELINT picked up a transmission from their base. As soon as it's
  decrypted and translated we'll have a better idea."
 "Could take awhile, Adam."
  "We're here to escort the Thorn. We're not going to act like sitting
  ducks."
  "You're the boss," Otter said at the same moment the two Japanese Air
  Self Defense Force fighter/interceptors screamed overhead and CIC called
  back.

 As soon as the Japanese submarine had gone deep and faded from sonar
 detection, the Thorn had gone to battle stations. The arrival of the two
 Japanese fighter/ interceptors had not improved anyone's disposition.
 604 DAVID HAGBERG

  "They just passed over the Barbey, ten thousand yards and closing,"
  Sattler in CIC reported.
  "Same drill as before," Hanrahan told his XO. "If they want to get close
  enough to trigger our guns, then so be-it."
 Ryder didn't argue. He gave the order.
  Forty seconds later the ASDF Hornets passed port and starboard of the
  Thorn just outside the Phalanx's Vulcan cannon aiming and firing radar
  envelope.
  "They're making wide turns. Looks like they'll come back for another
  pass," Sattler said.
  "Did they drop anything into the water?" Hanrahan asked.
 "Negative."
 "Anything from sonar yet?"
  "Nothing, Captain. We lost them at fifteen hundred feet, and nothing's
  showed up since. But he's not supposed to be able to dive that deep."
 "No breakup noises?"
 "Negative."
  "Well, we're getting another lesson in Japanese technology," Hanrahan
  said. "We'll stay on this course and speed. Sooner or later he's going
  to have to come up for air."
  "Meteorology says the winds might be diminishing for the next few hours.
  We might be able to send the choppers up."
 "Good idea. Meantime, anything else out there?"
 "Not a thing."
  "Keep a sharp eye. If I'm right they'll send out another Orion for
  station keeping."
 "What's going on, Skipper?" Sattler asked.
 "Don, I wish the hell I knew," Hanrahan replied.

 McGarvey pulled up across the street from the CIA safe house in Falls
 Church where Carrara had placed Dominique. The neighborhood was well
 maintained, each large house set back on a half-acre of carefully tended
 lawns and trees. According to Phil this place had been owned by a drug
 lord and had been acquired by the Bureau of
                HIGH FLIGHT 605

 Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms when the man took his fall. It had been
 transferred to the CIA's inventory five years ago.
  There was little traffic, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary here,
  yet McGarvey hesitated. He was so tired his hands shook when he lit a
  cigarette. At times he saw spots in front of his eyes. He glanced in the
  rearview mirror.
  At one point he'd realized there were two identical white Toyota vans
  leapfrogging behind him as he drove around Washington. But when he'd
  tried to double back, they disappeared. Although he'd managed to get them
  off his tail, they'd also shaken him. It was his fault, but such
  sloppiness could get him killed. Whatever else happened he desperately
  needed a few hours sleep. Someplace safe.
  On the way out here he'd stopped at a gas station to telephone Carrara.
  But there'd been no answer at his house. Not even the answering machine
  was on. It was troubling.
  He rolled down the window and tossed out the cigarette before he drove
  across the street and up the driveway to the house, parking in front.
  Dominique, dressed in UCLA sweatpants and shirt, met him at the door. She
  looked concerned.
 "Has something happened, Kirk?" she asked.
 "I need some rest."
  Dominique took him by the arm and led him inside. "Are you hungry?"
 "Yeah."
 She smiled. "Bacon and eggs okay?"
 "Sure. 11
  She sat him at the kitchen counter and poured him a cognac, then started
  the food. "I've been going crazy not knowing what's going on."
 "Have you seen Phil Carrara?"
 "Not since he brought me out here."
  "I'm surprised you agreed. Have you talked to David, or to your brother?"
 "Nobody," she said, her voice suddenly husky. "Phil
 606 DAVID HAGBERG

 told us about your past. Everything. What you've done for everybody, and
 how you've been treated."
  "I'll live," McGarvey replied. He no longer had the strength, or the
  stomach, to fight her. In many respects she was like his ex-wife
  Kathleen. Certain of herself and where she fit. Certain of the difference
  between right and wrong, between what was fair and what was unjust.
  Certain that he was something to avoid if at all possible. The septic
  tank pump-out man was a necessity, but you didn't invite him to dinner,
  especially if it was impossible for him to change out of his workelothes.
  They were right.
 "He told us about your parents-"
 "Leave it," McGarvey ordered harshly.
 Dominique drew a sharp breath. "I'm sorry."
  "Phil had no business telling you any of that. I have a job to do, and
  when it's finished, however it turns out, I'll leave and you can get on
  with your life."
 Dominique shook her head.
  "Your brother is right. All of you are. David should never have come to
  me."
 "Where would we be if he hadn't?" Dominique flared.
  "Not hiding from your job and your friends, afraid for your life."
 "We'd probably be dead."
 "No," McGarvey disagreed.
  Dominique turned to him. "Do you honestly believe that everything would
  have turned out okay, Kirk? Can you sit there and tell me that people
  wouldn't die?"
  "Nothing I've ever done has made the slightest difference."
  "Oh no, you're wrong," Dominique blurted. "Just because you've had
  friends betray you all. of your life doesn't mean you were at fault. The
  CIA wouldn't have kept coming back for your help."
 "You don't know what you're talking about."
  "Yes I do. Or at least now I know how badly we treated YOU."
 McGarvey got unsteadily to his feet. "Stay here until
                HIGH FLIGHT 607

 Monday morning. Don't call anybody. Don't show yourself." He started for
 the door.
  Dominique came after him. "Goddamn you, Kirk. You're not going to walk
  out on me! I won't allow it!"
 "Stay away from me."
  "I can't," she cried. "Goddamn you, goddamn you to hell, can't you
  understand what I'm saying? I love you."
  She'd caught him totally off guard. For a moment he basked in a warm
  glow, but then his past came rushing in like a load of bricks. "That'd
  be the biggest mistake you've ever made."
  "I'll deal with.my mistakes. You handle your own," she said
  pragmatically. "As you say, you have a job to do, and you'll do it. But
  afterward you'll have to deal with me."
 "You don't know what the hell you're talking about."
  "Yes I do. And when I want something I usually get it. Right now you're
  going to sit down and eat something, and then get some sleep. You're
  doing nobody any good in the shape you're in."
 "I've got a lousy track record. Did Phil tell you that?"
  "Your first wife was an alcoholic who drank herself to death. And your
  second wife loved you but couldn't stand living with someone in your
  profession."
 "Could you?"
  "I don't know," Dominique said honestly. "But I'm going to try."
 "Did he tell you about Marta?"
  "They weren't after her. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
  It can happen to anybody."
  "It was no accident what happened to my wife and daughter."
  "Nor was it your fault, Kirk," Dominique insisted. "Stop beating yourself
  to death with it. Ever since you found out about your parents you've been
  driving yourself."
 "Stop," he warned.
  "No, I won't. What your parents did wasn't your fault either."
 608 DAVID HAGBERG

  McGarvey had to get out of there. He couldn't take much more of it. A
  thousand demons rose up inside his gut, threatening to blot out his
  sanity. A hundred voices pleading for help rang in his ears. And in his
  mind's eye he could see the faces of every one of his kills.
  "Grow up, for God's sake," Dominique said. "Deal with it!"
 "I'm an assassin. Is that what you want?"
  "You're a soldier, and you're on the front line. If you have nightmares
  about the people you've killed, do you have pleasant dreams about all the
  lives you've saved?"
  He stepped back. "I don't want you hurt," he whispered.
  "Then don't leave me, Kirk. Please." She came into his arms. For a long
  moment he did nothing, but then he held her, and she let out a pent-up
  sigh. "I can help, if you'll let me," she said.
 "It's bad."
 "I know."
 "Worse than you can imagine."
  She looked up at him. "Then you'll need all your strength. First
  something to eat, and afterward sleep."
 "I'll call David."
  "After you get some rest," Dominique insisted. She made him sit down
  again, and she went back to the stove.
  He finished his drink as he watched her cook. He was frightened for her
  safety. She was naive. No matter how bad she believed the situation was,
  she could not imagine the savagery rampant in the world. He was also
  afraid of his own growing feelings. Afraid that he was falling in love
  with her, and what it would do to both of them.

 Dominique came into the bedroom to wake him up. She brought a cigarette
 and a cup of strong coffee laced with brandy. He only vaguely remembered
 eating the breakfast she'd prepared for him and then allowing himself to
 be led upstairs to one of the bedrooms where he'd fallen
                HIGH FLIGHT 609

 asleep. At one point he'd awakened, and she'd been in the room, watching
 him. He fell back asleep to her smile.
 "What time is it?" he asked.
  "Five. You only got a few hours, but David phoned and he says he's got
  something important."
  McGarvey sat up and took the coffee and smoke from her. "What's
  happened?"
 "I don't know." She handed him the phone.
 "Are you feeling any better?" Kennedy asked.
 "A little. Are you back in Portland?"
  "Until Sunday. But Sam Varelis called. He's looking for you. He thinks
  you might be right after all about the Dulles accident and the American
  Airlines incident in '90. Socrates is looking over the material he sent."
 "Sabotage?"
  "That's the implication, but there's nothing definite other than the
  coincidence that both accidents happened in precisely the same manner.
  With precisely the same damage."
 "What's Sir Malcolm have to say?"
  "He tends to agree with you and Varelis, but we're still coming up
  empty-handed. There was nothing wrong with either of those engines.
  Nothing wrong with any engine we've tested. Absolutely nothing."
 "But it's there."
  "Yes," Kennedy said. "But we don't have a thing to take to the FAA or the
  airlines. And we're still scheduled for Sunday."
 "Your AOG teams have found nothing?"
  "That's right. We're back at square one, except for you. We got word that
  the Attorney General's office has issued a warrant for your arrest. The
  FBI called, wanted to know where you were."
 "We expected that, David. What'd you tell them?"
 "That you no longer worked for us."
 "They refused to help?"
  "Nothing they can do," Kennedy said bitterly. "When you look at it from
  their viewpoint, they're right. We don't have a single shred of evidence
  that anyone is
 610 DAVID HAGBERG

 gunning for us. At least not to the extent of sabotaging our airplanes."
 "Al agrees?"
  "He's changed since Dulles." Kennedy was guarded. "The accident took a lot
  out of him. I think that no matter what happens or doesn't happen on Sunday
  he'll get out of the business. George is quitting too. Everything is
  different. Maybe we should have cooperated with the Japanese after all,
  like Boeing did. There'd be no reason for them to come after us."
 "If it is the Japanese. Might be someone else."
  "The possibilities are endless," Kennedy said resignedly. "Everything is
  going to hell."
 "What is it?" McGarvey asked.
 "Chance is gone."
 "What do you mean gone? Has she left you?"
  "No note, if that's what you mean. She's just gone. She didn't come home
  last night."
 "Did she pack a bag?"
 "None of her things are missing so far as I can tell."
  "Have you tried to reach Yamagata today?" McGarvey asked.
  "He checked out of the Hyatt. Nobody has heard from him," Kennedy said. "Do
  you think ... she's run off with him?"
 "I think he's kidnapped her."
 "Why?" Kennedy demanded.
 "He wants your cooperation."
 "I haven't heard a thing."
  "Either that or she heard something or saw something she wasn't supposed to
  hear or see. Call the Bureau. Tell them she's missing."
 :'They'll think it's a put-up job."
  'Doesn't matter, Call them anyway," McGarvey said. "It'll put them on
  record. Whatever they think they'll at least have to go through the
  motions."
  Kennedy hesitated. "I don't know if I believe it myself."
  14Get a hold of yourself, David. Your wife didn't run off with Yamagata.
  She would have confronted you with
                HIGH FLIGHT 611

 it if your marriage is that bad. She would have hurt you with it."
 "I don't know. . .
 "I do," MeGarvey said bitterly. "I've been there."
 "What the hell are we supposed. to do?"
  "If there's anything wrong with those engines, Sir Malcolm and Socrates
  will find out about it. In the meantime save me a seat on Sunday's flight."
 "You'll never get past security."
 "Leave that up to me."
 "Yeah," Kennedy said dispiritedly.
  McGarvey broke the connection and tried Carrara's house again. Dominique
  was watching him, wide-eyed. There was no answer. Next he called Sam
  Varelis at the NTSB.
  "I just talked with David Kennedy. Any chance of grounding the fleet?"
  "The FAA wouldn't go along with it, because we don't have anything solid to
  give them. Do you know the Bureau is looking for you?"
  "I've heard," McGarvey said dryly. "I need a favor, Sam."
 "Name it."
  "Phil Carrara was placed on administrative leave because he was helping me.
  Now he's disappeared. Can you make a few discreet inquiries?"
 "Will do," Varelis said. "Where can I reach you?"
 "You can't, Sam. I'll call you at home tonight."
  "Make it here at the office. I have a feeling the next few days are going
  to be long ones."

 Captain Kiyoda and his XO stood behind the chief sonar-man watching the
 displays on his console. Because of their extreme depth, targets on the
 surface were hard to pick up and even more difficult to identify with any
 certainty. But their equipment was better than that of any navy's, and
 Nakayama was the best of the best.
  "Here's the first -dipping buoy, sir." Nakayama pointed to the display on
  the right. "Eighteen thousand meters out. From a LAMPS III, I think. Below
  the
 612 DAVID HAGBERG

 seasonal thermocline, but still well above the permanent layer. Broad-band
 processing, I'd guess, which means he's still searching for us."
 "The second?" Kiyoda asked.
  "We had it briefly, now it's gone, Kan-cho. But look here, there are two
  other surface targets. Very hard to analyze. "
 "Try.,,
  The display on the left side of the sonar console showed the measured and
  predicted sound transmission paths based on the salinity, temperature,
  and currents at various levels above them. The display on the right made
  corrections for the conditions. What remained were the theoretical
  contacts. Under ideal conditions the targets would paint as distinct
  points, or a series of dots, from which the operator-assisted electronic
  equipment could process real-time intelligence: the type of ship, its
  speed, and bearing. Now the display looked like a swiftly flowing
  waterfall through which they had to look.
  "Definitely surface ships, sir, not just noise." Nakayama circled one of
  the possible contacts with a grease pencil. "Sierra-One-Four. Same course
  and speed as Sierra-Zero-Nine. Much smaller. A lot less noise. Maybe a
  frigate."
 "American?" Kiyoda asked.
  "I think so, sir. The other is much weaker, but it seems to be the same
  type of ship, on the same course and speed."
  "Seventh Fleet sent out reinforcements," Minori'suggested.
  "It would appear so," Kiyoda replied. "Have you designated the second
  target?"
  "Sierra-One-Five." Nakayama circled the second indistinct target.
  "They're looking for us, Kan-cho.
 "Will they be successful?"
  "Not unless they get lucky, or we make a mistake," Nakayama said, and he
  stiffened.
  Kiyoda smiled at Nakayama's sudden embarrassment for questioning his
  captain's judgment and ability. "On
                HIGH FLIGHT 613

 this boat, Nakayama-san, we are dedicated only to the truth. Do you
 understand why?"
  "Hai, Kan-cho, " the sonarman replied without looking up.
 "What are the surface conditions?"
  "Still rough, sir. Judging from the noise I'd say they're dealing with
  seven-meter waves, maybe bigger. Can't be very comfortable when their
  search pattern brings them abeam the seas."
  "Can't be easy on the helicopter pilots either," Minori said.
  "There may have been a break in the weather. The surface noises were
  starting to die down a couple hours ago."
  "They'll recall the helicopters," Kiyoda said. He walked across to
  control and brought the surface ships' plots up on his command console
  display.
  Minori came with him. "They're keeping to the same baseline," he pointed
  out.
  "They've made the assumption that we're heading for Okinawa. As long as
  they continue the pattern, their speed of advance will be slow." Kiyoda
  keyed the numbers into his computer, getting his answer immediately.
  "Less than eight knots."
  "If we're careful not to exceed twelve knots there is a very good chance
  we will not'be detected," Minori said.
 "They will abandon the search at some point."
  "Hai, Kan-cho, but if we have a few hours' head start we could get well
  south of them, placing us between them and Okinawa."
 "And then, Ikuo?" Kiyoda asked.
  "That is for you to decide, but it would give us the superior position."
 "For a shooting solution?"
 "Hai. "
  "Or to ascend suddenly to seventy meters, thus announcing our presence?"
  Minori grinned. "Hai, Kan-cho. In that case they might be induced to
  attack us."
 614 DAVID HAGBERG

  " Indeed," Kiyoda agreed. "Come left to two-4ero-zero degrees. Make your
  speed eleven knots."
  "Yo-so-ro. Helm, come left to new course two-zerozero. Make your speed
  eleven knots," Minori ordered.
  44 Aye, coming left to new course two-zero-zero degrees. Engineering
  answering eleven knots."
 "Very well," Kiyoda said. He went back into sonar.
  "The second dipping buoy has disappeared, Kan-cho, Nakayama reported.
 "As we thought it might. How do you feel?"
 The sonarman looked up, surprised. "Sir?"
  "The next eight or ten hours might be critical. Are you rested enough to
  remain alert for that long?"
 :'Of course."
  'The truth now, remember?" Kiyoda reminded gently.
 "Hai, Kan-cho, in truth I am well rested."
  "Very well. We are changing course and speed to slip av~ay from our
  pursuers. If we are going to make a mistake, it will come in the next few
  hours. It is up to you not to lose them. Especially not Sierra-Zero-Nine.
  And it is up to you to alert us of any change in their search pattern."
 Nakayama nodded. "I will do my best, Kan-cho.
 "That is all anyone can ask," Kiyoda replied.

 Mueller stood at the head of the stairs listening to the vagrant sounds of
 the house. Now that the computer equipment no longer ran twenty-four hours
 a day, he'd come to appreciate the quiet. To each operation that would
 succeed there came a point at which a symmetry became obvious. Like now, he
 thought. Coming here from Europe had been the left side. Accomplishing
 Reid's task and leaving would be the right. They were at the pivot point.
  Louis came to the bedroom door. "Are we ready to leave?" he asked.
  " First I need to make certain that you removed your safeguard. "
                HIGH FLIGHT 615

 "It's already done. I told Mr. Reid."
 "Show me."
  "It's okay with me if you guys want to make a big production out of
  this," Louis said. "I just don't want to miss my plane, man."
 "You won't," Mueller assured him.
  Louis switched on one of the terminals, brought up a phone line, and got
  into the FBI's mainframe, his fingers flying over the keyboard. "I had
  the program on a coded timer," he explained, pulling up a block of
  fingerprint records from the Identification Division, "At the beginning
  of each six-hour period, plus or minus five minutes, had the recognition
  code not been entered, this is what would have happened." He hit a key,
  and suddenly the screen went red, with the word WARNING flashing on and
  off.
 "This is not happening now?" Mueller asked.
  "Just here because I pulled the program, like I said." Louis chuckled.
  The red screen was replaced with photographs of Reid and Mueller, with
  a complete narrative description of everything they'd done, and what
  they'd planned.
 "Your program has been erased?" Mueller asked.
  "Yeah," Louis said. "Watch." He brought the FBI's logo back up on screen,
  hit a series of keys, and this time he was denied access.
 11 IMPROPER ACCESS CODE."
  "Very good," Mueller said, and he plunged the blade of the stiletto to
  the hilt in the back of Zerkel's neck, at the base of his skull, severing
  his spinal cord.
  Zerkel flopped forward, his head hitting the computer screen, and within
  a few seconds his body stopped shivering.
  Mueller withdrew the blade and carefully wiped it clean on the back of
  Zerkel's sweat-stained shirt. "What do you think about that?" he said.

 A messenger came down from the FBI director's office and handed John
 Whitman the warrant. "Mr. Harding asks that you proceed with caution."
 616 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Will do," Whitman said.
  The District of Columbia police had agreed to cooperate. Every hotel and
  motel within its jurisdiction would be canvassed. The CIA had sent over a
  recent file photograph of McGarvey. If he was.a registered guest anywhere
  within the district, under whatever name, he would be found. Every Bureau
  office around the country would get copies of the warrant, and the photo-
  graph would coordinate their efforts with local and state police units. The
  Portland office was especially on the alert, and Guerin Airplane Company
  would be the subject of a massive, but very quiet, surveillance operation.
  Outside the country, the CIA would conduct its own search. It would only be
  a matter of time before he was picked up, with or without his cooperation,
  Whitman assured himself.

 They left at dark. Mueller went first with the van and headed up to
 Baltimore to get rid of the bodies. From there he planned on flying to New
 York where he would place repeaters at La Guardia and JFK airports before
 returning to Washington. Sometime Saturday he would place the final repeater
 at Dulles. Reid left a half-hour later, closing down the house. Zerkel's
 body was buried in the garbage pit in back, and within twenty-four hours a
 crew would remove the computer equipment and dispose of it. Mueller thought
 it was a weak link, although he agreed that Reid knew what he was doing and
 that the step was necessary. Sunday was the day that the United States would
 wake up to what the world was really all about.

 John Whitman called Howard Ryan at the CIA. "We're trying to locate Mr.
 Phillip Carrara. We'd like to speak with him about Mr. McGarvey."
 "Have you tried his home?"
  "There appears to be nobody there. I thought you might be able to help."
 "Just a moment," Ryan said. He came back on the
                HIGH FLIGHT 617

 line several seconds later. "You understand that he is presently on
 administrative leave."
 "Yes. 11
  "He may have left the city. Nobody has heard from him since this morning.
  In any event I don't know if he would be terribly cooperative. He and
  McGarvey are friends."
  "Yes, Mr. Ryan, it's one of the reasons we'd like to interview him."
  "I'll see what I can do. But I think that such an interview would have
  to be conducted here. We'd have to monitor it. Could be that questions
  of national security would arise."
 "I agree. You'll let me know?"
 "As soon as," Ryan said.
 What a pompous ass, Whitman thought.

 "He's gone," Sam Varelis told McGarvey.
 "Gone where?"
  "No one knows, Mac. He's just gone. His wife is up in Montpelier, and the
  FBI and CIA are looking for him. Should I dig deeper?"
  "If you can without making waves," McGarvey replied, but he was worried.

 THIRTY-FOUR

 The ocean sounded as if it were just outside the bedroom window. At any
 other time the pounding surf would have been soothing. But not tonight.
 Now it sounded ominous, the big waves coming as they did from some distant
 storm. Maybe even as far away as Japan. Chance's head felt as if it was
 about to split open, and she was frightened. They'd given her
 618 DAVID HAGBERG

 some drug in Portland, and she couldn't remember much after that, except
 that what had begun as some sort of crazy adventure had turned into a
 nightmare.
  "How are you feeling?" Yamagata asked from the doorway.
  Chance turned. "Where are we?" Her voice sounded slurred to her.
  "Someplace safe. And now you're going to have to help us." He sat down
  beside her on the edge of the bed. "Actually, it's your husband you can
  help. If you still want to."
 "I don't understand. Who are you?"
 "A businessman-"
  "No, damn you," Chance cried. She rose up and tried to strike him, but he
  grabbed her arms and eased her back.
  "I was sent here to make a deal for Guerin. We want to merge with them."
 "Businessmen don't take advantage of women."
  Yamagata laughed. "I think it was you who tried to take advantage of me."
 "You used drugs on me."
  "The effects will pass, and in a few hours you'll feel better. But you must
  believe me when I tell you that I am here to save lives. That is very
  important, Chance. Nothing else matters for the moment. It's something
  you're going to have to help us accomplish. Are you listening to me?"
 "They'll stop you."
 "Who will stop us?"
 "McGarvey. He warned me."
  "Yes, I know. But why did your husband hire him? What is the company afraid
  of?"
  Chance turned away. Her head was pounding. "The accidents. Somebody is
  doing it."
 "Who?"
  "I don't know. David's afraid. They all are. Even the old man."
                HIGH FLIGHT 619

  "You'll talk to your husband," Yamagata said, his voice a long way off.
  "We'll change it."

 The weather had been spotty throughout the day and late afternoon, with the
 sun breaking through the clouds for as much as an hour at a time. In the lee
 of Okinerabu's east shore, the Fair Winds was protected from the brunt of
 the winds and seas rolling across the East China Sea. But as soon as they'd
 cleared the island's northern tip for Tokuno thirty miles to the northeast
 they were hit by the full force.
  Her full-keeled displacement hull bit into the steep seas, her rail forced
  well into the water by the forty-knotplus winds, her stubby, over-stayed
  mast supporting the three sails of the cutter rig with brute strength. For
  a full minute or two Stan Liskey reveled in the storm, ten tons of boat
  straining against the thick tiller in his hand. But then he glanced at
  Carol.
 "How're you doing, kid?" he shouted.
  "Make that Harlem at night. Times Square would be too easy," she answered.
  Her face was strained, and her knuckles were white from a death grip on a
  stanchion.
  A heavier gust hit them, beam on, driving the lee rail even deeper, the
  mast visibly bending. She stayed over for a long time. Liskey, on the
  windward side, was standing almost upright, his feet braced against the lee
  cockpit well, the pressure on the tiller very pronounced. But then the wind
  eased and Fair Winds'rail came up, water streaming off her decks.
  "Time to pull in some sails?" Carol shouted hopefully over the wind
  screaming in the rigging.
 "The boat can take it."
  "Good! But I don't think I can, Stan. What's there to prove?"
  She was right, of course. This weather would only last another few days at
  most. But when it cleared he wanted to be much closer to the Japanese south
  island of Kyushu. If they turned back now, to hide again behind Okinerabu,
  they'd be stuck there. On the other hand, if
 620 DAVID HAGBERG

 they could make it to Tokuno by tonight or early morning, and
 Amami-O-Shima tomorrow afternoon, they'd be in striking distance of a lot
 more interesting cruising grounds.
  The seas were running above twenty-footers, but they were not breaking
  yet, and they were on the beam, not the nose. He studied the strait ahead
  of them. On a clear day Tokuno would be visible from here, he expected.
  But not now. There was too much spray and mist in the air. Too much haze.
  He glanced at the compass. They were on course. When he engaged the
  windvane it would keep them there. And the Magellan GPS would unfailingly
  tell them where they were. If not the GPS, then they'd dead reckon. They
  were in no danger, just discomfort.
  They shook off a smaller gust, water flying everywhere, and the boat
  shuddered.
 "I'm going below," Carol shouted.
  "Wait, I need you here," Liskey told her. "I'm going to pull the headsail
  the rest of the way in, then put a reef in the staysail and another in
  the main."
 "Are we going to turn back?"
  "We'll see how we handle the weather once I reduce sail, But I'd like to
  make Tokuno sometime tonight." He studied her anxious expression. "Unless
  you'd feel more comfortable back at anchor."
  She didn't answer at first. Instead she looked out toward the weather,
  watching the big seas marching in toward them. Each wave would rise up
  on the port beam, as if it would engulf them, but then the boat lifted
  up, almost as if she were a woman lifting her skirts, and the wave would
  pass beneath them, leaving a huge trough over which they seemed to
  teeter.
  "Hell yes, I'd rather be at anchor," she shouted, turning back to him.
  "But you tell me, Stan, are we all right out here like this?"
 "If we were racing . .
 "We're not, are we?"
 Liskey shook his head. "Something. might break, but
                HIGH FLIGHT 621

 we're okay." He grinned, a sudden overwhelming wave of love for her washing
 through him. "It'll be a lot more comfortable when I get the sails reefed."
 "Will it make much difference in our speed?"
  "Not much," Liskey assured her. He moved forward so that she could slip in
  beside him and take the tiller. "I'll signal when I'm ready. Then turn her
  into the wind so I can get the sails in."
 "Thanks," she said.
 "I love you," Liskey shouted.
 "Yeah, that too," she replied wryly. "But thanks."

 Kirk McGarvey was a deeply troubled man, Dominique thought, watching him as
 he came awake. Different from most other men she'd ever known. In some
 respects like her brother: strong, self-assured, with a bit of a chip on his
 shoulder.
  "It's morning," he said, opening his eyes. Gray light came through the
  windows.
 "I didn't want to wake you."
  "Did you get any sleep? Or did you stand guard all night?"
  "All I've done out here is sleep," she said. "Do you know that you
  dreamed?"
 "Yes.,,
 "Was it about your work?"
  "That, and other things. But mostly about the people I've been ... involved
  with. Some of them didn't seem too bad afterward. Just people trying to
  live their lives," MeGarvey said distantly. "When the rules change it's
  hard to know what's right. There's never any easy answers. No black and
  white. It's not what you think."
  "I don't know if I can believe that," Dominique said. "Whoever brought down
  the airplane at Dulles is evil."
 "Maybe they were soldiers like you say I am."
  "Not like you. I can't believe that you've killed innocent people."
  McGarvey smiled wanly. "Tell that to the Russians," he said. He reached
  over and kissed her. "I have to go."
 622 DAVID HAGBERG

  She stayed in bed while he showered and dressed. He kissed her again before
  he left. At the window she watched him drive away, and when his car was
  gone, she placed a telephone call to a Washington number. Last night he'd
  told her everything, because there was no reason for her not to know, and
  because she'd promised to stay put.
  "Good morning," a woman said. "Thank you for calling the Lamplighter. How
  may I direct your call?"
  "I'd like to speak to Mr. Reid, please. Tell him it's Dominique Kilbourne,
  from the Airplane Manufacturers and Airline Association."
  Reid, a guarded note in his voice, came on a moment later.
  "Good morning, Ms. Kilbourne. What can I do for you?"
 :'You can buy me lunch today."
  Lunch?"
  Yes, Mr. Reid. I happen to agree with you about the Japanese. I've been
  reading your newsletter lately, and there's something I'd like to Ask you.
  Something the people I represent are concerned about. Very concerned."
  4' Sounds intriguing. Would you care to give me a hint?"
  4' Noon," Dominique said. "Shall we say the Rive Gauche?"
  "Very well," Reid replied, but it didn't sound as if he was happy about it.

 McGarvey left a message at the Russian embassy for Viktor Yemlin. The former
 Washington rezident met him at the coffee shop in the Washington Plaza Hotel
 a couple of blocks away on Thomas Circle.
 11 Guerin will not ground the fleet," McGarvey said.
 And the President leaves for Tokyo on Sunday, aboard a Guerin 522."
  11 My hands are tied, Kirk. Believe me. In fact I have orders to return to
  Moscow."
                HIGH FLIGHT 623

  "Two days, Viktor Pavlovich. Goddammit, I'm trying to avert a disaster
  here."
  Yemlin spread his hands. "What do you want from us?" he asked in
  frustration. "Abunai has been shut down. I'm no longer your case officer,
  and for all I know the Guerin deal has already been written off."
  "If airplanes start crashing your hands won't be clean."
 "What's that supposed to mean?"
  "The President won't cancel his trip. If Air Force One were to go down, the
  CIA would turn to the Japanese. But it'd also want to know what part the
  SUR played. Exactly what Abunai did to ... create the situation in Tokyo."
 "We did nothing-"
  "When I turn myself in and tell them about Mintori Assurance's part in the
  1990 crash, they'll see it differently. You know goddamned well they will,
  Viktor. I suggest you tell Moscow exactly that."
 Yemlin shook his head.
  "You people are in this up to your necks, just like we are."
  "I'll see what I can do, Kirk." Yemlin sighed. "Call me at my blind number
  this afternoon."
  "The FBI is monitoring'that line. We'll meet at Arlington."

 General Polunin had a terrific case of heartburn, and nothing that Colonel
 Lyalin was telling him helped. This time it wouldn't be so easy to pass the
 buck to Karyagin.
  "What's the upshot?" he asked his First Department chief.
  "It's lucky for us that Viktor Pavlovich decided to delay his departure
  from Washington. Otherwise we would be in the dark. There is no basis for
  any guesswork. We no longer have the assets." Lyalin spread his hands.
  "Spare me the economic complaints. What does McGarvey want?"
 624 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Help with their situation. We're reasonably certain that Mintori was
  involved in the American Airlines crash in 1990, but not the recent
  accident at Dulles. But both crashes were apparently caused by the same
  malfunction, which would appear to be a statistical long shot. Someone else
  has become involved."
 :'Who?"
  'Unknown at this point, and with network Abunai inoperative for the moment
  we're getting no fresh intelligence from Tokyo. That is assuming the second
  party is also Japanese."
  "But we're not certain of even that much," Polunin said. "The fucking fools
  are willing to sacrifice a billiondollar aircraft factory because ihey want
  to save face."
  "We may get lucky. There might not be a connection," Lyalin replied
  hopefully. "The problem is that Air Force One is a Guerin 522, which
  President Lindsay will be flying to Tokyo on Sunday. If it goes down we
  could conceivably be implicated."
 "How?"
  "McGarvey says he will tell the CIA about Abunai's help identifying
  Mintori. Langley will want to know why, if we suspected the President's
  plane was sabotaged, we didn't warn them."
 :'Why don't we?" Polunin asked.
  'I think it's too late, General. We have no other way out except by helping
  McGarvey. Providing the Kremlin won't change its mind about a retaliatory
  strike on Japan."
  Polunin shook his head. "Even you are not supposed to know about that."
 :'Everyone knows."
  'Can we send Abunai to Washington without trouble?"
 :'I think so."
  'Then do it, Colonel. The sooner he talks to McGarvey, the better I'll
  feel. In the meantime I'll light another tire under Tokyo Station's ass.
  Its political section is busy, but its field officers aren't."
                HIGH FLIGHT 625

 Carol Moss slid open the hatch from below and handed Stan Liskey two big
 mugs of hot beef noodle soup. The weather had closed in, covering the
 moon, blotting out anything beyond the ship's running lights. Any move-
 ment, especially below, was nearly impossible. The fact she'd somehow
 managed to heat some soup was practically miraculous.
  "No need for you to be up here," Liskey shouted. "Stay below out of the
  wind."
  "Unless you want barf all over the cabin sole, I need fresh air," she
  shouted back. She waited until a wave passed under them, then levered
  herself over the hatchboards into the cockpit and deftly slammed the
  hatch.
 "How's our track holding up?"
  "We'll be out of this soon. From what I could tell on the chart there's
  at least one good anchorage along Tokuno's south coast in the bight, and
  a bunch around the hump to the east."
  As soon as she hooked on with her safety harness and braced herself
  against the bulkhead beneath the spray dodger, Liskey handed her a cup
  of soup. "We'll go for the bight. If the wind shifts it'll give us an
  easier choice, east or west."
  "We're good on this course then." She took a ham and cheese sandwich
  wrapped in a paper towel from a pocket in her foul-weather gear for him.
  "Mustard okay?"
 "You're amazing."
  Carol laughed. "Just don't forget it when the sun is shining and we're
  on dry land and I burn your toast."
 "Never happen."
 "Count on it," she said. She started on her soup.
  Liskey checked the lines on the Aires windvane that automatically steered
  the boat, then drank his soup. It was very hot and very good. Despite the
  increasing wind and waves, and the steadily decreasing temperature, he
  felt a sense of well-being. He was on his boat with a woman he loved in
  a time and place of his own choosing, doing exactly what he wanted to be
  doing. They were in no real danger, although there was always the
  possibility that a weakened swage on one of the shrouds or stays
 626 DAVID HAGBERG

 could fail and the mast would fall down. Or the windvane could break,
 forcing them to hand steer to their anchorage, which was a difficult and
 very tiring job under these conditions. Or they could hit something tossed
 off a passing freighter or tanker that was big enough to hole them beneath
 the waterline. It wasn't an uncommon experience. There'd been cases in
 which small boats had been sunk in as little as ninety seconds. But even
 that thought did little to dampen his spirits. They had an automatically
 inflating life raft well equipped forjust such an occurrence. They even
 carried an emergency position indicating radio beacon-an EPIRB-that would
 automatically send out a mayday signal to other boats and to high-flying
 commercial airplanes.
  Nothing was foolproof, Liskey told himself. But then neither was life
  itself He smiled to himself. A philosopher he wasn't, but out here like
  this he felt a very strong sense of his own life force in sync with the
  ebb and flow of life in, on, and above the sea.
 "What's so funny?" Carol shouted.
 "You'll have me certified and put away if I tell you."
 "Let me guess. You love this."
  "We're alive." Liskey glanced at the compass and knotlog. They were
  sailing just east of due north and making better than five knots even
  under severely reefed sails. He studied their phosphorescent wake aft.
  The Aires steered an S pattern, "I don't know if I can explain it any
  better, Carol."
  "I think I know what you mean," she replied after a moment or two. "But
  it's so goddamned macho I don't know if I understand."
 "It's easy."
  "If you mean that you have to put your life in danger in order to feel
  alive, you know, like a bungee jumper or something, then I guess you
  should be committed. Except if that were the criterion our asylums would
  be crammed to the rafters with men, leaving none of them on the outside.
  A situation I, for one, wouldn't like."
                HIGH FLIGHT 627

 "Vive la diff,6rence. "
  "Something like that," Carol said. "But I'm not just a passenger on this
  sailboat. I chose to be here just as you did." She swept an arm toward the
  darkness around them. "My blood is pumping too, Stan. But it doesn't mean
  I have to like this part of it. For me sailing across a quiet lagoon with
  ten knots of wind kicking up nothing more than a ripple is pretty exciting.
  Gets my blood racing thinking I'd be there with you."
 "There aren't many people who could do this."
  "Or would," Carol said. "Doesn't make them all bad, just different. And
  when we drop the hook you let out as big a sigh of relief as the next
  person."
 "A sense of accomplishment."
 "Yes, but for me that's a better part than this."
 "You can't have that part without first doing this."
  She laughed out loud. "What a load of crap, Stan. But here I am." Again she
  swept an arm toward the darkness beyond. "Even if they were forty-footers,
  and you chose to be out here, I'd be with you."
 Liskey opened his mouth but didn't know what to say.
  "Not a particularly nineties thing for me to admit. And Gloria Steinem
  would probably spit up if she heard me. Fact is, I love you. Nothing's
  going to change that."
 "You never said that before."
 She laughed again. "Death-bed confession."
  He couldn't take his eyes off her. He wanted to drink her in great
  draughts. He wanted to absorb her entire body and personality into his. "I
  love you," he shouted. He raised his head. "I love you," he shouted into
  the wind. "I love you!"

 Yemlin was waiting for McGarvey at Kennedy's tomb in Arlington Cemetery. "A
 meeting has been arranged."
  "With whom?" McGarvey asked. They headed away from the eternal flame. The
  weather was once again overcast and cold. It looked like more snow.
  "Somebody who might be able to help. But listen to me, my old friend. There
  is no guarantee that he will
 628 DAVID HAGBERG

 know anything of value to you. He has been instructed to cooperate. But
 don't shoot the messenger."
 "SUR?"
 Yemlin shrugged. "He is Abunai.
 "What's his position in the network?"
  "No, Mac, he is Abunai. The network, except for a few field officers-a very
  few field officers-is only one man. He has agreedto come from Tokyo to talk
  with you."
 "When, Viktor Pavlovich?"
 "He'll be here tonight."
  McGarvey stopped the Russian. "That doesn't make sense. There's no way he
  could get here from Tokyo in such a short time."
 "He's coming from Honolulu."
  "Are you going to tell me what the hell he's doing there, or am I going to
  have to wait?"
 "You'll have to wait, because I don't know."

 "Ms. Kilbourne, you look radiant," Edward R. Reid said.
  "That's what I like about mature men. They don't get tongue-tied when they
  pay a woman a compliment."
  "The nineties do seem to have gotten away from us. But the good side is
  that women like you are doing well, although it puts some of us men at a
  disadvantage."
  "We do our best," Dominique said as she and Reid followed the maitre d' to
  their table. The restaurant was full, as usual for a weekday. People at a
  couple of tables waved to Reid, but she didn't see any familiar faces. One
  thing she had caught, though, was Reid's nervousness. Something was
  bothering him. "How's the Lamplighter doing now that you've taken on the
  Japanese?"
  "Circulation is up, as a matter of fact.?' Reid eyed her speculatively. "Is
  that what you wanted to talk about?"
  "Some of the people I represent are worried. About the Japanese."
  "And well they should be," Reid said as they sat down. "Although Boeing
  seems to be doing well working with them. Problem is there's no telling how
  long Japan
                HIGH FLIGHT 629

 can remain stable. It's been on the brink of bankruptcy since the early
 nineties. Of course so have we, although we have a depth of resources that
 they do not."
 "You're talking about natural resources?"
  "Exactly. Especially oil, which it desperately needs from the Middle
  East. It's completely dependent on the sea lanes. If its supplies were
  to be cut for even a short time, it'd suffer."
  "There are no threats now that the Soviet Union has broken apart,"
  Dominique said.
 The waiter came, and they ordered drinks.
  "Haven't you been watching television, or reading newspapers?"
  "It's a localized problem. Or do you see it differently, Mr. Reid? Do you
  think the Russians will retaliate?"
 ~ "It could happen. Which would further destabilize the political
 situation out there." Reid looked across the room as if he were suddenly
 unsure of himself. As if he were worried that someone was watching them.
 "We have a problem."
  "With the Japanese?" Reid asked. Two men followed the maitre d' across
  the dining room to a nearby table. They looked like cops.
  "One of my companies thinks the Japanese are after them. It's Guerin.
  They're worried about the accident at Dulles last week. They think it
  could have been sabotage. And there's been a move by a Japanese
  consortium to force an unfriendly takeover, which would be easy if
  Guerin's stocks went down the drain."
  Reid moistened his lips. "I've heard the takeover rumors, but nothing
  about the accident. Is the company sure about the sabotage? The National
  Transportation Safety Board hasn't made a ruling yet, has it?"
  Dominique shook her head. "It's more complicated than that, Mr. Reid.
  Which is why I decided to ask for your help."
  "Please call me Edward. But are you saying that you've come to me on your
  own initiative, without telling anyone?"
 630 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Not Guerin ... Edward. I don't want to raise any false hopes. But
  they're really in trouble." Dominique glanced across the room for effect.
  "All this is in strict confidence."
 "Of course. How can I help?"
  "They're so desperate that they've hired an ex-CIA spy. But he's got them
  so confused that they're starting to believe everyone is after them.
  There was that American Airlines crash in '90 that McGarvey-he's the spy
  they hired-thinks was engineered by the Japanese. But the one last week,
  according to him, was caused by someone right here in this country."
 Reid visibly blanched.
  "It's stupid, but he's convinced the FBI and probably even the CIA to
  take a look. But it has to be Japan, don't you think? They're the only
  ones who have anything to gain if Guerin goes bankrupt."
  Their drinks came and they ordered lunch, but Reid was obviously
  distracted.
  "Have you talked to him, this fellow Kirk MeGarvey?"
  "Of course. He's here in Washington now, as a matter of fact."
 "Where's he staying?"
  "I don't know. Thing is, Edward, I need your help to convince him and
  Guerin that it's the Japanese consortium that's after them. Not somebody
  here. Will you do it?"
  For a moment it didn't seem as if Reid would answer her. But then he
  nodded. "It'll have to wait until after the weekend."
 "Oh?"
  "I'm flying with the President on Sunday to Tokyo. When I come back I'll
  be happy to lend a hand."

 Ryutaro Teramura looked like a college student, McGarvey thought, not the
 head of a Russian intelligencegathering network. His effectiveness
 stemmed, Yemlin explained, from the fact that he was the number-two
                HIGH FLIGHT 631

 most powerful man in the Japanese Socialist Party. They met in an
 apartment in Arlington.
  "I've heard about you," Abunai said. "I thought you were inactive."
  "Except for this assignment, I am. Now I need your help."
  Teramura glanced at Yemlin. "Was it explained why I was in Honolulu when
  the call came?"
 "No," the Russian said.
  "It's ironic, but my party sent me to Hawaii to meet the Guerin airplane
  America on Sunday. It's to be a goodwill gesture to show that the
  government does not back Kamiya's plans."
 "Morning Star?" McGarvey asked.
  "Yes. The fool wants to somehow embroil Japan in a war with the U.S.
  Evidently for ultimate economic control of the western Pacific rim."
 "Is it possible without Tokyo's cooperation?"
  "Sokichi Kamiya is a powerful man. A lot depends on how your government
  reacts."
 "To what?" McGarvey asked.
  Teramura peered at him through rimless glasses. "I don't know. But
  whatever it is will happen very soon."
 "Sunday?"
  "Possibly, Mr. McGarvey. But I think the issue with Guerin may be
  separate, and possibly just as troubling to Kamiya as it is to you. Are
  you aware that Mintori Assurance has a connection with one of Guerin's
  subcontractors here in the States?"
 "What's the name of this company?"
  "I haven't been able to find out. One of my people was assassinated, and
  now our lines of communication have been severed." Abunai took a
  cigarette from Yemlin. "It may be impossible for you to do anything to
  avert his plans."
  "What if Kamiya were to be killed?" McGarvey asked.
  Teramura considered the suggestion. "His death might be of some value.
  But if you are concerned that
 632 DAVID HAGBERG

 some catastrophe will happen on Sunday, you are already too late. You do
 not have the time to get to him."
 "What about the network?"
  Teramura shrugged. "My part was to pass intelligence to Moscow in order
  to help avoid conflict between our countries. That may be a moot point
  finally." He smiled wanly. "We are at a difficult juncture. Nothing is
  the same, yet everything is the same."
 "As what?" McGarvey asked.
 "The late twenties and early thirties, of course."

 John F. Kennedy Airport is located on Jamaica Bay at the southern edge of
 Queens, and La Guardia is on Flushing Bay at the northern edge of the
 borough. Traffic to and from both airports is almost always heavy. But
 security, or the lack of it, is no different from any other major airport
 in the country. No one seems to notice or care who comes and goes, as long
 as there are no snarls.
  Apparently it was all the authorities could manage, Mueller thought,
  watching a Delta Airlines Guerin 522 come in for a landing at JFK. Why
  there hadn't been more terrorist attacks in the United States was an
  incredible mystery to him. From what he'd read in the magazines and
  newspapers, it was just as big a mystery to Americans. Yet no one was
  doing anything about it.
  He turned in his rental car at the Budget counter and took the bus over
  to the American Airlines terminal. The last flight to Washington's
  National Airport left at 11:01 P.m. He checked in a half-hour early, got
  a cup of tea, and sat down with a Newsweek magazine in the boarding area.
  Tomorrow he would do Dulles and on Sunday at 3:00-when Air Force One was
  scheduled to depart from Andrews and America from Portland-he would send
  the signal.
  Something stirred in his gut, and he looked up for a moment.. One of the
  gate agents, a pretty woman in an American Airlines uniform, was looking
  at him. He smiled, and she smiled back.
                HIGH FLIGHT 633

 The afternoon was gray, the wind outside the bight of Tokuno Island still
 blew hard, kicking up big seas. Fair Winds rode easy at her protected
 anchorage. Nevertheless Liskey had gotten up several times to make sure
 they were holding. Standing now at the half-open hatch, drinking a cup of
 coffee he'd brewed, he studied the rockbound shoreline a hundred yards
 away. If the weather were better it would be interesting to take the
 dinghy ashore to look around. But for now he wanted to head farther north.
  "A penny for your thoughts," Carol said, emerging from the vee-berth
  forward.
  "I was thinking about a Japanese fishing village where the food is good
  and the saki is cheap."
  She poured a cup of coffee. "How about warm weather?"
 "If not that, how about warm saki?"
 "Ugh. Tastes like snot to me. "
  He shook his head and laughed. "You've definitely got a way with words,
  toots."
  "How about coming back to bed, in that case. I'm cold."
  Liskey ducked back inside and put his cup aside. "See what I mean," he
  said.

 THIRTY-FIVE

 orninique was gone. McGarvey stood in the middle of the kitchen, listening
 to the sounds of the house, her note in one hand, his gun in the other.
 She said that she was in town having lunch with Edward Reid. But that was
 impossible. He'd told her the situation. She understood that these people
 were desperate and that killing one more person would be totally
 634 DAVID HAGBERG

 meaningless to them. So what was she trying to do? Christ, the stupidity, he
 thought.
  A car pulled up in the driveway. McGarvey raced down the corridor to the
  stair hall in time to see Dominique getting out of her Corvette, and then
  he hurried upstairs to a front window from where he could see the street.
  He half expected to see a white Toyota van, but there was no traffic. He
  stepped back away from the window, lowering his gun, allowing a measure of
  relief to pass through him. She hadn't been kidnapped, nor had she been
  followed back here. The note was legitimate.
  Dominique let herself in as McGarvey came down the stairs, and her eyes
  went from the note in his hand to the expression on his face. "Before you
  say anything, hear me out," she said.
  "There'll be nothing to say when you're dead," he told her mildly. "They'll
  kill you if you get too close."
  "Reid's in this up to his ears. When I mentioned your name he practically
  fell down. But he knows you. I only used your last name, but he knew your
  first."
 "What'd you say to him?"
  "I told him that Guerin hired you because it was worried about the
  Japanese, but now you're convinced someone else caused the Dulles
  accident."
  "If he knows me, it means somebody is feeding him information. He has help.
  But he has a lot of contacts."
  "When I told him that you'd convinced the FBI and the CIA to investigate I
  thought he was going to have a heart attack."
 "Did he say anything aliout Sunday?"
  "That's the only part that didn't make any sense to me, Kirk. When I asked
  him for help convincing you that the Japanese were behind the Dulles crash,
  he said it'd have to wait until after the weekend. He's flying to Tokyo
  with the President."
 "I know."
 "Do you think he's involved?"
 "Phil Carrara thought it was possible."
                HIGH FLIGHT 635

 An odd expression crossed her face. "Where is he?"
 "I don't know."

 "The brakes are fried," the Delta Airlines chief mechanic on duty at
 Dulles International Airport said.
  "We really had to lean on them to slow down," senior pilot Robert Rodwell
  replied. They were hunched over the main landing truck on the port side.
  A lot of black debris and metal shavings had collected from the brake
  rotors.
  "Same on the other side, Captain. This bird'll have to go into the shop
  tonight."
  "She's not scheduled to fly until morning. Can you get it done by then?"
  "We're down to a weekend crew. Company won't budge on that with the
  overtime pay and all." The mechanic, Ted Neidlinger, shined his
  flashlight on the huge brake rotors. "Could be these are already turned
  to tolerance, which means we'll have to bring spares up from Atlanta.
  Something I know we don't have in shop." He shrugged. "Your call,
  Captain."
  "Without calling in an extra crew, what are we looking at for time?"
 "Twenty-four, maybe thirty-six hours."
  "They're not going to like it," Rodwell said. He'd have to have
  Operations bring another aircraft up from Atlanta to make the morning La
  Guardia round-trip. It would probably be one of the older birds, like an
  L 10 11 or DC- 10, and not the more modem and more comfortable Guerin
  522. There'd be a lot of bitching.
 "I don't break 'em, Captain. I just fix 'em."
  It was a shitty remark, but it was late, and besides, he was right. "Are
  we going to have it -for Sunday morning's La Guardia?"
  "No. But I'm pretty sure we can have it for the sevenfive-six."
 "That's when I fly next," Rodwell said. "Fix it good."
 "I hear you."
 The pilot took the stairs up to the jetway and went
 636 DAVID HAGBERG

 back into the airplane to get his brain bag. His co-pilot was already gone,
 but Mary White the chief stew was still aboard, finishing her flight log.
 "How's it look?" she asked.
  "This bird is down until Sunday. You flying tomorrow?"
  She nodded tiredly. "Not until three. What'll they send up for us?"
 "Nothing good. How about Sunday?"
 "Yup, then too."
 "Busy weekend."
  "Not so bad," she said. "I have a four-day layover in L.A., and I've got a
  ton of things to do in my apartment. How about you?"
  "Not until Sunday. I've got seven-five-six, O'Hare direct, then L.A." He
  glanced at the panel clock. It was a few minutes after midnight. "Still
  time to grab a couple of drinks and a bite to eat."
 "Where are you staying?"
 "The Drake."
  "They put us across town at the Tudor. It'd be too late by the time I got
  back. I've got to get some sleep."
 "My room has a king-size bed."
 Her eyes widened slightly.
  "Ah, shit, sorry," Rodwell apologized. "I didn't mean anything. It's late
  and I'm tired . . ."
 She smiled. "You don't snore, do you, Captain?"

 Project supervisor Scott Hale came up to America's cockpit where Socrates
 and Kilbourne were watching the last of the diagnostic tests on the flight
 management system computers.
  "We're ready to re-cowl the engines," he told them. "Do you want to sign
  off?"
  Socrates took the clipboard Hale brought up and ran through the checklist.
  "Do the thermocouple interfaces again," he said tiredly. It was well after
  midnight. His throat hurt, and his eyes burned.
 "That'll take at least three hours on each engine," the
                HIGH FLIGHT 637

 engineer replied. He was frustrated. They all were because of the long
 hours.
  "I know. And before we move over to Portland Sunday morning we'll do them
  again from the forward electronic bay."
  "Well, you're going to have to settle the argument between Rolls and
  InterTech, Mr. Socrates. They're at it again."
 "What's their beef this time?" Kilbourne growled.
  "They're still showing a phase delay on one of the sensor ready pulses.
  Sudursky came up from San Francisco yesterday to look it over. He says
  it's well within tolerances, but Danson can't find it on the schematics."
  "Have we seen anything like that from this end?" Socrates asked the
  technician.
 "Are they talking about GO-One?"
 "I think so."
  "We've seen it. The problem is with the schematics, not the subassembly,
  It was a minor redesign that hasn't shown up in the manuals."
  Something about that didn't quite set right with Socrates, but he
  couldn't put his finger on it. "Let's test from here."
  "The phase delay involves the thermocouple circuitry. Do you still want
  the main tests run?"
  "Yes," Socrates replied tiredly. "As soon as this question is settled.
  Then you can re-cowl."

 There was no security at Dulles other than a night watchman at the Airport
 Commission building. Mueller stood in the darkness of a basement corridor
 for several seconds, waiting for the uniformed but unarmed man to finish
 his rounds and return to his office upstairs.
  In Europe after any crash, whether caused by accident or terrorist
  attack, airports were closed up as tight as prisons. In addition to the
  usual security people, the military or in some cases anti-terrorist
  police, heavily armed with automatic weapons, swarmed over every square
  meter. From food service to baggage handling,
 638 DAVID HAGBERG

 ~nd from ticketing to passport control, electronic sensing equipment and
 police sniffer dogs were on duty twenty-four hours per day.
  A couple of weeks ago an airplane had crashed here, but the only security
  Mueller had encountered was one old man unarmed except for a
  walkie-talkie and a set of keys.
 Incredible.
  He went upstairs, hesitated at the end of the corridor
 to make sure the guard was gone, then walked across to
 the exit and let himself out. Keeping close to the
 building, out * of camera range, he removed the Walkinan
 and disappeared into the night.

 "America is still at Gales Creek," Kennedy said from his secure line in
 Portland.
  "When are you moving it to Portland?" McGarvey asked.
  "Not until Sunday morning, a few hours before the Honolulu flight. How
  is everything there in Washington? Are you with Dominique?"
  "Yes. But listen to me, David. I don't know how much good I'm doing here.
  Have you found anything?"
 "Nothing."
 "I'll be aboard that flight."
 "You'll never get through security."
  "Yes, I will," McGarvey promised. "Have you heard from your wife?"
 "No," Kennedy said, his voice choked.
 "Did you call the police?"
  "Yes. But until I get a call or a note or something, there's nothing they
  can do. She doesn't have anything to do with this, Mac. What the hell do
  they want?"
  "I don't know, David, but Yamagata is in the middle of it," McGarvey
  answered. "I'll be there tonight. Hang on.11

 Roland Murphy came to the White House first thing in the morning.
 President Lindsay and his NSA Harold Secor were waiting for him in the
 Oval Office. Except for
                HIGH FLIGHT 639

 last-minute details, this would be the President's final regular
 intelligence briefing before he took off for Tokyo tomorrow.
  "I've spoken with President Yeltsin and Prime Minister Enchi, who assure
  me that their military movements are nothing more than exercises," the
  President said. "Does this square with your shop?"
  "If you want my gut reaction, Mr. President, I'd say both of them were
  lying through their teeth."
  President Lindsay grinned. "Put a military man in charge of an agency,
  and you'll get straight answers. Not always the ones you want to hear,
  but straightforward. What do you have for us this morning, General?"
  Murphy handed the President the leather-bound folder that contained the
  in-depth national intelligence estimates that ran to more than twenty
  thousand words this morning, twice as long as normal.
  "Three main points, sir. The first involves the military standoff in the
  region. As of last night, every Japanese Self Defense Force base,
  installation, and ship was on alert. All leaves are canceled."
  "Prime Minister Enchi called it a 'national exercise,' to test the entire
  system. He says their weapons are unarmed."
  "Yes, sir, under federal command. Their system is similar to our nuclear
  weapons release codes plan. But only in theory."
  President Lindsay was troubled. "You're saying that their local
  commanders have launch autonomy?"
 "More than we've been led to believe, Mr. President."
  The President exchanged glances with his National Security Adviser. "I
  see. Go on, General."
  "Russian naval and air force bases all along their far eastern zones of
  defense-which extend for three hundred miles inland from the Seas of
  Okhotsk and Japanhave gone to a similar state of readiness. Some
  specialist troops have also been moved out from Moscow. We're not quite
  sure of the numbers, or all the units involved, but they seem to be
  commandoes and first-strike troops."
 640 DAVID HAGBERG

  "What is your confidence in these reports?" Secor asked.
  "Very high, Harold. Except for the incident in the Tatar Strait, no shots
  have been fired. But both sides are ready."
  "And apparently lying about it," the President said. "What else?"
  "The submarine Samisho, which caused the trouble in the first place, has
  disappeared."
 "What do you mean?"
  "One of our destroyers was tailing the sub south in the general direction
  of Okinawa, when it went to a silentrunning mode and dove very
  deep-apparently well beyond the range of our sonar equipment. Seventh Fleet
  sent out two frigates to tLelp in the search, and they're being
  continuously overflown by surveillance aircraft as well as all-weather
  fighter/interceptors."
 "What the hell is going on?" the President demanded.
  "Routine exercises, Mr. President. Except in the case of the Samisho, which
  Escort Fleet Command at Yokosuka claims it is trying to contact for
  recall."
  "Are we sending more assets into the region?" the President asked.
 "It's not recommended at this time, sir."
 "What are we waiting for?" Secor asked.
  "For someone to start shooting. Nothing else we can do," Murphy replied.
  "Which brings me to the third point-the civil situation in Tokyo and
  Yokosuka. The riots are continuing to grow, Mr. President."
 "Who's behind it?"
  "An organization calling itself Rising Sun," Murphy said. "There is an
  addendum report on the group in your briefing folder. It appears to be an
  offshoot of the old Red Army faction. I think it would be a good idea to
  discuss it with Prime Minister Enchi tomorrow."
 "I'm turning it over to the Vice President."
 "Sir?"
  "I've decided to send Larry tomorrow. I'll go over Wednesday as previously
  scheduled."
                HIGH FLIGHT 641

  "Is there anything I should know about, Mr. President?" Murphy asked.
  "No. But keep your eyes open, General. I want briefings from you
  personally every day until then."
 "Yes, sir."
  "I want you to go over this material with Larry. Can you do that this
  morning?"
 "Will do, Mr. President."

 On schedule, Mueller called Reid, who was waiting at a public telephone
 in the Grand Hyatt at Washington Center. He phoned from Lafayette Square
 across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. "Everything is ready."
 "You've disposed of the big trouble?" Reid asked.
  "Yes, and the three small packages. It happens tomorrow at three. In the
  meantime I am still waiting for the second deposit to my account."
 "It's on its way. Don't be impatient."
 "Very well."
  "If we push the button now I won't have to invent any excuse for tomorrow
  . . ." Reid said.
 Mueller hung up without responding.

 Chief Investigating Officer John Whitman had known that finding a man of
 McGarvey's caliber and experience would be difficult. But apparently he'd
 been tipped off and had gone to ground, Despite their best efforts the man
 had not turned up. Guerin was no longer cooperating, although secretly
 Whitman couldn't blame anyone. The Bureau had turned down its request for
 help. The police in Portland and in D.C. were coming up emptyhanded, and
 the college where he'd taught until a few weeks ago hadn't heard from him
 either. His apartment in Milford was staked out, although Whitman
 personally thought it was a waste of time and manpower. Even if McGarvey
 did return there he would almost certainly spot the surveillance team, and
 they'd have trouble on their hands. That was another problem. When they
 did
 642 DAVID HAGBERG

 finally find him, making an arrest would not be easy. If McGarvey chose
 not to cooperate or, as Carrara had warned, if he were taken by surprise,
 there would be casualties. Whitman had read parts of McGarvey's amazing
 file, made all the more stunning by what had been left out. Every page had
 major deletions-For considerations of National Security. Yet what remained
 was nothing short of deadly. First they had to find him. Special Agents
 Joyce and McLaren were in Portland and would remain there for the time
 being. They were banking on the probability that McGarvey would eventually
 show up at Guerin. Whitman thought it would happen tomorrow. Despite the
 tight security around the VIP flight on the new airplane, McGarvey would
 make a try to get aboard. Overall, though, the case made less and less
 sense each day. They were missing something. But what?
  Special Agent in Charge Charles Colberg called from San Francisco. "We
  might have something for you on the Guerin case. Apparently Bruno Mueller
  surfaced in Oakland ten days ago, and possibly Chicago just this last
  week. We're still looking for connections, aren't we, John?"
 "At this point we'll take everything. What'd he do?"
  "Killed an air traffic control instructor. It's got us running around in
  circles out here. Something's going on that we can't figure out. But
  since his name came up in connection with Guerin, who's flying its new
  bird out to Honolulu tomorrow, we're getting nervous. Anything on
  McGarvey yet?"
  "Nothing, Chuck. But you're not the only one puzzled and nervous."
  "We got a call from Ron Herring who runs the noiseabatement research
  program for the Oakland Airport Commission. A couple of weeks ago a guy
  who identified himself as Thomas Reston showed up at the airport and
  asked a bunch of questions. Took the grand tour of Herring's project and
  the tower. Said he was a reporter for High Technology Business and
  Aviation Week & Space Technology magazines. Herring said the guy
                HIGH FLIGHT 643

 looked good and sounded good so nobody got suspicious until last week."
 "Does Herring check out?" Whitman asked.
  "He's clean. After Reston was finished at Herring's project, he took a
  tour of the tower with Dick White, the chief ATC instructor. Last week
  White's body was found outside his motel in Chicago. Whoever did him used
  a stiletto. Single thrust to the heart."
 "It was either a lucky hit, or the killer was an expert.
  "I checked with the French. The stiletto is one of Mueller's weapons of
  choice."
  "How'd Herring get on to it?" Whitman asked. To his cop's instincts, the
  connection had a ring of truth.
  "He knew that Reston talked to Dick White in Oakland, and he wanted to
  make sure the guy knew what had happened. But nobody at either magazine
  had ever heard of him. So he called us. Soon as I saw the IdentaKit
  drawing, we showed Herring the Mueller photo and he made a positive ID,
  although he said Reston had different color eyes and hair. We dusted the
  business card that Reston gave to Herring. Except for Herring's prints
  it was clean. The guy is a pro."
  "Did you talk to Paul Granger in Chicago?" Whitman asked. Granger was the
  S-A-C there.
  "Yes. Reston rented a car at the airport the night of Dick White's
  murder. Question is, why did he follow an air traffic control instructor
  out to Chicago and then kill him? John, if it's Mueller-and I believe it
  is-what the hell am I missing?"
  Whitman tried to work it out. "Is there any connection, no matter how
  remote, between Dick White and Guerin?"
  "None that we can come up with. But Mueller took his time. Herring said
  he had the technical patter down pat. He knew the system, where it had
  been, and where it was going."
 "What was White doing in Chicago?"
  "A union meeting. Could be that Mueller was there to interview somebody
  else, and White's bumping into him was just a coincidence."
 644 DAVID HAGBERG

  "That, or for some reason he was stalking White," Whitman said, then he
  stopped. "Anybody except for the car rental people in Chicago see Mueller?
  At the airport?"
 "Paul didn't say."
 "Where and when was the rental car returned?"
 "Minneapolis the next morning."
  "All right, assuming there is a connection between Mueller and the Guerin
  case, what was he doing at those three airports? And which other airports
  has he visited in the past week or two?"
  "Jesus," Colberg said. "I'll check Oakland and San Francisco
  International."
  "Right," Whitman said. "I'll send a bulletin to all our field offices. If
  you find anything, Chuck, anything at all no matter how seemingly
  insignificant or disconnected, call me."
 "Will do."

 "Larry, did Murphy get a chance to go over everything with you?" the
 President asked.
  "I talked to him when he dropped off the briefing book."
                itT'
 "Are you finished with .
  "I will be by morning, and there'll be plenty of time on the flight over
  for a second look." Vice President Larry Cross was a ruggedly built
  Oklahoman who preferred cowboy boots and blue jeans to suits and ties. He
  was a fast but thoughtful study, and a competent VP.
 "Well, no decisions will be made."
  "Then what's the purpose of sending me tomorrow, and not waiting until
  Wednesday?" Cross asked. They were in the President's study on the second
  floor. The afternoon light coming through the bowed windows was gray-
 "They'll probably hit you with the Russian thing."
  "Why not call the Russian and Japanese ambassadors over here this afternoon
  and hash it out?"
  "Wouldn't accomplish a thing," President Lindsay replied as he filled his
  cup from the coffee service. "The
                HIGH FLIGHT 645

 trouble is they're not ready to talk yet. Not to us, not to each other.
 The step from where you are to where I sit is a hell of a lot bigger than
 you'd think. George Bush found out that eight years of being vice
 president did nothing to prepare him for his own presidency."
  "I don't have the same ambition, Jim," Cross said, and he sincerely meant
  it. He hadn't told Lindsay yet, but he was considering not running for
  re-election. He wanted to get back to his law practice in Oklahoma City
  and to his ranch.
  "That's not the point. When Enchi talks to you in Tokyo everybody will
  accept that whatever is said won't be final in the sense that no
  decisions will be expectedL What they'll do is float a few trial balloons
  past you, we what your reactions are so that when the actual talks begin
  on Thursday they'll have had time to fine tune their positions.
  Statecraft."
  "It was Enchi's suggestion that you delay your arrival, wasn't it?"
 "Yes, it was."
 "Maybe he's stalling for time."
  "That's exactly what he's doing, Larry. It's the CIA's guess that Enchi
  is not in complete control of the situation with the street
  demonstrations, or even his own military. Puts him and his trade
  agreement in a dangerous position."
  "Puts us all in a dangerous position. Those are our ships shadowing that
  submarine."
 "That's correct."
  "While most of the Seventh Fleet is at the dock in Yokosuka. Pull them
  out of there."
  "Not unless we have to," President Lindsay said. "Any further ship
  movements by us are going to be looked upon with a lot of suspicion."
  "Some of our ships in port are carrying nuclear weapons. If that were to
  come out, we'd be in a lot more trouble."
  The President smiled faintly. "You're catching on, Larry."
 646 DAVID HAGBERG

 Dominique finally agreed that no matter what happened she would stay put
 at least until Monday morning. McGarvey was driving down to Richmond,
 where he would catch a flight to Eugene and rent a car from there to Gales
 Creek.
  The Bureau had a warrant for his arrest, but it simply did not have the
  manpower to check every single passenger on every single flight from
  every single airport in the country. With care he didn't think he would
  encounter trouble until he got out to Portland, where the Bureau's
  efforts would be focused.
  Once he was out of Washington, heading south on 1-95, and certain he
  wasn't being followed, he pulled in at a truck stop and telephoned Phil
  Carrara's wife at her sister's in Montpelier.
 "He told me to stay up here until Monday," she said.
 "Have you heard from him since Thursday, JoAnn?"
 "No. Is something wrong, Mac?"
  "Not that I know of, honestly. But when he calls tell him I've headed
  west. He'll understand."
 "This is between you and him."
  "Something like that. We'll all have dinner next week, and I'll tell you
  about it."
 "Yeah, right," she said.
  He telephoned Carrara's house, but there was still no answer, so he
  phoned Dick Adkins at home. Carrara and Adkins were friends. He hoped it
  would count for something.
  "Dick, this is Kirk McGarvey. I'm glad I caught you at home."
  "Jesus H. Christ. The Bureau is turning the country upside down looking
  for you. Where the hell are you?"
 "I'm trying to find Phil Carrara. I need your help."
  "You're the black plague. There's not a thing I can or will do for you."
  "He's on administrative leave. He sent his wife to Montpelier, and he was
  trying to do something for me. Now he's disappeared. Do you know where
  he is?"
 The line was silent for a few seconds. It was possible
                HIGH FLIGHT 647

 that Adkins was tracing the call, but McGarvey wasn't going to stick around
 much longer.
 "Are you turning yourself in?"
 "No.,'
  "Okay," Adkins said, and he sounded very nervous. "I'm going way the hell
  out on a limb, but Phil trusted you, so I guess I'll have to go along.
  Nobody knows where he is. But one of our Technical Services guys and a
  surveillance van are missing too."
 "Does it have to do with Ed Reid?" McGarvey asked.
  "Maybe. Phil asked for the files on Reid and on two Japanese- Sokichi
  Kamiya and Arimoto Yamagata. But he never called back."
  McGarvey watched the traffic on the highway. A big eighteen-wheeler pulled
  in and headed toward the diesel pumps. Kamiya was presumably in Japan, and
  Yamagata was out West.
  "They probably went after Reid, but they may have run into trouble. There
  may be a connection between Reid and a former East German assassin."
 "Bruno Mueller. The French are looking for him."
  "That's right, Dick. I want you to convince the Bureau to take a look right
  now. But there's something else. Yesterday I followed Reid part of the way
  out of town, toward Dulles, but I had to break it off because I was being
  followed by a pair of white Toyota vans. D.C. plates. Possibly Japanese
  MITI. When I doubled back I lost them."
  "There's big trouble brewing over there. Riots in Tokyo and Yokosuka, and
  there's a Japanese submarine heading toward Okinawa right now."
 "What are the Russians doing?"
  "Their entire Far Eastern Command is on alert. It's probable they're going
  to start something because of the Tatar Strait incident. Everybody thinks
  you've got some of the answers."
  "I wish I did. Just convince the Bureau to check out Reid as soon as
  possible."
 "I'll see what I can do."
 648 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Have them issue an APB on Phil and your Technical Services guy."
 "What about you?"
  "Depending on what goes down tomorrow, I'll come in on Monday. You can
  tell that to the General if you want."
  "Listen, Mac, if you're heading out to Portland, they've got the place
  closed up tighter than a gnat's ass. Something is going on. Ryan was
  talking with someone over at the Bureau as late as this morning. It's got
  them shook up, but I haven't been put in the loop."
 "Because you're friends with Phil."
 "Probably."
  "Convince them to go after Reid," McGarvey said. "In the meantime keep
  your eyes open."
 "Good luck, Mac," Adkins said.
  McGarvey telephoned Yemlin. "We have to meet now, at the same place."
  "Twenty minutes," the Russian agreed. He sounded shook up.

 "I'm going home," Reid said when Mueller called the Lamplighter office to
 check on him.
 "Why?"
  "Everything is closing in on me. I'm a wreck. I don't know how I'm going
  to manage. Christ, do it now!"
  "No. Are you ready for tomorrow? Do you know what to do?"
 "I can't . .
 "Do you know what to do tomorrow?"
 "Yes," Reid said, his voice barely above a whisper.
  "Very good. I want you to arrange to meet with some friends this evening
  for dinner. You will tell them how much you are looking forward to going
  to Tokyo with the President. How you expect to accomplish great things.
  Maybe even avert armed conflict."
 "I don't know."
  "Be convincing," Mueller said. "Your life depends on it."
                HIGH FLIGHT 649

 Portland had become the center of activity. With less than twenty-four
 hours to go before America's VIP flight to Honolulu, San Francisco S-A-C
 Charles Colberg was surprised that it had not been canceled. There was a
 former East German Stasi assassin running around visiting airports and
 killing people, so something important was going on. Possibly connected
 with San Francisco's own troubles over the past weeks vhth the fire and
 deaths at InterTech-which supplied subassemblies to Guerin-and the brutal
 murder and rape of the psychologist aboard her Sausalito houseboat. Louis
 Zerkel had still not turned up, nor were there any leads in the murders
 of Zerkel's supervisor, his wife, and children. He'd been a cop long
 enough not to ignore the itchy feeling between his shoulders.
  He telephoned Portland S-A-C Jack Franson. "Got your hands full, Jack?"
  "I could use a few extra troops, Chuck. It's become a goddamned
  international media circus up here."
  "I'll send you half a dozen men. You've seen John Whitman's query about
  Colonel Mueller. Any early leads?"
  "I saw it, but we haven't come up with a thing. If Mueller were here,
  nobody who saw him has come forward yet. But we're beating the bushes for
  him and for McGarvey."
 "Do you want me to come up there?" Colberg asked.
 "No need. It'll be history by this time tomorrow."
  "Right." Colberg sat back in his chair and looked out the window toward
  Market Street. He was missing something. They all were. Something between
  McGarvey and Colonel Mueller. There was a connection between the two of
  them in that they were enemies. Or at least they'd once been on opposite
  sides of the fence. But what if that were no longer true? Or were they
  tilting at windmills by trying to manufacture facts out of possible
  relationships instead of sticking with what they already knew? Basic
  police work. Jack Franson had his hands full in Portland, which left
  Colberg on his own in San Francisco. What exactly did they have, he asked
  himself?
 650 DAVID HAGBERG

 Mueller had come to Oakland for some definite purpose that was important
 enough for him to kill Dick White later. The second element was InterTech
 and the brutal murders involving Louis Zerkel. Colberg decided he had plenty
 to keep his field office busy without envying Franson. S-A-Cs of productive
 offices were first on the promotions list.

 "We're having dinner with Jim and Amanda at the White House tonight," the
 Vice President told his wife.
  "Will it be a pep talk, or will it be last-minute instructions?" Sally
  Cross asked.
 "Probably a little of both. Are you packed?"
  "Nearly," she said. "I read the news like everyone else, Larry. Are we
  being sent over as sacrificial lambs?"
 "Politics aren't that tough, sweetheart."
  "I have a bad feeling, that's all," she explained. "Women's intuition."
  The Vice President forced a laugh. "Well, this time you're wrong."

 "I'm leaving for Moscow soon, Kirk. I will not be returning. Do you
 understand what this means?"
  "Beyond the fact I won't have a control officer, no, I don't understand.
  What are you trying to tell me, Viktor Pavlovich?"
  "The trouble between my country and Japan is very nearly at the breaking
  point. I can say nothing beyond that."
 "What about the contract with Guerin?"
  Yemlin shook his head. He looked as if he'd aged ten years in the last
  couple of weeks. His skin was mottled from the cold, and his pale eyes were
  watery. "I don't know." He stared at the flickering flames on Kennedy's
  tomb. "The world changed after that day, Kirk. Especially for Americans.
  Your age of innocence ended. After tomorrow I think there will be another
  very big change for you. For all of us."
 "All your military installations in the region are on
                HIGH FLIGHT 651-
 alert. Will Russia make a retaliatory strike? Is that what you're telling
 me?"
  "They provoked us, Kirk. Just as they are provoking your navy even as we
  speak. We can make no sense of it."
 "Has Abunai said anything else?"
  Yemlin continued to stare at the flame as if he hadn't heard the question.
  "It's very important, Viktor, that I know the name of the Guerin
  subcontractor that Mintori controls. Many lives are at stake."
  Yemlin looked at him. "Will you go to Portland for the flight?"
 "Yes.
  "If I learn something, anything at all, I will get the information to you,
  Kirk. I swear it."

 "What we have here is a cascade. One problem causing another," Delta Chief
 Mechanic Ted Neidlinger said, inspecting the 522's carbon-type rotors. There
 were five in each set of brakes, and they were shot.
  "It's the anti-lock computer," the crew chief, Henry Verbeke, agreed. "Both
  the main and backup failed at the same time. Ate the brakes. Unusual."
  "I'll say." Neidlinger had hung around long enough to make sure that his
  weekend crew was on top of the problem. They'd pulled the wheels off the
  mains and disassembled the brakes, then had run the diagnostic tests on the
  electronics. "Atlanta give us an ETA on the parts?"
  "Midnight," Verbeke said. "We'll get it done in time for seven-five-six."
 "I'll stop by in the morning to see how it's coming."

 McGarvey drove down to Richmond, where he returned his rental car to the
 agency and checked on flights to Eugene. There were none direct, but a Delta
 flight was leaving for Des Moines within the hour, with connections via
 Denver to Eugene. The ticket clerk assured him
 652 DAVID HAGBERG

 that the layover in Denver was very short. He would not have to get off
 the plane.
  "I need to get some sleep," McGarvey explained. "We partied pretty late
  last night, and I've got back-to-back meetings this evening."
  "I know what you mean, Mr. Lyman. After Des Moines you should be okay."
  "Sounds good." McGarvey handed her his credit card, and the clerk booked
  him on the flight.
  "I gave you a window bulkhead seat," she said, stuffing his ticket into
  a folder. .
 "What kind of a p ' lane am I getting?"
  She glanced at her computer. "A 737 to Des Moines, and it looks like a
  522 out to Eugene."
  McGarvey took his single bag through the terminal to the boarding gate.
  The airport was busy. He wondered what it would be like tomorrow. What
  airport terminals around the world would be like tomorrow.

 "Far as I can see we might have a bigger problem than I thought," John
 Whitman said. "And if I'm right, we have less than twenty-four hours to
 do something about it.11
  "What have you come up with?" Assistant FBI Director Ken Wood asked.
  "Bruno Mueller was at the Oakland Airport two weeks ago, and it's
  strongly possible that he murdered an air traffic control instructor in
  Chicago last week. We can also place him in Minneapolis, and we have a
  possible at La Guardia. We're not sure about New York, but Colonel
  Mueller is definitely here, and he's definitely up to something involving
  our air traffic system. People in Oakland who spoke with him said he
  seemed to know what he was talking about."
 "Where'd you get the timetable?"
  "We're still looking at a connection between Mueller and Guerin. It flies
  its new plane tomorrow."
  "Let me get this straight," Wood said after a moment's hesitation. "Are
  you saying that Mueller is working for the Japanese?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 653

 "Through Ed Reid."
  "Reid will be on Air Force Two tomorrow, headed for Tokyo. It'd be like
  jumping into the lion's den if he were somehow involved."
 "Goddammit. . ."
  "I'm not saying you're wrong," Wood told him. "But there may be other
  possibilities that you're overlooking. McGarvey, for instance. What's the
  word on him?"
 "Nothing yet. But he'll have some of the answers."
 "Undoubtedly. What are you doing to find him?"
  "He's damned good, but we expected that. We think he'll try to make it
  to Portland for tomorrow's flight, so we've set up a team to watch for
  him. I won't guarantee he'll be stopped, but if he somehow manages to get
  through he's even better than we thought."
 "What about Mueller?"
  "We're watching every major airport, but that's about the limit of our
  personnel. As it is we're stretched thin."
  "Okay, John, you came up here with something specific in mind. Let's have
  it."
  "If Guerin is the target-I mean beyond the maiden flight tomorrow of
  America-then it could mean that all its airplanes are in danger. So
  ground the fleet."
 "Impossible."
 "All I'm asking is twenty-four hours, Ken."
  "Then what?" Wood demanded. "Unless you come up with MeGarvey or Mueller,
  we'd be back to square one on Monday. Even if I thought Harding would go
  along with us, and that he could convince the FAA, which I don't think
  would happen, what you're suggesting simply wouldn't work."
 "It'd be better than nothing," Whitman said bitterly.
  "Find McGarvey and Mueller. Whatever else happens, find them!"

"Any word on Phil Carrara yet?" John Whitman asked. "We were about to make a
 formal request of the Bureau," Howard Ryan said. He was in his office at
 Langley.
 "He's definitely missing?"
 654 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Along with one of our Technical Services people and some equipment. A
  surveillance van, actually. I'll fax you the material immediately."
 "Thank you, Mr. Ryan. We'll do what we can."

 "It is almost time for Morning Star." Sokichi Kamiya's voice was
 recognizable but hollow because of the encryption device.
  "I understand," Yamagata replied nervously. When the signal was up-linked
  to the U.S. GeoPositioning Satellite constellation, a spike would be sent
  to every satellite navigation set in use on the North American continent.
  Every airplane using the system would receive an eleven-millisecond
  modulated pulse, but only Guerin airplanes equipped with the InterTech heat
  monitor/alarm subassembly and explosive thermocouple frame would be
  affected. Then airplanes would fall out of the sky like "starlit raindrops
  on a barren plain." Kamiya's words. For as long as the up-link remained
  open the pulse would be sent. The destruction, the confusion, the anguish
  would be awesome. Far worse than Pearl Harbor.
 "What progress have you made?"
  "The woman refuses to cooperate. Now Portland and Gales Creek are untenable
  because of the upcoming flight. Their security measures are extensive. Will
  the signal be sent tomorrow?"
  "No," Kamiya replied, his tone sharp. "In a few days, perhaps. First your
  situation must be resolved, Yamagata-san. In this you may not fail."
 "I will not."
  "You must not. There are other considerations, other situations developing
  at this moment, that are crucial to our mission. Everything has been
  foreseen. But everything must be perfectly in place to guarantee our suc-
  cess."
  The dark thought that Kamiya was insane passed through Yamagata's thoughts,
  but he pushed it aside. If the master were mad, what then of his disciples?
                HIGH FLIGHT 655

  "Hai, Kamiya-san. It will be as you wish." Yamagata hung up, walked out
  of the study, and went upstairs to the bedroom where they were keeping
  Chance Kennedy.
  The others were in the city. For the next few hours he would be alone
  with her. He stood at the end of the bed watching her sleep. They'd
  tapered off her drugs so she would be coming out of her stupor soon.
  Such a naive woman, Yamagata thought. Little girl, actually, as most
  Western women he'd met were. Prudish beyond belief. Yet they all wanted
  adventure, and they all thought that a small bit of anatomy gave them
  nearly absolute control over every man.
  He drew back the covers from her body and gently removed her nightshirt.
  The problem was they needed her undrugged cooperation. They needed her
  to telephone her husband and convince him to cooperate. They needed
  information. Who did the company think was coming after it? Why had it
  hired Kirk McGarvey, and where was he?
  Yamagata tied Chance's wrists and ankles to the bedposts with rubber
  straps, leaving her spread-eagle and vulnerable. Her eyes began to
  flutter. The room was cool. Already she had goose bumps and her nipples
  were inverted.
  The Western mind did not understand pain. In America, especially, people
  looked for instant gratification. Comfort. Pleasure. Absence of
  confrontation.
  He plugged an electrical cord into an outlet at the head of the bed and
  carefully placed the bare probes of the wires on the sheet between
  Chance's legs. Moist tissue conducted electricity better than dry tissue.
  The junction between pain and pleasure could be infinitesimal.
  "Chance," he said softly. "It is time to wake up. Time to talk."

 The airport terminal at Eugene's Mahlon Sweet Field was nearly deserted
 at midnight. The twenty people who deplaned with McGarvey shuffled tiredly
 downstairs to get their bags. As soon as the jetliner was unloaded it
 656 DAVID HAGBERG

 would continue to Portland where it would stay the night, not flying until
 morning back to Des Moines via Eugene.
  McGarvey rented a Ford Probe from Hertz and twenty minutes later was
  heading north on State Highway 99W, which paralleled Interstate 5.
  Security surrounding Portland would of necessity be concentrated on the
  main routes, including the interstate highways. The FBI and local cops
  did not have the manpower to effectively watch every state and county
  road.

 Kennedy said that America would remain in Gales Creek until just before
 the Honolulu flight, when it would be moved the twenty-five miles to
 Portland for the ceremonies and to board the VIP passengers. It was a weak
 spot in the security measures.
  MeGarvey stopped at an all-night diner north of Corvallis, and while he
  waited for his bacon and eggs to come he studied a highway map, working
  out the route to Guerin's prototype assembly facility that would least
  likely be patrolled tonight.
  Whatever was going to happen would affect America, and he was going to
  be aboard to stop it.

 David Kennedy stood at the tall windows in the darkened living room,
 watching the lights across Lake Oswego as he held the telephone to his
 ear.
  Dominique had called him from the East Coast. "Have you heard anything
  from the police?"
  "Not a thing. They're not even sure that she was kidnapped. I guess they
  talked to some of the neighbors and some of Chance's friends. They told
  them about the troubles we've been having. So the Bureau thinks she may
  have just run off. I don't believe it."
 "What does Mac say?"
  Kennedy closed his eyes. "He thinks the Japanese took her. But I haven't
  heard a thing. No one has called."

 "Jeez, will you look at all this shit," Baltimore Police Sergeant of
 Detectives Frank Gentilli said, peering at
                HIGH FLIGHT 657

 the electronic equipment jammed in the back of the van.
  The coroner's people had bagged the two bodies and had taken them to the
  morgue. One had a knife wound through his throat, front to back, probably
  severing his spinal cord. The other man had been killed by a narrow chest
  wound, probably a thin-bladed knife, which most likely pierced his heart.
  Gentilli's partner, Jerry Kozlowski, found the two wallets stuffed
  between the front seats. He removed them and stepped out into the light
  to examine the IDs. He almost dropped them.
 "What the hell?" he said, half to himself
  "Govemment-issue plates," Gentilli said, coming around to the front.
  The van had been left in an airport self-storage garage just off Poplar
  Avenue. It might not have been discovered for months except that two
  juveniles had been caught breaking into the storage units. The one with
  the van was the last they'd jimmied.
  "Frank, keep everyone the hell out of here. I gotta call this one in,"
  Kozlowski said.
 "What've you got?"
  Kozlowski showed him Carrara's CIA identification card. "I want to talk
  to those two punks who broke in, and I want the manager down here on the
  double. Somebody paid for the rental, and it wasn't very long ago.11

 John Whitman got the call at home from the night watch commander. It took
 him several seconds to come fully awake. "Say that again?"
  "Sir, we have a flag on that Langley VIP-Phillip Carrara. Baltimore
  police found him and another CIA officer both dead, stuffed in the back
  of what appeared to be a surveillance van, parked in a self-storage
  garage by the air-port."
  It was as if someone had injected a liter of ice water into his gut. "How
  long have they been dead?"
  "Not more than two days. The coroner has the bodies now."
 658 DAVID HAGBERG

 "How were they killed. Did Baltimore say?"
  "Yes, Sir. Mr. Carrara was killed by a knife wound to his neck. Mr. Ulland,
  by a puncture wound to his heart."
  "The van was found near the airport?" Whitman asked, getting out of bed and
  taking the phone into the bathroom.
 "Yes, sir."
  "Okay, this is important. I want the crime site secured. Get our forensics
  people up there within the hour. I want the place down pat. And send
  someone up with Colonel Mueller's photograph. Hit the manager, and the
  airport staff." They had canvassed Dulles without luck, but so far as
  Whitman knew no one had thought to include Baltimore.
 "Shall we inform someone at Langley?"
 "I'll take care of that."
 "Yes, sir."
  "I'll be at my desk within the hour. Whatever you get, send it up to me."

 McGarvey left his car in a thicket of trees off the highway a couple of
 miles southwest of Guerin Test Facility One's western perimeter fence at
 five in the morning. The sun had not come up yet, and the sky was darkly
 overcast, a bitterly cold wind slicing through the valley. Some snow had
 fallen in the night and more threatened.
  He checked the action of his pistol, then reholstered it at the small of
  his back and headed northeast away from the highway through the woods. It
  was very quiet. From time to time he could hear the wind in the treetops,
  but nothing else.
  He walked for nearly forty-five minutes before he came to the tall,
  chain-link fence. A clearing had been cut for a perimeter road, and there
  were fresh tire tracks in the snow. Saul Edwards had taken him seriously
  when he'd told them to beef up their security here.
  Beyond the fence was a sloping field of tall grass that led to the end of
  the fifteen-thousand-foot runway. In the
                HIGH FLIGHT 659

 distance the hangars and assembly halls were lit up. The ILS system towers
 were off to the right, and to the left the fence followed a rock-strewn hill
 that rose a couple of hundred feet.
  Keeping back well into the woods he worked his way up the ridge line
  parallel to the fence. Near the top he found what he was looking for.
  They'd had trouble maintaining some sections of the sixty-seven miles of
  perimeter fence because of water runoff during the fall rains and the
  spring meltoff. Drainage ditches had been dug, and where they crossed under
  the fence, concrete drainpipes had been installed and blocked with wire
  mesh. But in several such spots, because of the rugged terrain, the
  perimeter road was thirty or forty yards away from the fence. He crouched
  behind a boulder directly across from one of the pipes.
  From his vantage point, McGarvey could look down across the runway toward
  the complex of brightly spotlighted buildings, the biggest of which housed
  America. There was a lot of activity over there.
  Twenty minutes later his patience was rewarded when a four-wheel-drive
  Jimmy passed below on the perimeter road.
  When it was gone he scrambled down to the drainage pipe and, using a large
  rock, hammered the wire mesh away and crawled through to the other side.
  He walked back down the hill toward the end of the runway, keeping as low
  as possible in the tall grass, and watching for other headlights moving
  along the perimeter road. Sooner or later another patrol would pass by. He
  wanted to be in place before that happened.

 "Are we ready to fly?" Air Force Two Pilot Lieutenant Colonel Bob Wheeler
 asked.
  "We're running the final diagnostics now," Chief Master Sergeant Mazorsky
  replied.
  The food service people and stewards had not been allowed aboard, and their
  liftoff time was less than four
 660 DAVID HAGOERG

 hours away. But nobody messed with Mazorsky's Raiders. When the chief said
 the bird was ready to fly, they flew. Not until then.

 "We're ready to button it up," Delta Crew Chief Henry Verbeke said. "And
 we've got time to spare."
  "Run a ground test, and then I'll sign off," Neidlinger instructed. "I
  want to make sure the anti-lock works this time."

 The White House was like a magnet to Mueller. He had come often to
 Lafayette Square across Pennsylvania Avenue to stare at the building and
 grounds. If the city were ancient Rome, a place of grand monuments and
 institutions from which emanated political, economic, and military power,
 then the White House was Caesar's palace.
  If America were to fall, it would have to decay from within. No foreign
  enemy would ever defeat the country. And now, after more than two weeks
  in the U.S., he did not believe the nation would decay, or would in any
  lasting way be hurt by what Reid had set in motion.
 "It's wonderful," a woman standing beside him said.
  Mueller looked at her. She was plainly dressed, possibly in her mid- to
  late fifties, with the smile of a Sundayschool teacher. "Yes, isn't it?"
  he said, and he turned and went looking for a restaurant to wait in until
  it was time.

 It was 6:30 by the time MeGarvey reached the new airplane development
 complex. Most of the activity seemed to be concentrated toward the front
 of the prototype assembly hangar.
  The sun was due to rise in forty-eight minutes, and it was essential that
  he be inside before then. Without the proper lapel badges he wouldn't get
  far in daylight. .
  He ran to the back of the assembly hall and looked around the comer. A
  Mercedes station wagon with two people inside headed across to security.
  A service vehicle, its bed on scissor jacks, came around the comer and
                HIGH FLIGHT 661

 backed into a service bay at the rear of the prototype hangar. The-driver
 got out and went inside.
  McGarvey walked to the far end of the assembly hall and held up long
  enough to make certain that no one was coming. Then he sprinted across
  the twenty or thirty yards between buildings, concealing himself behind
  the truck.
  The VIPs would not be boarding the airplane until it was moved to
  Portland in a few hours. With any luck the FBI would be concentrating its
  security there. But the advantage was theirs. Under the proper
  circumstances they would not hesitate to shoot him, whereas no matter
  what happened he could not return fire.
 But he had to be aboard that airplane.
  He went around to the back of the truck and flattened himself against the
  wall next to the service door. He could hear the sounds of machinery and
  power tools, and somebody's voice raised in anger or frustration.
  McGarvey eased around the comer and looked inside. The rear of the hangar
  was in darkness. Out in the open bay America was bathed in strong lights
  and was still crawling with technicians and engineers getting her ready
  for her flight. The truck driver stood about thirty feet away, talking
  with a man dressed in white coveralls. Their backs were to the door.
  McGarvey slipped inside the building and, keeping to the shadows, reached
  the back stairs to the engineering galley above and hurried up. At the
  head of the stairs he turned the comer just as George Socrates and Saul
  Edwards came out of the drafting offices.
 "Good Lord Almighty," Socrates said.
  McGarvey forced himself not to overreact. To remain calm. Both men looked
  worn out, to the point of collapse. In their state there was no
  telling.what they would do. "David is expecting me."
  "How did you get in here?" Edwards asked, keeping his voice low. "The
  place is crawling with cops."
  "That doesn't matter. I've got to get aboard, and the crew has to be
  alerted to what's going on."
 Socrates glanced over the rail to the big hypersonic
 662 DAVID HAGBERG

 jetliner on the floor. "We can get you aboard, but I can't guarantee
 Portland. They might turn the airplane inside out before they let any of
 the VIPs board."
  "I'll have to hide somewhere, and the crew will have to keep them away
  from me."
 "Have you found something?"
  "Maybe. The Japanese company that's been targeting you controls one of
  your subcontractors."
 "That's it," Socrates said. "Which company?"
 "I don't know yet."
  "There're hundreds of them," Socrates said. "Impossible to check."
  "I have someone in Washington trying to find out for us. Can you cancel
  the flight? A last-minute technical problem?"
  "No," Socrates said, tiredly. "It's still all just speculation."
 "Where's David?"
 "Portland. He'll meet us there," Edwards said.
  "That's it then?" Socrates asked. "It's come down to the wire, and
  despite what the authorities say, you still believe that we're in
  danger?"
 "I hope I'm wrong, George."
  Socrates shook his head'and glanced again at America rising like a Star
  Wars model from the hangar floor. "Why are they doing it? They want us
  to build them an airplane, we'll be happy to. Then they can take it apart
  and improve on our technology. That's how it's done."
 "There may be more at stake than Guerin."
  Socrates looked at McGarvey. "Get him a security pass and a set of
  coveralls," he told Edwards. "We'll wait in engineering."

 Nancy Nebel took the call. At first she had trouble understanding what the
 obviously troubled woman was trying to say. But then she realized it was
 Chance Kennedy, and for a moment she froze.
  Security had installed the Caller-ID system on their phones. She switched
  it on. "Mrs. Kennedy, do you wish to speak with your husband?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 663

 "Yes, yes, please," Chance mumbled.
 Kennedy came to the office door.
 "It's your wife," Nancy said.
  Kennedy came out of his office and snatched the phone from her. "Chance?
  Chance, where are you?"
  "David, it's Yamagata. They're planning something, but they're worried that
  someone else is . .
 The phone line went dead.
 "I'll call the FBI," Nancy said. "I got the number."
 "No," Kennedy told her. "I'll make the.call."

 America's pilot, Pete Reiner, wasn't happy about McGarvey's presence aboard,
 but when everything was explained to him he accepted it. "Cancel the
 flight."
 "Can't," Socrates said.
  McGarvey had ridden with the crew up from Gales Creek, and now he watched
  from a cockpit window as the ceremonies began in front of a terminal at
  Portland International Airport. Security would not be as strict because the
  Vice President had canceled at the last minute, sending instead the
  assistant director of the Federal Aviation Administration. There were media
  everywhere, their remote satellite up-link trucks parked along the apron to
  the west, their cameras trained on America and on the grandstand where the
  VIPs and a substantial crowd of onlookers had gathered to hear remarks by
  the governor and others, including Al Vasilanti. McGarvey was unable to
  pick Kennedy out of the crowd, however.
  Making sure the flight-deck door was latched, he plugged into the
  aircraft's public correspondence communications system and called Yemlin's
  Washington number. It was answered on the tenth ring.
  "InterTech," Yemlin said, and the connection was immediately broken.

 A few minutes after 2:30, Vice President Cross, his wife Sally, his
 advisers, his secretary, his Secret Service contingent, a White House
 photographer, and a dozen White House correspondents arrived at Andrews Air
 664 DAVID HAGBERG

 Force Base and boarded Air Force Two. The plane would return to Washington
 within twenty-four hours so it could be redesignated Air Force One and be
 made ready for the President's Wednesday flight to Tokyo. The weather was
 overcast, but the winds were light.

 "Ground control, this is Delta seven-five-six, we're ready with Baker to
 push away from the gate at this time," Delta Senior Pilot Bob Rodwell
 radioed.
  "Roger, Delta seven-five-six. Hold up at eight-left for an incoming
  American Airlines. You'll be ... ah, number four behind a Northwest
  seven-four-seven. Report to the tower on one-two-one-point-niner when
  you're in position."
  "Roger, ground control," Rodwell said, and he gave the ground crew below
  the thumbs up. Immediately the big jetliner trundled away from the gate,
  pushed by a tractor on her nose gear.

 In Baltimore Special Agent Clifford Wiener walked back to his car and
 telephoned John Whitman at FBI headquarters. The manager of the self-storage
 facility where the bodies of the two CIA spooks had been found had
 positively identified Bruno Mueller from the photographs. Wiener had sent
 his partner, Stan Tarnowski, over to the airport to interview the chief of
 security about the photos they'd distributed several hours ago. He'd not
 heard back yet, but it was clear that Colonel Mueller had killed the spooks
 less than forty-eight hours ago.

 Aboard Air Force Two they were late starting up because a courier came with
 a last-minute dispatch for the Vice President from the White House. Edward
 Reid, who was to have flown with them, had a car accident on the way out of
 the city. He would not be able to make this flight. He'd fly on Wednesday
 with the President.
  It was nearly three by the time Lieutenant Colonel Wheeler ordered the
  starboard engine to be motored to speed. When the RPMS came up into the
  green, the fuel
                HIGH FLIGHT 665

 and ignition were switched on. Immediately the exhaust gas temperature came
 up, indicating that the engine had lit. Fuel and hydraulic pressures were in
 the green as well, and the start-up procedure was initiated on the port
 engine.

 Delta 756 moved up to the intersection as a Northwest Airlines Boeing 747
 rolled out onto the main runway and majestically turned into take-off
 position. Captain Rodwell noted the time on the panel clock as 2:58. He
 keyed the aircraft's intercom phone so that he could talk to the passengers.
 They were carrying a full load, only one seat in first class a no-show.
  "This is the captain. We're next for take-off in just a minute or two,
  which will put us in the air at exactly three o'clock. Thanks again for
  flying the on-time airline. If there's anything I or my crew can do for you
  during this flight, don't hesitate to ask. Now just sit back and relax."

 Lieutenant Colonel Wheeler picked up the intercom phone. "Are you all set
 back there, Mr. Vice President?" he asked.
  "We're ready any time you are, Colonel," Larry Cross answered.

 McGarvey had to hide in the electronics bay beneath the flight deck while
 the FBI and Guerin security checked the hypersonic jetliner's main cabin,
 galleys, and heads before allowing the VIPs to board. Socrates came for him
 as they taxied away from the grandstands, out toward the active runway.
 "InterTech," McGarvey said scrambling up from bay.
 "Are you sure about this?" Socrates asked.
  "It comes from the Russian spy network in Japan. They've got too much to
  lose to lie."
  Socrates was working it out in his engineer's mind. "It makes sense. But we
  never caught it."
  "Do you know which units they manufacture? Can we get to them from here?"
 666 DAVID HAGBERG

  "You were standing right in front of them," Socrates said, blinking.
  "What the hell is going on?" Captain Reiner demanded. "Do we fly or don't
  we, George?"
  "If McGarvey is right, I think I know what the problem is." Socrates yanked
  open the hatch to the electronics bay. "I'm going to pull the heat moni-
  tor/alarm panels. You'll have to go to the override if the temperatures get
  critical."
  "We might get a shutdown," Reiner said. "Christ, we'll be out over the
  water without engines."
  "Just the port engine," McGarvey said. "But stop the fli ght now, George."
 "What if you're wrong?"
 "Then I'm wrong, and you'll fly later."
  "We'd be right back where we started from," Socrates said, and he climbed
  down into the equiprnent bay.
  "Keep everybody out of here," McGarvey told the pilots. "No matter what
  happens."

 THIRTY-SIX

 Bruno Mueller got back to Lafayette Square across from the White House a
 minute before three, and he placed a long-distance call to Tokyo Bank from
 a phone booth.
  It took fifty seconds for the call to go through, and a computerized voice,
  speaking Japanese, answered, giving the options for the system.
  Mueller entered three-four-eight, and in three seconds he was connected
  with the bank's electronic international funds transfer system. A warbling
  tone indicated the program Louis had secretly installed was ready to accept
  an input.
 A tour bus rumbled past, and he waited for it before
                HIGH FLIGHT 667

 whistling a single-pitched note. The warbling was replaced by a high-pitched
 screech, and he hung up, his job finished.
 Everything else that happened took only two seconds.
  First the bank's computer prepared a funds-available query from a special
  foreign account in the amount V 2,707,750,000. The account verified that
  such an amount was indeed available, and Louis's program made the
  electronic funds-transfer order, payable to InterTech Corporation of San
  Francisco, California, U.S.A. At the current exchange rate of V 108.31 to
  the U.S. dollar, the order was automatically converted to $25,000,000 and
  sent via satellite to InterTech's account at Wells Fargo.
  InterTech's bank automatically relayed the information to the company's
  mainframe computer in Alameda, and the second stage of Louis's precisely
  crafted program kicked in.
  At 3:00:00 P.m. Washington time the encoded signal was simultaneously sent,
  via InterTech's own communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit 22,500
  miles over the equator to nine airports around the country.
 Portland, where Guerin's America had just taken off.
 Oakland, where United Flight 425 was taking off.
 Los Angeles, where Delta's 558 was just rotating.
  Chicago's O'Hare, where American 228 was on the ground next for take-off.
  Minneapolis, where Northwest 142 was landing, Northwest 342 was eight miles
  out on final, and Northwest 1020 was on the ground waiting for a clear run-
  way.
  La Guardia, where United's 310 was on the ground waiting for Northwest 165,
  which had just taken off, and Lufthansa's Flight 009 from Frankfurt was
  eleven miles out.
  JFK, where United's 280 was on the ground, American 138 had just taken off,
  and British Airways I I I was nine miles out.
  Dulles, where Delta 756 had just taken off, and U.S. Air's 1211 was stacked
  twenty-one miles southwest.
 668                    DAVID HAGBERG

  Andrews, where Air Force Two, which had been late getting away from
  the apron, was just starting its takeoff roll.
  All the airplanes were Guerin 522s, equipped with the InterTech heat
  monitor/alarm subassembly and special wiring harness on the port
  engines.

 THIRTY-SEVEN

 Captain Bob Rodwell initiated a gentle climbing
     turn to the left, which would take them out of
     the pattern, while at the same time he reduced
 power because of noise-abatement regulations. There
 wasn't                            an ATR pilot who didn't grumble about
 the
 inherently unsafe procedure.
  The signal from the Dulles repeater reached the InterTech heat
  monitor/alarm subassembly as Delta 756 passed through 2,500 feet twelve
  degrees nose high. There were no indications on any of the cockpit
  instruments, nor did the jetliner's sophisticated computer that monitored
  the performance levels of every system notice anything was wrong. But
  within the first ten milliseconds the fate of the airplane and her crew
  and passengers was irrevocably sealed.
  First to occur was the blockage of heat information from the port
  engine's thermocouples, which caused internal temperatures to soar
  several times beyond design limits almost immediately. The Mintori
  Assurance engineers who had designed the method of sabotage correctly
  reasoned that in order to mask evidence of an explosion when the sensor
  frame ignited, there would have to be massive and legitimate heat damage
  to the engine. Three times out of ten the blocked thermocouples would
  have created sufficient overheating to cause
                HIGH FLIGHT 669

 the engine to disintegrate on its own. But thirty percent was not good
 enough odds.
  The internal structure of the Rolls-Royce turbine blades began to change.
  In this instance several of them would have disintegrated on their own
  within four minutes. As it was the engine would be destroyed much sooner
  than that.
  The overheat also began to affect the fuel nozzles that metered heated
  kerojet into the combustion chamber. Much of the plumbing was already
  beginning to deteriorate. Soon the metal walls would be breached and a
  catastrophic amount of fuel would be dumped into the chamber, causing a
  massive explosion that in itself would seven times out of ten take not
  only the engine but the entire wing.
  Still there were no indications on any of the cockpit instruments. Nor
  were the designers satisfied with seventy-percent odds.
  Next out of the InterTech CPU was a modulated pulse that delayed GO-One
  by less than a quarter wave shift. At the end of the wiring harness the
  complicated signal spread resonantly across the engine-mounted harness
  frame, which erupted in a fireball as if an uncontrolled fuel flow had
  suddenly occurred, which it did a few hundredths of a second later.
  Now the cockpit crew knew that something very bad had happened. Alarms
  flashed and buzzed all over the panel as the Guerin 522 began its fatal
  roll to port.
  Captain Rodwell was the first to understand that what was happenihg was
  the same as the accident at Dulles. When the flight recorders, including
  the cockpit voice recorder, were recovered, the investigators' first
  indication that something had gone wrong, was the single expletive from
  the captain: "Fuck!"
  Rodwell immediately powered back on the starboard engine in what he knew
  was a futile effort to bring the jetliner back to level flight.
  "Mayday, mayday, mayday," his first officer, Carol Gerrard, radioed, her
  voice in reasonable control. "This
 670 DAVID HAGBERG

 is Delta seven-five-six, out of Dulles, calling mayday. We have lost our
 port engine and most of the wing. We are going down approximately four
 miles southwest of the airport."
  They could hear the passengers screaming in abject terror as the airplane
  plunged toward a wooded knoll.

 Air Force Two accelerated down the runway past one hundred knots to V I,
 the point of no return at which the aircraft was committed to taking off.
 Everything in the cockpit showed normal. Lieutenant Colonel Bob Wheeler
 anticipated V Rotate and a smooth liftoff. He figured they would be on top
 of the overcast in just a few minutes, when they would turn northwest on
 the great circle route to their refueling rendezvous out in the Aleutians.
 Delta's mayday call came over 121.5 and 243 MHz simultaneously. An instant
 later a huge fireball engulfed Air Force Two aft on the left. Forjust a
 moment Wheeler thought that the Delta flight had somehow collided with
 them, but that was impossible. Air Force Two lurched sharply to port and
 began to slide, helped in part because the starboard engine was still
 developing full thrust. Wheeler started to pull all power when he
 correctly guessed that they had completely lost their port engine. Instead
 he hit the starboard engine's thrust reversal immediately slowing their
 rate of skid to the left, and averting a cartwheel, which would have been
 a much greater disaster. The airplane began to shudder, and the rate of
 slide again increased. Wheeler realized that his co-pilot, Major Larry
 Marthaller, was applying brakes, or they had locked. In either case it was
 exactly the wrong thing to do to avoid rolling. Their center of gravity
 needed to be reduced now. Barely thinking, most of his actions reflexive,
 Wheeler yanked the landing-gear retract control, and the jetliner sank
 onto its belly, its rate of slide still impressive, but definitely
 slowing. He cut all power, and then braced himself. There was nothing left
 for him to do except listen to his co-pilot's mayday call override
 Delta's.
                HIGH FLIGHT 671

 Viktor Yemlin had spent the morning packing the remaining books from his
 apartment. He was finally leaving for Moscow at eight this evening, and
 he'd already made the last of his courtesy calls on his American friends.
 He'd been in the U.S. for four years under the cover of cultural attach6,
 and he was going to miss a lot about the country. Not the high prices and
 the incredibly high murder rate, but he would never forget the quality of
 things.
  Through the morning he'd thought about what Kirk McGarvey was suggesting,
  and what Abunai seemed to confirm. It was insane. If it had been anyone
  other than McGarvey he would not have given the notion a second thought.
  As it was he drifted from his apartment down to the communications center
  in the embassy on 16th Street around 3:00. It was Sunday and eleven in
  the evening in Moscow. Except for emergencies most of the offices in the
  Lubyanka and the Kremlin were closed, so there were only three clerks on
  duty. But the new SUR rezident was probably still in the embassy.
  In addition to maintaining a communications link with Moscow, the center
  was a sensitive listening post. Its efforts were concentrated on
  intercepting transmissions from the White House, the State Department,
  and the FBI, in addition to police, fire, ambulance, and airport traffic.
  Pentagon communications were handled by military intelligence from a
  different location, although all information came back to the embassy for
  collation and analysis before being sent on to Moscow.
  One of the scanners stopped on the aircraft emergency frequency.
  "Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is Delta seven-fivesix, out of Dulles,
  calling mayday."
  "What the hell . . ." Yemlin said half to himself. He went across the
  room to the bank of radio receivers.
  "We have lost our port engine and most of the wing. We are going down
  approximately four miles southwest of the airport-"
 672 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Get this on a recorder," Yemlin ordered one of the clerks.
 "It's being done, sir."
  The Delta transmission was overridden by another aircraft calling mayday,
  and for a second Yemlin did not want to believe what he was hearing. It
  was more than impossible, it was unthinkable.
  ". . . Air Force Two, on the ground at Andrews. We have lost our port
  engine and wing, and are on fire. Eagle Two is on board. Repeat, Eagle
  Two is on board."
  Yemlin grabbed a phone and called the SUR rezident's emergency number.
  Whatever the man's current location was he would be found.
  "Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is U.S. Air twelveeleven. We're going down,
  we're going down!"
  Yemlin stared at the scanner radio. What the fuck was happening?
  The scanner erupted in a babble of voices that lasted for several
  seconds, until the Delta transmission ceased. A moment later the Air
  Force Two transmission also stopped.
  Yemlin held the phone tightly against his ear, waiting for the rezident
  to come on the line.
  "Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is U.S. Air twelveeleven! We've lost our
  port engine and wing! We're going down ... ! Twenty-one miles ah ...
  southwest of Dulles! Haymarket intersection!"
  "U.S. Air twelve-eleven, say again nature of your problem?"
  "We've lost our port engine . . ." The transmission abruptly ended.
 The rezident came on the line. "This is Soroshkin."
  "Stanislas Ivanovich, this is Viktor Yemlin, this is an emergency."
 "What is the nature of this emergency?"
  "Air Form Two 110 dppdFURtly QrdohCd on t4kcoff with the Vice President
  aboard. You should come down to Communications."
 "Is this the MeGarvey operation?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 673

  "Yes, Mr. Rezident. Two other airplanes have also crashed. There may be
  others."
 "I'm on my way."

 Amanda Lindsay poured her husband a glass of iced tea and passed it across
 the small table to him. They were having late lunch in the family dining
 room. It was a Sunday ritual that Mrs. Lindsay insisted on whenever matters
 of state did not interfere. It was the only time they had alone together.
 Whenever possible they dismissed their personal staff so that she could
 serve and sometimes cook for her husband. It was a homey tradition that
 suited everybody, and one which was never interrupted except for the most
 extreme emergencies. After lunch he would go to his office to catch up on
 his reading until five, when he would prepare for his "Sundays at Six"
 half-hour radio broadcast over the NPR network. It was something FDR had
 started, and Reagan and Clinton had picked up. Since he had been scheduled
 to be enroute to Tokyo this evening, he'd taped his talk three days ago. But
 before it aired he wanted to review it again. There were a number of new
 points he wanted to bring up, among them the increasing civil unrest in
 Japan and what effects that would have on his upcoming talks in Tokyo. There
 was a commotion out in the corridor, and Lindsay turned as Justin Owen,
 chief of the Secret Service weekend detail, came in, a look of troubled
 concern on his face.
  "Mr. President, Air Force Two has crashed on takeoff, and there's no word
  on survivors yet."
  "My God," Lindsay said, his hand shaking as he put his tea down.
  "Apparently one of the engines exploded during their takeoff roll. The
  rescue crews are on site now."
 "Is there fire?"
  "Yes, sir, but there's more. At least two other airliners both out of
  Dulles have crashed. Right now it looks like they had the same problem.
  Could be sabotage."
 674 DAVID HAGBERG

  The color drained from Amanda Lindsay's face. "You were supposed to be
  on that flight today," she said.

 Operations for Air Force One and Two and other governmental VIP flights
 were conducted out of Andrews Air Force Base by the 89th Military Airlift
 Wing. Emergencies were handled by the Air Wing's Search and Rescue
 squadron. Even before Air Force Two broadcast its mayday, the tower had
 notified SAR that the airplane was in serious trouble, and the crash teams
 were scrambled. Each GO truck was manned by seven SARTECH personnel in hot
 suits.
  In the first seconds of the crises, Captain Thomas Moore, 89th SAR
  commander, thought the U.S. was under attack. Moments before the Vice
  President went down, they'd monitored Delta 756's mayday. Then came U.S.
  Air's 1211. Airplanes all over the place were falling out of the sky.
  Air Force Two lay tilted to port off the end of the runway. Flames and
  greasy black smoke rose from where the engine and wing had been torn off.
  Debris from the wreckage was spread for five thousand feet along the
  runway. Moore watched the television monitors as the first crash team
  neared the site. It didn't look good.
  "Any comms from the aircraft?" he asked one of his Mission Communications
  System specialists.
  "Negative. They're off the air on all bands, except for their EPIRB."
  "Cockpit's intact." Moore picked up the red phone direct to the Air Wing
  Commander's locator. It only took a few seconds. "Sir, this is SAR. We
  have Air Force Two down at the end of the runway with Eagle Two aboard.
  Our units are rolling."
  "I just heard," Lieutenant Colonel Brian Skeggs replied. "How does it
  look, Tom?"
 "Not good."
 "What about backup?"
  "The Secret Service is scrambling a VH-3 chopper, and a second is coming
  down from Bethesda Medical with the ER team. ETA about seven minutes."
                HIGH FLIGHT 675

 "Fire?"
  "Some, but if we can get to it before it spreads we'll have a chance."
  Moore watched the television monitors. The first crash team had arrived on
  site and was spraying fire retardant foam from its main nozzles. "But
  Colonel, something else is going on. Air Force Two lost a port engine. It
  exploded. In the last ninety seconds two other aircraft have gone down out
  of Dulles with exactly the same problem. Delta seven-five-six, and U.S. Air
  twelveeleven."
 "Have you talked to intelligence?"
 "Not yet."
 "Do it now."
 "Yes, sir."
  The Marine helicopter carrying the Secret Service personnel touched down
  near the end of the runway and six agents, wearing flak jackets and armed
  with assault rifles disembarked and took up defensive positions.

 Smoke was everywhere. Emergency lighting aboard the downed Air Force Two
 cast a pale orange glow through the jumbled main cabin. People moaned,
 others cried for help. Outside, sirens seemed to be converging on them, and
 something that sounded like a waterfall was striking the side of the
 fuselage. Vice President Larry Cross, his left arm, hip, and legs crushed,
 lay wedged beneath one of the desks and two aircraft seats. They'd crashed.
 He knew that much, but he was having trouble focusing his thinking.
 "Larry?" a woman cried weakly.
  Cross knew the voice. He managed to turn his head toward the sound. His
  wife, blood spurting from a huge gash in her right side, the sweater she'd
  been wearing torn off her body, lay beneath one of the communications
  consoles that had somehow been thrown aft from near the front of the
  airplane.
  "Sally," he called, and he tried to reach out for her, but his anus were
  pinned.
 Her cries stopped, although her eyes remained open.
 676 DAVID HAGBERG

 A half-dozen Secret Service agents surrounded the President as he was
 hustled to the situation room beneath the White House. His wife was
 escorted in a different direction.
  "Your chopper is ready, Mr. President," Owen said. "Recommend that you
  leave for White Mountain immediately." .
  "Not till we see what's going on," Lindsay replied curtly. He stepped off
  the bombproof elevator. Already much of the weekend duty staff had
  arrived, and his NSA Harold Secor had just entered the building.
  "Mr. President, two more civilian airliners have gone down," the
  situation room operations officer said. "Both in New York, out of JFK.
  A British Airways nine miles out, and an American Airlines on takeoff."
 "What's the word on Larry?"
  "Nothing yet," Owen said. He wore an ear piece. "They've got the fire
  out. There's a good chance there'll be survivors."

 At Secret Service headquarters in the Treasury Building across from the
 White House, special investigator Don Huberty telephoned his boss Burt
 Anderson, Assistant Director of Investigations, at his home in Bethesda
 and explained the developing situation.
 "Where is Eagle One?" Anderson demanded.
  "In the White House situation room. He wants to stay there for the
  moment."
  "Any word on Eagle Two? Have we got him out of the plane yet?"
 "Not yet."
  "All right, listen up, this is important," Anderson said. "If Air Force
  Two was sabotaged, they might try again. Eagle One was supposed to be on
  that plane. I want as many of our people out there as possible. In the
  meantime I'll call the director and see if we can't get Eagle One over
  to White Mountain."
                HIGH FLIGHT 677

 "Are you calling to tell me that you have finally located Mr. McGarvey?"
 Arimoto Yamagata asked, careful to keep his voice free of fear and anger.
  "No, but another situation has arisen," Yozo Hamagachi reported from the
  secure telephone in the Japanese embassy in Washington.
  "Is it about the air crash in Oakland? The United Airlines crash? We know
  about that."
 "Iie, Yamagata-san, that makes seven crashes so far."
 "What are you talking about?"
  "A Lufthansa flight coming into La Guardia Airport in New York City
  crashed just moments ago eleven miles from the runway. Four other
  civilian airlines have gone down within the past two minutes. Plus, Air
  Force Two, carrying the Vice President, crashed on takeoff from Andrews
  Air Force Base. Yamagata-san, he was on his way to Tokyo in place of the
  President. What is happening?"
  "I do not know," Yamagata admitted. "But it is very important that you
  locate McGarvey. Do you have any leads?"
 "None.
  "What about the other man, Edward Reid? Has he disappeared as well?"
 "We concentrated our efforts on McGarvey."
  "Follow Reid. $ee where he goes, what he does, who he meets with. Find
  out everything you can about him. He may be a key to finding McGarvey
  before it's too late. This must be contained."
  "It may already be too late. The Ambassador's staff has sent a
  flash-designated message to Tokyo. They are preparing more messages."
  "Stop them," Yamagata said, fighting to maintain control.
 "We will try."
  Yamagata broke the connection, a sour taste in his mouth. He called
  Kamiya in Tokyo.
 "Hai, " the old man himself answered.
 "Are you hearing about the airplane crashes?"
 678 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Yes," Kamiya hissed the single word. "You have gone ahead with Morning
  Star without my authorization."
 :'I have not, Kamiya-san. I thought it was you."
 'You lie!"
  'Iie, there is no reason for me to lie. Someone has found out about the
  computer chips and is using them."
 "Why?"
  "I do not know at this time, Kamiya-san. But I believe MeGarvey is behind
  this."
  "What would he have to pin?" Kamiya paused. "Unless it was to help the
  Russians. He is working with them. He was in Moscow. The world makes
  strange bedfellows, Yamagata-san. "
  "There is another problem. Our embassy is sending traffic to Tokyo about
  this incident. It may be monitored."
  461 will take care of that. Find Mr. McGarvey and kill him. Immediately."
  "Hai, " Yamagata promised, not quite sure how he was going to do either.

 Japanese Prime Minister Ichiro Enchi, an early riser, was seated in his
 private study watching CNN when the first bulletin about the crash of Air
 Force Two, with the Vice President aboard, came on the screen. He watched in
 stunned disbelief for a full minute before he reached for his telephone. It
 was a few minutes after five in the morning in Tokyo. It rang before he
 could pick it up. His Deputy Director General of Defense Tadashi'Ota was on
 the line.
 "Mr. Prime Minister, apparently it has begun."
  "I'm watching CNN now. Is it that fool Kamiya and his Morning Star?"
 :'It's possible."
  'But why kill the Vice President?" Enchi asked confused.
  "There's more, Prime Minister. So far seven airplanes have crashed. There
  may be others."
 "Arrest Kamiya and Kobayashi. Immediately!"
                HIGH FLIGHT 679

 America's take-off roll and lift-off were beautiful and went without a
 hitch. Dominique was relieved that McGarvey was wrong. "Thank God," she
 murmured. It had all been a nightmare, nothing more.
  She went into the kitchen to fix a sandwich and make a cup of tea when
  an announcer broke in on the CNBC live broadcast from Portland with a
  news bulletin. Air Force Two, carrying the Vice President, had crashed
  on takeoff from Andrews Air Force Base. Seven and possibly more civilian
  airliners had gone down in what was already being described as the worst
  air disaster in history.
  She stood in the kitchen doorway, a hand to her mouth, as she watched the
  first reports.

 McGarvey and Socrates had braced themselves as best they could in the
 cramped electronics bay beneath the cockpit during the take-off and
 initial climbout. Their official departure time was 11:58 A.M. PST, two
 minutes earlier than scheduled.
  The InterTech heat monitor/alarm subassembly lay in Socrates' lap. He'd
  left the input cable connected, but had disconnected the output jack.
  "It seems to be functioning as normal," he said. "If it were in the loop
  it'd be working within parameters." He looked up. "I don't see anything
  wrong here, McGarvey.
 "Nothing that would cause an engine overheat?"
  "This is the computer that could do the damage. But we've checked it a
  dozen times, a hundred times . .
 the engineer hesitated.
 "What?"
  "I don't know," Socrates muttered. He took a screwdriver out of his
  pocket and quickly undid the fasteners holding the unit's top cover in
  place. He set it aside, switched on a penlight, and studied the circuit
  boards and components.
  "How's it going down there?" Their pilot, Pete Reiner, called from
  topsides through the open hatch.
 680 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Fine," Socrates answered absently. "How are the port engine temperatures
  holding up?"
 :'In the green for now."
  'I know this," Socrates said slowly. He looked at McGarvey again. He was
  frightened. "I don't do the hands-on engineering anymore, otherwise I might
  have seen it." He shook his head in wonderment. "This is exactly the same
  subassembly that's in every 522 flying. But it should be different."
 :'That's it," McGarvey said.
  'But nothing's wrong with it, Mac. Nothing."
 :'Jesus H. Christ," Reiner said.
  'Is it the engine temperatures?" McGarvey started up the ladder.
  11 A United flight out of Oakland just went down! It's one of ours!"
 "Wait," John Callahan, the co-pilot, overrode him. Air Force Two is down.
 What the hell?"

 At the National Security Agency's tightly secured elevenacre Fort Meade,
 Maryland, headquarters, Marvin Amundson, chief analyst on duty, picked up
 his secure telephone from North American Intercept Section. NSA, in
 cooperation with Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, known as
 GCHQ, was capable of monitoring virtually every form of electronic
 communications anywhere in the world. Radio, telex, teletype, microwave,
 satellite, as well as private tele.phone calls by the military, diplomatic,
 and commercial sectors, were automatically intercepted, tested for value of
 information, and either dumped, recorded for later analysis, or brought to
 human attention.
  " We have a partial decryption and translation of the Japanese embassy
  burst to Tokyo," the intercept intelligence officer reported.
  Amundson brought it up on his computer display. Data streamed across the
  screen as their computem continued to decode the material. But the
  substance of the text was already becoming obvious.
                HIGH FLIGHT 681

  "They're definitely involved with the downing of Air Force Two," the
  intelligence officer said.
  "I concur," Amundson replied. "Looks as if they know something about the
  other crashes too. We show the total now at nine, with Delta 558 at Los
  Angeles International and Northwest 342 inbound to Minneapolis
  International."
 "Sir, what the hell is going on?"
  "Don't know yet," Amundson broke the connection, and switched consoles,
  entering a FLASH-designated message for the White House, Pentagon,
  Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the
  Federal Aviation Administration. Then he picked up the phone to call a
  friend of his at Andrews.

 Amundson's call caught 89th Air Wing Commander Lieutenant Colonel Brian
 Skeggs in his car on the way to Andrews. "The Japanese are behind this?"
 the Air Force officer demanded. It was hard to believe. What were they
 thinking?

 Navy Captain Tom Eddington was the senior duty officer at the Pentagon's
 Crisis Management Command Center when the flash arrived from NSA. He was
 eating a sandwich and drinking a Coke at his console. It took him several
 moments to realize that it wasn't a test message, nor was it one of the
 practice alert scenarios. The authenticator codes were for real this time.
  He glanced at the locator board. CINCPAC Rear Admiral Warren Talbot was
  the flag officer on duty. This would be right up his alley since it
  involved the Japanese. He hit a button on the secure phone and got Talbot
  upstairs just as the admiral was leaving his office.
  "This is Eddington in the Crisis Management Command Center."
  "I heard," Talbot answered sharply. "I'm raising the Pacific Fleet to
  DEFCON THREE. Prepare a message to that effect."
 "Aye, aye, sir," Eddington hung up and switched to
 682 DAVID HAGBERG

 another console. The Pacific Fleet had been raised to DEFCON FOUR last
 week because of the trouble between the Japanese and Russians. Admiral
 Talbot's order would considerably increase tensions over there. Anything
 beyond THREE was tantamount to war. Only the President could take that
 step.

 Sam Varelis was home in Chevy Chase when the first bulletins started
 coming over CNN. At least six civilian jetliners were down in addition to
 Air Force Two. But no one seemed to be making the connection that every
 one of those airplanes were Guerin 522s. McGarvey was right after all, but
 it didn't give him any satisfaction.
  He didn't bother calling NTSB operations in the Department of
  Transportation building on Independence Avenue until he was in his car
  and heading downtown. He got John Hom, the duty officer.
  "This is Varelis, I'm on the way in. Has the FAA issued the grounding
  order yet?"
  "Nobody knows what's going on, Mr. Varelis, but all hell is breaking
  loose. The count is up to twelve with the latest three."
 "What aircraft? Where?"
  "A United exploded on the ground, and a Northwest went down on takeoff
  at La Guardia. And another United over at JFK exploded on the ground."
  Varelis was having trouble keeping a grip on it. "What kind of equipment
  were those three?"
 "Sir?"
 "What kind of airplanes were they, goddammit?"
  The line was silent a moment. When Horn came back he was subdued.
  "Sonofabitch. They were all Guerin 522s. Mr. Varelis, what's happening?"
 "That's what we're going to find out."

 Most of the fire was out, but SARTECH team leader Technical Sergeant Roy
 Halvorson, covered in foam, was so hot inside his suit that he could
 barely think straight. He'd gone directly into the fire before it was
                HIGH FLIGHT 683

 completely extinguished so that he could set up his cutting equipment to
 get inside the twisted wreckage. He knew it would take several minutes
 before the heat he'd absorbed would bleed off. He would just have to
 endure it. tagle Two was inside.
  His SawsAll cut through the aluminum pressure hull of the Guerin 522 like
  a hot knife through soft butter. His partner, Staff Sergeant Mike Salo,
  was beside him with the big pry bar, and together they wedged out a
  door-sized section of hull aft and above where the port wing had
  connected. Dense smoke billowed out of the opening. But the emergency
  lights were still on. The interior of the aircraft was a mess. About as
  bad as Halvorson had seen.
 "Going in," he said into his helmet mike.

 Captain Don Moody, Jr., Chief 7th Fleet Navy Intelligence, was having a
 nightmare in which he was stumbling along a hot jungle road. All around
 him were American POWs, many of them half dead. It was World War Two on
 Luzon's Bataan Peninsula. In spite of the dream he wasn't surprised when
 he was awakened by his beside telephone.
  "Captain, this is McCarty. We've been ordered to DEFCON THREE."
  Lieutenant, j.g., Michael McCarty was Intelligence Staff OD.
  Moody glanced at his nightstand clock. It was a few minutes after 5:00
  A.M., Tokyo time. "I'll be over there in five minutes. Has Admiral Ryland
  been notified?"
  "In the process, sir. We've sent the twixt out to the fleet."
  Moody was completely awake now, as if someone had stuck an electric probe
  up his ass.

 FAA Administrator Jay Hansen refused to make the decision to ground all
 air traffic within the continental U.S. until he got to his oifice and
 could personally assess the situation. "Cool heads will prevail," was his
 motto.
 684 DAVID HAGBERG

  "The number stands at thirteen now, sir," Byron Swanson, his associate
  administrator fbr operations said. "American Airlines Flight 228 exploded
  on the ground at O'Hare just two minutes ago."

 THIRTY-EIGHT

 The storm continued to early morning hours. Liskey feared for his a

grow into the night and For the first time Stan
                  nd Carol's lives. Problems had started to pile up within
                  hours after they'd rounded the southwestern tip of Tokuno
                  Island. The weather, which had cleared Saturday morning,
                  had closed in on them that afternoon, the wind shifting
                  viciously out of the northeast. It made the rock-strewn
                  west coast of the island a dangerous lee shore. Their
                  Magellan satellite navigator had developed a problem and
                  was no longer reliable. The LORAN chain, operated by the
                  Japanese, had mysteriously stopped transmitting. The
                  rollerfurling gear on their headsail had jammed, forcing
                  him to cut the sail away, leaving them with a
                  double-reefed main and staysail. It was a good running
                  rig, but having no way to accurately determine their
                  position, they were sailing blind. Their only option was
                  to stand farther out into the East China Sea, to windward,
                  to gain as much sea room as possible. If they crashed into
                  the island, or onto the off-lying rocks, they would not
                  survive. Thank God the Aires windvane was still working.
                  If they had to hand steer in these conditions he didn't
                  think they would make it. They would wear down before the
                  storm was over, and they would be driven back onto the
                  island, or they would be broached and sink.
  It was a few minutes after five in the morning. He'd sent Carol below a
  couple of hours ago to get some sleep,
                HIGH FLIGHT 685

 and to get her out of the way so that she would not see his concern. The
 hatch slid open, and shd scrambled up into the cockpit. Her eyes were
 wide, her face white, and she was panting. Liskey helped her attach her
 safety harness.
 "What are you doing up here?" he shouted.
 "I can't handle it, Stan. I want to be with you."
 "You need your rest. You might have to take over."
  "If we're going to die, I don't want to drown locked inside the boat!"
 "We're not going to die. Don't be stupid."
  The Fair Winds' rail was buried again, the motion tremendous. They could
  not see the waves in the darkness, but from the way they were being
  tossed around, Liskey figured they had to be twenty footers or bigger.
  They were not breaking yet, he was thankful for that much. If one of
  those monsters dumped on top of them, they would go to the bottom without
  a chance of getting aboard the life raft lashed on deck. But if the storm
  continued another twelve hours or more, the seas would build to a point
  where they would have to break. Then they would be in trouble. Liskey's
  best guess was that the storm would last much longer than that. The
  barometer was down farther than he'd ever seen it, except in a hurricane.
  And the last he'd looked it was continuing to fall.
  "Can we get behind one of the islands?" she shouted. "Can we go back?"
 "It's too risky."
 "Why?"
 "We'd pile up on the rocks."
  "How about launching the life raft? We could key the EPIRB. Somebody
  would find us in the morning. We'd be a lot better off."
 "No we wouldn't."
 "Goddammit, Stan, I'm scared out of my head!"
  "So am I," Liskey admitted. "But listen to me, Carol. This is a strong
  boat. As long as we don't do anything stupid we'll ride this out. We'll
  be okay. The life raft is
 686 DAVID HAGBERG

 just a last-ditch stand. Remember Fastnet in the eighties? Most of the
 guys who got killed drowned trying to get into their rafts. The next day
 their boats were found, battered, the floorboards awash, but still
 floating. We'll launch the life raft only when this boat sinks out from
 under us. In the meantime we've got a lot of work to do."
  "All right, all right," she said breathlessly. "We've got work to do.
  What can I do?"
 "Get some sleep."
 "I'm done with that. What else?"
  "Then hang on here. I'll go below and check the bilges."
  "I did it just before I came up. It only took ten strokes."
 "Then we're okay for now."
  Carol pulled a package of Marlboros and a Bic lighter out of her pocket.
  "I brought these along just in case. Want one?"
 "Why not, if you can get it lit."

 "Lieutenant, we have a target," the helmsman said.
  The DD Thorn's senior officer on the bridge, Lieutenant, j.g., Roger
  Boberg, stepped across to the radar screen, bracing himself against the
  console. They were painting a small boat on the eighteen-hundred-yard
  ring, on what definitely was a collision course.
  "I make our rate of closure about twenty knots, sir. Which means he's
  doing about five. The sub?"
  "I don't know," Boberg said. "Come left to one-sixzero."
 "Aye, coming left to one-six-zero."
  Boberg rang engineering to reduce speed to ten knots, which barely gave
  them steerage way in these winds and seas. He was about to pick up the
  growler phone to call the captain when the communications officer came
  onto the bridge with a message flimsy.
  "This just came, Lieutenant. It's not a drill. We're at DEFCON THREE."
  "Holy shit." Boberg read the brief message from Seventh, then snatched
  the growler phone and called the
                HIGH FLIGHT 687

 captain. "This is Boberg on the bridge. You'd'better get in here on the
 double, sir. We're tracking an unidentified object on the surface at
 eighteen hundred yards, and Seventh just took us to DEFCON THREE."
  "On my way," Hanrahan said. "Sound general quarters, and pass it on to
  the Cook and Barbey. "
  "Aye, sir." Boberg hit the ship's intercom. "Now hear this, now hear
  this. General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle
  stations." He switched on the Maxon, then radioed the two frigates.
  The skipper was the first on the bridge. He took the message from Boberg,
  quickly scanned it, then checked the radar. They were no longer on a
  collision course with the surface target, but they were slowly closing.
  "Good work, Rog," he told his second officer. He called sonar. "This is
  the captain, what's the status on Chrysanthemum?"
  "Sir, we were picking u what might have been hull popping noises a couple
  orhours ago, but weren't sure. Still no contact. This surface noise is
  killing us."
  "Radar is showing what could be just the sail, sixteen hundred yards on
  a relative bearing of zero-two-five. Could it be our boy?"
 "Captain, anything is possible in these conditions."
  "All right, listen up. I want to know if he floods his tubes and opens
  his doors."
 "We'll do the best we can."
  Lieutenant Commander Willis Ryder came on the bridge. "What's up?"
 Hanrahan showed his XO the Seventh Fleet message.
 "Authenticated?"
  "Looks like it, but we haven't received a follow-up yet, so it's
  anybody's guess what's going on," Hanrahan said. "We've got a surface
  contact to the south, under sixteen hundred yards now. Could be the sub."
  Ryder studied the radar screen. "Looks more like a small boat radar
  reflector than a steel hull."
  "Could be we're just catching the sail. Sonar had what they thought was
  hull popping noises."
 "But we don't have a hot contact?"
 688 DAVID HAGBERG

  Hanrahan shrugged. "Conditions aren't good. We'll close for a visual. In
  the meantime contact Seventh and see what the hell is going on."
 "Aye, aye," Ryder said.
 "Bridge, CIC, we have a contact in the air."
 Hanrahan keyed the phone. "What is it?"
  " Looks like an Orion, Skipper. I'd say Japanese ... definitely Japanese.
  He's just lit his downward-looking radar."
  "Contact the Cook and Barbey again," Hanrahan told Boberg. "Tell them
  we're going in for a look."

 "Could be four contacts up there now, Kan-cho, " the sonarman said.
  Lieutenant Commander Kiyoda stood braced in the doorway to the sonar
  compartment. They'd slowly come up to thirty meters over the past few
  hours. The storm on the surface, which was ruining their passive sonar
  capabilities, was also moving the submarine around.
  "Sierra-Zero-Four and Sierra-Zero-Five fade in and out. They're about
  twenty thousand meters at zero-sixzero and closing slowly, I think. But
  I'm losing SierraZero-Nine. Sometimes it sounds like it has split apart.
  It's very hafd to tell. No identifiable screw noises now. I just can't
  be sure."
  "They could have launched a life raft," Lieutenant Minori suggested.
  Kiyoda turned to his XO. "Do you think they are in trouble?"
 "It's possible, sir."
  "Then why aren't the other two ships hurrying to the rescue?" Kiyoda
  asked thoughtfully. "Maybe it's a trick."
  "No way of knowing for certain until the conditions ease."
  "We'll go up for a look." Kiyoda smiled. "Who knows what reaction we
  might provoke."
  "Kan-cho, we're very close to Sierra-Zero-Nine," the sonarman warned. "I
  cannot guarantee their exact position."
                HIGH FLIGHT 689

  "We'll take it slow," Kiyoda said. He went back to the control room with
  Minori. "Come to periscope depth."
  "Recommend plus two meters to compensate for the waves."
 "Make it so."
  "Diving officer, make your depth one-eight meters," Minori said. "Five
  degrees on the fairwater planes. We'll do this slowly."
  "Sound general quarters," Kiyoda ordered, and he turned to his weapons
  control officer, Lieutenant Takasaki. "Look sharp. If we get a clear target
  I'll want a continuous firing solution. There's no telling what they're up
  to."
 "Hai, Kan-cho.
  Kiyoda watched the depth indicator on his CRT command display countdown
  toward eighteen meters. He started for the periscope when the sonar
  operator suddenly shouted.
 "Contact closing! Contact closing!"
  A tremendous crash slammed into the optical and electronic arrays on top of
  the sail, slewing the Samisho almost ninety degrees onto her starboard
  side. Lights in the control room flickered and died, and water rushed in on
  them from a dozen places on the overhead.

 "That was a major event," Ensign Masao Osanai radioed from ELINT in the back
 of the Lockheed/Kawasaki P-3C ASW aircraft.
  "What happened?" the pilot, Lieutenant Fumiko Miyake, asked. He was
  fighting the aircraft's controls. The winds were boiling at this low
  altitude, making level flight difficult. His co-pilot flew the yoke and
  rudder pedals with him.
  "A collision, I think. We were painting the Samisho on the MAD as it
  started to surface. It just merged with the American destroyer."
 "What are you seeing now?"
 "The Samisho is going down. She's trailing bubbles."
 "Comms," Miyake radioed.
 690 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Hai, Kan-cho. "
 "Get that off to base. Ask for instructions."

 Since the brutal murders of the young Japanese woman and the policemen two
 weeks ago, officials in Yokosuka had become timid. It was a few minutes
 after five in the morning before anyone challenged the crowd that had been
 growing along the waterfront all evening. Americans were a violent people
 from a violent land. The only lesson they understood was violence. If
 Tokyo could not see this then Prime Minister Enchi's government would
 fail. The people would be heeded. It was time to embrace the old values
 of respect and of bu-shi, Takushiro Hatoyama thought. Now the MSDF had to
 share the port with the American navy. Both sides of the harbor were busy
 this morning, lights and movement everywhere, as if both bases were on
 alert. It was disturbing because it was unexpected. The crowd stopped in
 front of a line of Japanese policemen in riot gear stretched two deep
 across the road a half-block from Seventh Fleet's main gate. Hatoyama went
 across to them.
  "We are Rising Sun," he shouted. The police line stiffened. "We are here
  in the name of the people to arrest Rear Admiral Albert Ryland for crimes
  against the state of Nippon."
  A police lieutenant near the middle of the line raised a bullhorn. "You
  are engaged in an illegal activity," he shouted. "You are ordered to
  disperse at once or face arrest."
  "There are ten thousand of us here, Lieutenant. More are continuously
  arriving. You cannot arrest us all. Stand aside."
  "By order of the government, return to your homes immediately."
  "Do not be a traitor to your own homeland," Hatoyama shouted. "Contrary
  to international agreement many ships of the Seventh Fleet are equipped
  with nuclear weapons. Admiral Ryland is a criminal."
 A pair of armored personnel carriers came up the road
                HIGH FLIGHT 691

 from the navy base and stopped in front of the gate. A dozen Marines in
 battle fatigues scrambled out of each and took up defensive positions,
 their weapons at the ready. It was extraordinary. Nothing like this had
 ever happened before.
  "Disperse at once," the police lieutenant's amplified voice carried over
  the crowd.
  "Look at what is happening behind you!" Hatoyama pointed to the Marines.
  "Will you let a foreign military power fire on innocent civilians?"
  A few of the policemen glanced nervously over their shoulders.
  "My fellow countrymen, listen to me! Japan must be cleansed of all
  foreign military! How long must we remain an occupied country?"
  Shotoro Ashia came up from the mob and pulled Hatoyama back a few feet.
  He had been talking to someone on a cellular phone. "Something is happen-
  ing."
  "What is it?" Hatoyarna asked. He kept his eyes on the police line and
  the Marines blocking the gate behind them.
  "The American Vice President's airplane crashed on take-off just minutes
  ago. And there are other crashes. All over America."
  Hatoyama's breath caught in his throat. "Has it started?"
  "I don't know. I cannot get through to Kobe. But Takushiro, all American
  forces have gone to DEFCON THREE. That's why they are guarding this base
  so well. They will fire on us."
 "Do they want war?" Hatoyama asked, stunned.
 "No one knows."
  Hatoyama looked at the police line. "Perhaps it will start here. Perhaps
  this is our destiny. Our giri, for the Yamato Damashi of Nippon."

 "At least six airplanes are down, maybe more," Captain Reiner said
 excitedly. "I'm turning back."
 692 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Hold on," McGarvey shouted. He and Socrates scrambled up from the
  electronics bay. They would cross the coast in another minute or so, the
  Pacific Ocean stretched to the horizon ahead of them. America was still
  climbing to a cruise altitude of sixty-six thousand feet, but already the
  party had started. They could hear music and people talking and laughing.
  The panel clock showed 12:05:00 PST. Callahan was on the radio with
  Guerin's operations center at Gales Creek.
 "Where'd Air Force Two go down?" McGarvey asked.
 "On take-off at Andrews."
  "What about the others? You said Oakland. Where else?"
  "Dulles, Minneapolis, New York. All over the fucking country."
  "What kind of equipment?" McGarvey asked, but he already knew. It was
  starting just as he'd feared it would.
 "I don't know," Reiner admitted.
  "All 522s, Mr. McGarvey," Callahan said. "Ops says the number is up to
  thirteen."
  "Jesus H. Christ, that's fucking impossible!" Reiner blurted.
 "What happened to them?"
  Callahan's eyes were round. "Six of them lost port engines. They're not
  sure about the others. What the hell is going on?"
  "It's the heat monitor," Socrates muttered. "The new CPU. The
  modification came up from InterTech in '90. Right after the American
  Airlines crash."
 "The same one you just pulled?" McGarvey asked.
  Socrates looked down into the electronics bay where the heat monitor lay
  on the deck, connected only by its input cable. "Has to be something on
  the engines themselves. The port engines. Something that has a left and
  right. Mirror images."
  "The engines aren't interchangeable, port and starboard?"
  "Yes, but there are some differences," Socrates said. Then he had it, and
  his breath caught in his throat. "The
                HIGH FLIGHT 693

 heat monitor is connected to the thermocouple frame. One's for port, the
 other's for starboard. My God, it's as simple as that, but we never saw
 it."
  "Call the FAA and ground the fleet, now," McGarvey told the engineer.
  "Wait. How would it work? Would it be on a timer? An outside signal.
  What?"
  "Probably a triggering signal from somewhere. Maybe through the VOR
  system. Maybe even via satellite-the GPS system. Could be anything."
 "Any way of blocking it?"
  "Pull the heat monitor, just like we did," Socrates said.
 "Call the FAA and tell them to. get that mes i sage out to
 every 522 whose engines are turning. Do it right now."
  Callahan relayed that to Guerin Ops. "Mr. Socrates, the company wants a
  clarification."
  "No time." The engineer plugged a spare headset into the phone system.
  "Do we turn back or keep going?" Reiner asked. He scanned his instruments
  almost continuously.
  "Get us out of the mainland air traffic control system as quickly as
  possible," McGarvey said. "In the meantime try to find out which airports
  have been affected. Maybe it's not the entire system."
 "Right," Reiner replied.
  McGarvey unlocked the flight-deck door and stepped out into the forward
  galley. Two flight attendants were opening champagne. They looked up,
  startled.
  "Oh," one of them cried out. She dropped the open bottle on the deck. It
  didn't break, but champagne squirted all over the place.
  "Is David Kennedy on board?" McGarvey asked. He kept his voice and manner
  nonthreatening.
 "No," the other stew said.
  Several people at the front of the main cabin saw what was going on and
  sensed that something was wrong. They stopped talking in mid-sentence.
  Two men rushed up the aisle from the back of the plane, drawing their
  pistols.
 694 DAVID HAGBERG

  McGarvey stepped back half a pace and spread his hands away from his body.
  The flight attendants moved out of the way.
  "FBI, Mr. McGarvey," the lead man said. "You're under arrest." He stepped
  to the left to give his partner a clear firing path.
 . "That'll have to wait," McGarvey said, keeping his voice low. "We've got-a
 problem."

 Mangled bodies and blood were nothing new to Technical Sergeant Halvorson.
 He'd been on SARTECH teams in the Philippines, Labrador, and Greenland and
 had personally participated in five accident rescues and cleanups. Some of
 them had been a lot worse than Air Force Two. But this time the Vice
 President was involved.
  A total of thirty-seven persons were aboard, including Eagle Two and his
  wife, the flight-deck crew, the communications staff, the stewards, the
  Secret Service, the Veep's personal staff, and the media. At first glance
  he estimated more than half of them were dead or critically injured.
  At least they didn't have to contend with fire for the moment. But with a
  heavy aircraft down, that was always a potential problem.
  Halvorson could hear screams and cries for help even through his thick
  helmet. His partner, Staff Sergeant Salo, was right behind him as they
  carefully climbed through the jumbled wreckage.
  "Okay, we've got many survivors in here," Halvorson radioed. "Let's go,
  let's go."
  "Over there, Roy." Salo pointed toward the front of the crumpled main cabin
  where the VP was wedged beneath a desk and two aircraft seats.
 "We see Eagle Two," Halvorson said.
  Cross was struggling, trying to reach his wife, who was several feet away
  from him. She was obviously dead.
  "Able Leader One, say his condition," the SARTECH coordinator radioed.
                HIGH FLIGHT 695

  "He's alive but badly injured. We need a backboard in here."
  Halvorson and Salo eased the aircraft seats away from the desk and set
  them aside. They could see that the VP's left side had been badly mangled
  when the desk had slammed into him in the crash. Another few inches and
  his head would have been crushed. It was one bit of luck at least.
  Two other openings were being cut into the aircraft's hull, and a pair
  of SARTECH personnel joined Halvorson and Salo with a backboard. The VP
  would have to be stabilized before they moved him.
  Still others were starting to administer first aid to some of the
  accident victims, but their primary consideration was the Vice President.
  Until he was clear no one else would be moved.
  Between the four of them they managed to lever the heavy desk off the VP.
  Three of them held it away, so that Halvorson could ease the man out from
  under. Immediately blood began spurting from two major wounds.
  "We've got two bleeders here," Salo radioed. One of the SARTECHs pulled
  a big pressure bandage out of his First Response kit and handed it down.
  The first was the femoral artery on the VP's left thigh. It took
  Halvorson several moments to put the pad in place and get enough pressure
  to slow the blood flow to a trickle. Next, he positioned an inflatable
  tourniquet bandage on the VP's left leg below the knee, which had been
  badly crushed, and quickly pumped it up.
  The Vice President screamed and his eyes fluttered. His complexion turned
  pasty white. His breathing became shallow and rapid.
  "He's going shocky," Halvorson said, maintaining his calm. He cut the
  VP's coat and shirt sleeves away from his right arm, as the SARTECH
  behind him ripped the seals off a plasma administration kit.
  He pulled off his hot-suit gloves. A SARTECH handed him an alcohol pad
  that he used to swab the VP's arm
 696 DAVID HAGBERG

 above the elbow. Then he found a vein and eased the plasma needle into the
 skin and through the tough venal wall, taped it into place, and released the
 clamp to start the flow.
 "Sally," the Vice President called weakly.
  Halvorson pulled off his helmet. "It's all right, sir. She'll be fine. Do
  you understand?" He moved forward so that they could get the backboard into
  place beside the VP. "We're going to move you now onto the stretcher. Just
  hang in there, sir."
  While Salo held the plasma bag up, Halvorson and the two other SARTECHs
  eased the Vice President onto the board.
  " Easy now, Mr. Vice President, you'll be okay," Halvorson said.
  Padded wedges were placed on either side of the VP's neck before they
  strapped his head down so that it could not move. They placed a strap
  across his shoulders, one across his hips, and wedged his legs, strapping
  his ankles.
  11 All right, we're coming out with Eagle Two," Halvorson radioed.

 The streets of Tokyo were practically empty at this hour. Prime Minister
 Ichiro Enchi rode in his limousine to Government House while speaking on the
 telephone with his Director General of Defense, Shin Hironaka.
 'What is the situation with Vice President Cross?"
  'Mr. Prime Minister, we have had no further word in the past two or three
  minutes. But already thirteen airplanes have gone down in the U.S. And
  there is another situation developing. Have you called your entire
  cabinet?"
  "Yes," Enchi said, trying to grasp the enormity of what he was being told.
  "What situation?"
  "Admiral Shimakaze called me from Yokosuka. Rising Sun has gathered a mob
  at Seventh Fleet Headquarters. They are threatening to arrest Admiral
  Ryland because nuclear weapons have been brought here aboard his ships."
                HIGH FLIGHT 697

  Enchi closed his eyes. "Have you spoken with Admiral Ryland?"
  "No, Mr. Prime Minister," Hironaka said. "The Seventh Fleet has been
  raised to a Defense Condition Three. The same order was apparently
  transmitted to the American Marine and Air Force installations on
  Okinawa."
 "What are you telling me?"
  "The timing makes it seem likely that the Americans believe we are
  responsible for the attack on their air fleet."
 "Kamiya and Kobayashi are to be arrested."
  "I understand, Mr. Prime Minister. But that may take too much time.
  Considering the situation in Yokosuka, as well as the continuing threat
  that the Russians may make a retaliatory strike at any moment, I suggest
  that we raise our readiness level to Defense Condition Two."
 "That's tantamount to a declaration of war."
 "We may have no other choice."
 "I will call President Lindsay," Enchi said.
  "First let me give the order, Mr. Prime Minister. We must not be caught
  unprepared. We must be ready."
 "Very well," Enchi said. "Do they want war?"

 CIA Director Murphy got into his limousine and, before it rolled down the
 driveway, he was speaking to his Deputy Director of Intelligence, Doyle.
 "What's NSA's best estimate?"
  "There's continuing flash traffic from the embassy to Tokyo. I've seen
  the partial decryptions and translations, General. They're definitely
  involved."
  "Sonofabitch." He motioned for his bodyguard to give him a cigarette.
  "Any word on Cross?"
  "He's hurt but alive. The number's at thirteen now. Should have word from
  the FAA any minute to ground the system."
 "I hope so. Where's the President?"
 "White House Situation Room."
 "What the hell do they want?" Murphy asked. "War?"
 698 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Mr. President, the general is on his way," Tommy Doyle said. He was on a
 conference call between the White House and the National Security Agency.
  "Am I to understand that the Japanese military readiness has been raised to
  DEFCON TWOT' President Lindsay asked. His gut was sour. This wasn't
  supposed to happen.
  "That's correct, sir," Amundson said from Fort Meade. "It gibes with the
  increased communications we're intercepting, not only between Tokyo and its
  embassy here, but between all its military units."
  The President exchanged glances with his National Security Adviser and the
  others who had arrived. The call was on the speakerphone. "What does the
  CIA have for us?"
  "I don't know if it's a coincidence, sir, but Rising Sun is rioting in
  Yokosuka again. They want to arrest Admiral Ryland for allowing the Seventh
  Fleet to bring nuclear weapons to Japan."
 "How the hell do they know that?" Lindsay asked.
  "We don't know, Mr. President. As I say it may be a coincidence."
  "I don't believe in coincidences," Lindsay said. "What else?"
  "The number of downed airplanes stands at thirteen. We're expecting the FAA
  to shut down the system at any moment."
 "What about Larry?" the President asked.
  "Mr. President, he is alive," one of the communications specialists said
  from his console at the back of the room. "They're pulling him out of Air
  Force Two now."

 "The FAA refuses to act until Jay Hansen shows up," Socrates reported
 bitterly. "I don't understand."
 :'Where the hell is he?" McGarvey demanded.
 'Apparently on the way to his office."
  Special agents McLaren and Joyce were crowded into the galley behind
  McGarvey at the open flight-deck door.
                HIGH FLIGHT 699

  "Call the White House," McGarvey said. "The fleet has to be grounded."
  Callahan turned around. He was still talking with Guerin Ops and he was
  shook up. "Eight airports. La Guardia, JFK, Dulles, -O'Hare, Minneapolis
  International, LAX, Oakland, and ... Portland plus Andrews."
  Reiner's hand shook on the arm rest. "The sonsabitches had us targeted."

 Marine Major David Ross, chief of security at Seventh's Yokosuka Base,
 rode in a HumVee toward the trouble at the main gate. The wind blew from
 that direction so he could hear the amplified voices from bullhorns and
 the deep-throated rumble of a large, angry crowd. They'd been expecting
 a major event of this sort for the past two weeks, but this morning of all
 mornings made it spooky. All they knew at this point was that a mob of at
 least ten thousand Japanese nationals was threatening base security at the
 same time CINCPAC had raised Seventh to DEFCON THREE. Already engines on
 half the ships in port had been lit in preparation for emergency depar-
 ture, their crews called to general quarters. The Marines, who would be
 the last off, had been scrambled for a Stage One perimeter defense. No
 unauthorized personnel were to be allowed anywhere near the base or the
 ships. Don Moody had asked Ross to personally try to defuse the situation
 at the main gate.
  "At least buy us the time to get the hell out of here, Dave."
  "Begging your pardon, Captain, but I'm not going to order my men to fire
  on civilians," Ross had said.
  "Not unless they threaten lives or sensitive materials," the chief of
  Seventh Fleet Intelligence replied, and Ross knew what he was talking
  about. "If it comes to that, the Admiral himself will give the order."
 "I hear you, Captain."
  He parked just inside the main gate and hurried the rest of the way on
  foot to the defensive position Baker platoon had established. Lieutenant
  Otis Green, the unit leader, came over and saluted.
 700 DAVID HAGBERG

 "How's it look, Green?"
  "Not good, sir. The police have tear gas and riot guns, but I don't think
  they'd last long. It'd leave us holding the bag. You got orders, sir?"
  "You're to hold your position, Marine. But no one fires into the crowd
  except on the Admiral's orders." Ross looked down the road at the police
  line and the mob. The noise was starting to get ugly.
 "Aye, aye, Major."
  "We won't leave you hanging." Ross unstrapped his holstered sidearm and
  handed it to Green. "I'll talk to them."
 "Watch yourself, sir."

 "Okay, talk to me," Captain Don Moody said.
  "The DEFCON THREE has been authenticated, and the fleet has been
  notified. Admiral Ryland ordered all of our assets to make ready for sea
  as soon as possible," Lieutenant, J.g., McCarty said. "But all hell is
  breaking loose."
  Moody looked sharply at the young OD. McCarty had been in the command
  less than six months, but in that time he'd proven to be a good officer
  who never exaggerated.
 "Has the Admiral arrived yet?"
  "He's expected any minute. But Captain Byrne is already upstairs."
  "All right, Mike, they're going to have some tough questions for me. I've
  already got Major Ross on track. Bring me up to speed."
  McCarty handed him a sheaf of message flimsies. "These are in the order
  we received them. Read them as soon as possible because you're sure as
  hell not going to believe me, Captain."
 "One at a time."
  "Air Force Two, with the Vice President aboard, crashed on take-off from
  Andrews. In the past several minutes at least thirteen commercial
  jetliners have gone down across the CONUS, most of them apparently
  because of the same problem. NSA has been monitoring
                HIGH FLIGHT 701

 a lot of flash traffic between the Japanese embassy in Washington and its
 Department of State in Tokyo. It's the reason for the DEFCON THREE."
 Moody was stunned. "What else?"
  "All Japanese self-defense forces have gone to DEFCON TWO in the past
  couple of minutes, and Flotillas One and Four are getting ready to leave
  Yokosuka."
 "Are they sharing their mission orders?"
  "No, sir," McCarty replied. "You know about the mob at the main gate.
  They want to arrest Admiral Ryland and charge him with war crimes for
  bringing nuclear weapons into Japanese waters. What you can't know is
  that Mike Hanrahan has finally gotten into it with the Samisho. "
  A phone rang and one of the communications techs answered it. "Captain
  Moody, the Admiral has arrived. He wants you in Ops on the double."
  "On my way," Moody replied, a troubling ache in his gut. What in God's
  name was happening?

 The green Ford Probe rental car crossed the Key Bridge and headed
 northwest out of the city. Mueller drove with the flow of traffic, careful
 not to be too slow or too fast. His bag was packed and lying on the back
 seat. The money he'd taken from Zerkel was in the bag. Before he crossed
 the Canadian border at Detroit sometime in the night or early morning, he
 would tape the cash to his body. He expected no trouble from Canadian
 customs, he simply wanted to minimize the risks. It was happening now, he
 knew. Although he had very little curiosity at this point he tuned the
 radio to a station that was broadcasting the first bulletins about what
 the announcer was calling the "worst air disaster in the history of
 aviation." He sat back, totally relaxed, to listen and enjoy.
  "In what may be the most bizarre twist to this disaster, federal
  authorities are looking for a former East German spy, Bruno Mueller, in
  connection with the thirteen crashes."
 702 DAVID HAGBERG

  Another voice came on with an accurate description of Mueller, and of the
  Thomas Reston persona he'd used at Oakland and Chicago.
  Mueller slowed down as he searched for an exit that would take him back
  into the city.

 "Is the FAA cooperating?" McGarvey asked.
  11 1 can't get through to them or to the White House," Socrates said. He
  was pale. "But there's been nothing for the past several minutes. It might
  have been a one-time pulse, not an ongoing signal."
  "Either that or there's no 522s left near those eight airports," McGarvey
  warned. "They could have been diverted."
  11 That's possible," Reiner said. "But we have equipment all over the
  place. Every airline flies our aircraft."
  They were out over the Pacific Ocean at their subsonic cruising altitude
  five miles up. The West Coast was well behind them. The music had been shut
  off, and the party had been stopped, but there was angry conversation, the
  passengers demanding to know what was happening.
  4' What I don't get is why just the port engines on 522s?" Callahan said.
  "They're targeting Guerin, and they want everyone to know what's happening
  is no coincidence," McGarvey said.
 "The Japanese?"
 "I'm not so sure."
  "Who else?" Reiner demanded. "I'm trying to fly this airplane. I wish
  somebody would tell me what the hell is going on. If it's just a corporate
  takeover, give it to the bastards. No company's worth all this."
  "I agree," McGarvey said. "But this may be the start of something a hell of
  a lot bigger." He turned to the FBI agents. "is there anyone from the FAA
  aboard?"
  "I think there's someone back there from Washington," McLaren said.
  "Explain the situation to him and see if he can get to his boss."
                HIGH FLIGHT 703

 McLaren hesitated.
  "You can arrest me when we land," McGarvey said. "In the meantime,
  there's not much chance of me going anywhere."
 "Right," McLaren said, and left.
  "I'll try my boss," Joyce said. "He's got a real hard-on for you, Mr.
  McGarvey. I think I'll get his attention."
 "How about Al Vasilanti?" McGarvey asked.
  "He's back there, but he won't do any good," Socrates replied. "He was
  in bad enough shape after Dulles. Now? It's anyone's guess."
 "Kennedy's not aboard?"
  "No," Socrates said puzzled. "I didn't see him in the confusion."
  "Try to get through to him. See why he stayed behind. And see if he can
  get through to the White House." McGarvey turned to Callahan. "Get back
  with Gales Creek and find out for sure that it was the port engines on
  all those crashes, and have them stand by to let us know if anything else
  happens."
 "What about you?" Socrates asked.
 "I'll try the CIA. Maybe they'll listen now."
  "Okay, stand by," Reiner cut in. He flipped a couple of switches on an
  overhead panel. "Number two is overheating. We have about a minute before
  it shuts itself down."
  Socrates studied the readouts on one of the CRT monitors. "Increase the
  air flow to the combustion chamber."
 "Already at maximum."
  "Ops says everything is quiet for now," Callahan reported.
 "We need the port monitor," Reiner said urgently.
 "No other way around it?" McGarvey asked.
  "No," Socrates said. "We'll lose the engine otherwise."
  "Do it," McGarvey ordered. "Callahan will stay with Gales Creek. If
  there's another crash you can pull the plug. In the meantime we head to
  the nearest airstrip. If
 704 DAVID HAGSERG

 you can get the engine cooled down before we get into Portland's air
 traffic control range, you can yank the monitor again so that we can
 land."
  "I hope the hell you know what you're doing," Reiner said as Socrates
  scrambled down into the electronics bay.
 "I'm not an engineer," McGarvey replied.
 "No, but you've got balls, I'll say that much for you."

 The sharply flaring bows of a huge gray ship suddenly appeared out of the
 darkness directly overhead. Obviously in trouble, it wallowed at an
 oblique angle to the seas. The acrid stench of diesel oil was thick on the
 wind. Stan Liskey, his adrenaline pumping, fumbled with the lines
 connecting the Aires windvane, slipped them off, and hauled the tiller
 hard over to port.
  They couldn't have been more than forty or fifty feet from the monster.
  For several agonizing moments Liskey was sure they would be sucked in by
  the bow wave. But Fair Winds clawed herself away, the gray wall slipping
  farther and farther aft.
  "What was it?" Carol screamed over the shriek of the wind.
  Liskey had caught a glimpse of the bow numbers, 988. He didn't know the
  name of the ship, but he knew it was Seventh Fleet out of Yokosuka.
 "I think it's a destroyer. One of ours."
 "What's it doing here?"
 "I don't know, but it's in trouble."
  The Fair Winds caught the wind and charged east in the direction of the
  islands. Liskey let the boat have her own way for a full minute to give
  his heart a chance to slow down. He glanced up at the port shrouds where
  the radar reflector was still in place. The destroyer had seen them.
  There was no doubt about it. So they were in trouble and could not
  maneuver for some reason. The near collision was just bad luck. What kind
  of trouble?
  "We've got to get the sails down," he shouted. "I want to lie ahull until
  dawn so we can see what's going on.
                 HIGH FLIGHT 705

 Soon as we're set I'm going to try to raise them on the ,radio, see what's
 happening."
  "Are you crazy?" Carol screamed. "It's a warship. Their lifeboats are
  bigger than us. I say we have our own problems. Let's go."
 "Are you going to help me, or not?"
  She opened her mouth to say something, but changed her mind. She nodded.
  "I'll take the tiller. As soon as we're settled down we can bring the
  handheld up here and try to raise them on sixteen."

 "Whatever it was ate our starboard prop and partially jammed the rudder,"
 the chief engineer reported. "No way of bringing that turbine back on
 line. It'd pull the shaft right out of the ship. I can answer the helm
 from down here, but it'll be slow. And I do mean slow."
  Hanrahan and the others were braced against anything they could grab. The
  Thorn was nearly broadside to the wind and seas, rolling past twenty-five
  degrees each time a crest hit.
  "Lee, we need to come eighty degrees left as soon as you can manage it.
  Otherwise we stand a good chance of capsizing."
  "I'm on it," Lieutenant Commander Leland Rapp replied, and he hung up.
 "It was the sub," Ryder said.
  "Goddamned right it was, Red," Hanrahan agreed. He keyed the phone. "CIC,
  bridge."
 -Cli~, aye."
 "What's our friend doing, Don?"
  "He's making a hell of a racket, blowing lots of bubbles. I'd say we
  clipped his antennas and masts, periscopes too. Might even have taken a
  bit out of his sail. He's probably blind, or nearly so."
 "Got him with our starboard prop and rudder."
 "Then he's in big trouble."
 "Set up a firing solution."
 "He got our towed arrays, Mike. Both of them."
 "Use the fifty-three on the bow, goddammit."
 706 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Seventh says hold on."
  "That's an order, Lieutenant. Find that submarine and give me a firing
  solution."
 "Aye, Skipper."
  "Message the Barbey and Cook, " Hanrahan told his XO. "Tell them we're
  going sub hunting."
  "What about the sailboat? Could be Japanese out here to set us up."
 "A trap?"
 "Wasn't for them we might not have hit the sub."
  "I see what you mean, X," Hanrahan said, grim lipped. "First things
  first. We'll deal with the sailboat later."

 "We can send up the comms buoy and ask for help, Kancho, " Minori
 suggested. They were taking on water, but the pumps were keeping ahead of
 it. Lights and power had been restored to the boat, and although their
 ability to maneuver had not been affected by the collision, they were
 blind except for sonar. Their observation and attack periscopes had been
 jammed in their wells, and the ELINT and communications arrays on top of
 the sail had been damaged or sheared off.
  "In any event we'll have to surface within ten or twelve hours to
  recharge our batteries," Chief Engineer Lieutenant Kiichi Owada wamed.
  Even the Samisho's advanced battery and electric motor designs had their
  limits. When their available electrical power dropped to a certain level,
  limiting relays automatically tripped, cutting nonessential systems one
  by one. Eventually only the life-support systems would have power, at
  which time they would cease being a warship.
  Kiyoda keyed the phone. "Sonar, conn. What is Sierra-Zero-Nine doing?"
  "It's hard to say, Kan-cho. But I think she has lost one of her props and
  maybe damaged her rudder. She is turning very slowly to port."
 "What about Sierra-Zero-Four and Zero-Five?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 707

  "Definitely incoming, but judging by the surface noises I'd say it's
  getting worse up there."
 "Do you still have the fourth target?"
  "It fades in and out. Could be some kind of a decoy buoy. A trap."
  Kiyoda turned back to his chief engineer. "Owadasan, at full maneuvering
  power, using all of our sonar and weapons launch capabilities, how long
  before we must surface?"
 "A few hours, Kan-cho, maybe four."
 "Give me four."
 "Hai, Kan-cho.
 "What do you mean to do?" Minori asked.
  Kiyoda looked at him. "Kill all four of those targets. What did you
  think, Ikuo?"

 Twenty-five miles southeast of Minneapolis International Airport,
 Northwest Flight 1020, with two hundred seventeen passengers and crew,
 came within range of the repeater. The port Rolls-Royce engine erupted in
 a burst of flames and metal parts, shearing off much of the wing and
 tearing a hole four feet tall and twenty-three feet long out of the side
 of the fuselage. First officer Rick Pearson's mayday was the fourteenth
 broadcast in less than ten minutes. The FAA system had not reacted fast
 enough to save them.

 THIRTY-NINE

 Federal Aviation Administration Chief Administrator Jay Hansen arrived
 downtown fifteen minutes after the first crash. Although it was Sunday,
 and the system was in crisis, he was dressed in a threepiece blue
 pinstriped suit, his tie correctly knotted. He
 708 DAVID HAGBERG

 was a man driven to precision, and he ran his agency the same way he
 conducted his life: by the book.
  "Number fourteen went down a couple of minutes ago," Byron Swanson
  reported, meeting him at the elevator. "Northwest 1020 inbound to
  Minneapolis."
  "Any word on the Vice President?" Hansen asked, crossing the corridor to
  his office.
  "Hurt but alive. We've narrowed the problem to nine airports, including
  Andrews. We're running checks on the entire system. So far there've been no
  accidents at any other airport. But we're talking all Guerin equipment.
  Port engine failures. Just like at Dulles two weeks ago, and the O'Hare
  incident in '90."
 :'Sabotage?"
  'Anything is possible. Guerin is asking the Bureau and the CIA for help,
  whatever that means. But we've got to shut down the system right now."
  "I agree," Hansen said. "Close those eight civilian airports and advise
  Andrews. Divert any incomings to the nearest availables. Is Russ Neil here
  yet?"
  "On his way. In the meantime Archie Darden is holding on line one for you."
 Te's aboard America, isn't he?"
  'Right," Swanson said. He used the phone in the outer office to relay the
  closure order to the air traffic control system, as Hansen went inside and
  picked up his phone.
 :'Archie, this is Jay Hansen. Where are you?"
  'About eighty miles inbound to Portland. We think we've got the problem
  pinpointed."
  141'm closing Portland and seven others. Looks like something's wrong with
  the 522 fleet. I'm going to ground them all."
  "Good. We'll divert to Gates Creek. The problem is in a heat-sensing
  subsystem supplied by a subcontractor in San Francisco."
 :'Does it affect you?"
  'George Socrates thinks so. Call the President. Tell him what we're
  facing."
                HIGH FLIGHT 709

  "That's exactly what I'll do, as soon as I find out. But we're not going
  off half-cocked."

 The Ministry of International Trade and Industry is by far the most
 powerful governmental agency in Japan. Its operations are directed by an
 elite group of men drawn from industry and finance. The nation's
 industrial policies are created and conducted by the ministry, as are
 business practices through the Keidanren-a sort of super chamber of
 commerce. Japan's foreign investments, and therefore her foreign policies,
 are managed by MITI. And more importantly, all defen se requests must be
 approved by the ministry, which in effect means that MITI controls Japan's
 military budget. MITI got its start before the war as the Ministry of
 Munitions, so its control of the Self Defense Forces is fitting.
  In 1953 a law was passed giving MITI the power to control the development
  and manufacture of all aircraft and weapons, including any civilian
  technology that might be of use. In the past few years, for example, the
  ministry funded a number of ongoing projects: superconductors, artificial
  computer intelligence, advanced optical fiber systems, fuel cell power
  generators, laser and ion beam processing systems, satellites and launch-
  ing facilities, high-tech aerospace materials, and since 1990, the
  development of hypersonic aircraft engines.
  In order to do all of that effectively MITI has the full cooperation of
  every segment of Japan's government and industry. Information flows into
  the ministry twenty-four hours per day from all over the world. From
  captains of international conglomerates to lowly cipher clerks, MITI
  gathers data, some of it electronic (such as that collected by the
  National Security Agency's Fort Meade headquarters) but most of it
  HUMINT-human intelligence.
  Hideyoshi Nobunaga, MITI director, rode in a Kawasaki AH-7C turbojet
  helicopter into the city from his palatial home near Chiba on Tokyo Bay's
  eastern shore. Before he'd taken over the ministry he'd been CEO of
 710 DAVID HAGBERG

 Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and he knew -how to handle a crisis. He'd
 been having premonitions for the past two weeks, so he'd not been
 surprised when he'd been awakened. He would have to advise Prime Minister
 Enchi when he had all the facts. But talking with Sokichi Kamiya over
 encrypted telephone, he wasn't so sure how long that might take.
 "I have no reason to lie to you, Nobunaga-san,
 Kamiya said from a secret location near Kobe. "This is not Morning Star."
 "Is it some hothead?"
  "Arimotp Yamagata assures me not. Somehow the preparations we so
  carefully made were discovered and put to use. It's possible we will be
  able to lift something from the ashes. But for now we should not
  overreact. The American forces here and on Okinawa have been moved to
  Defense Condition Three. Our own forces are at the second level."
  "There are other developing situation~ that you might not be aware of,"
  Nobunaga cautioned. "We may be facing a threat from the north."
 "The Russians?"
  "Yes. It's possible they'll be moving soon. It would confuse an already
  dangerous situation."
 "What are you saying to me?"
  "Proceed with extreme caution," Nobunaga warned. "The man seen rooting
  about in the ashes might not be understood."
  Kamiya laughed. "You don't wear the Western stereotype of the traditional
  Japanese very well. We can make the situation ours if you will help."
  Nobunaga smiled to himself in the darkness as he looked out at the vast
  spread of Tokyo. "I will not stand in your way now, Kamiya-san. But
  neither will I stand behind you."

 Kiyoda wanted to pull young Nakayama out of his seat in front of the
 primary sonar console and do the work himself. But his chief sonar
 operator was the best in the
                HIGH FLIGHT 711

 entire MSDF, and he certainly knew the equipment better than his captain
 did. But it was hard to wait. A billion pinpricks of light flashed in
 Kiyoda's head. Stars. There was a god, and it was the universe.
  "Sierra-Zero-Nine has definitely turned, Kan-cho. But it was slow. I'm
  seeing turns on only one screw. I definitely have rudder damage."
 "What about the other two warships?"
  "Incoming. They're making a lot of noise. The conditions are very bad up
  there." Nakayama used a grease pencil to mark the positions of the three
  ships on the sonar screen.
 "What about the decoy?"
  "It may be a small boat after all. Non-metallic hullwood or maybe
  fiberglass. No machinery noises."
 "A threat?"
 "Unknown, Kan-cho.
  Kiyoda took the grease pencil and plotted the courses and speeds of the
  three warships, as well as the position of the fourth target. He drew a
  small circle where they converged. "We will wait here," he said.

 "I spoke with Nobunaga a few minutes ago," Kamiya told the director general
 of defense via encrypted telephone.
  "Enchi has called an emergency meeting of his cabinet," Hironaka said. "The
  moment Nobunaga arrives we will begin, so I have very little time. Did he
  accuse you of instituting Morning Star?"
  "Yes. But I assured him that what is happening is not of our doing."
 "But it is of your devising."
  "Someone else stumbled onto the devices. We're still trying to find out how
  they were triggered. But Nobunaga said the Russians may be getting ready to
  retaliate. Perhaps now is the time to go ahead after all."
  "We will take care of the Russians, Kamiya-san. In the meantime, are you
  absolutely certain that there have been no leaks or defections from your
  organization?"
 712       DAVID HAGBERG

 "There've been none."
 "Could this be an accident?"
  Kamiya hesitated. "My engineers tell me that it's theoretically possible,
  but unlikely. MITI will not help us, but Nobimaga assures me that he will
  no longer oppose us."
  "Don't be a fool. He never blocked you. Young Arimoto Yamagata should be
  proof enough. In 1990 he looked aside, and he will now if he is given
  half a chance. What do I tell the Cabinet?"
  "That will depend entirely on how you read their mood, Hironaka-san. If
  they are for us in sufficient numbers, then Morning Star should be
  ordered. If not, we will simply wait until the opportunity arises again."
 Hironaka started to speak, but Kamiya held him off.
  "If we need to deny knowledge of what is happening we will do so ...
  convincingly. But everything we have worked toward is coming together.
  The air disasters, the Russians, our young friend, Lieutenant Commander
  Kiyoda. Even the Prime Minister's proposed trade agreement-which no one
  can possibly believe is valid-has helped set the stage."
  "The Americans may believe we are behind the crashes no matter how
  strongly we deny it."
  "But they will not go to war over it, Hironaka-san. We are their major
  trading partners. We are their allies. Their friends. Shots will be
  fired, perhaps. And the blame for the air disasters will fall on young
  hotheads. But the United States government will step back from the brink.
  When they do, the western rim will be ours."

 The Minegurno-class destroyer DD118 Murakumo's six Mitsubishi diesels had
 been fired up, her crew called to general quarters, and one by one the
 other ships of Flotillas One and Four reported they were up and ready for
 action.
  Communications patched a secure call to the bridge for the captain. It
  was Vice Admiral Ikuru Shimikaze, CINC Maritime Self Defense Forces.
  "Good morning,
                HIGH FLIGHT 713

 Commander Shirokita. Is your command ready for sea?"
  "Hai, Vice Admiral. Am I to be told what has happened? Is it the
  Russians?"
  "In part, yes. We are expecting a strike somewhere in the north very
  soon. But there is more, Shirokita-san. We know that you will comport
  yourself well."
 "Against whom?"
  "Any and all enemies of Japan, whoever they may be, and wherever they may
  strike."
  Shirokita had known the Admiral for twenty years, ever since the Maritime
  Self Defense Force Academy. Not once had he ever heard the Admiral cover
  himself like he was doing now. It was deeply disturbing and ominous.
  "Your orders are to lead Escort Flotilla One, including the 41st, 43rd
  and 61st Destroyer Divisions, to the mouth of Tokyo Bay, where you will
  protect the city."
  "Again I must ask you, Admiral, defend the city against whom?"
 "Any forces who might attack."
 "Will I have those orders in writing, Admiral?"
 "Do you wish that?" Admiral Shimikaze asked coldly.
 "Under the circumstances, I do."

 Crash trucks and ambulances were still arriving on site when the call from
 Washington on the FAA hot line came through. Oakland's on-duty chief tower
 operator Vance Weiser studied the activity across the field through
 binoculars, and it was clear to him that there would be no survivors. The
 jetliner's port wing had come off in midair three miles north of the
 airport. He'd watched it disintegrate, pieces flying everywhere as the big
 plane went straight down. The only thing they could be grateful for was
 that it happened when it did. Another thirty seconds and the aircraft
 would have been over the heavily populated town of Alameda, and a lot more
 people would have lost their lives. First Bill White had been murdered in
 Chicago, and now this. Weiser was
 714 DAVID HAGBERG

 beginning to wonder if there was some sort of conspiracy against them.
 "This is Byron Swanson. Who am I speaking to?"
  "Vance Weiser, senior tower operator on duty. Sir, we're on top of rescue
  operations, but it doesn't look good. We've temporarily closed Three-Left
  until we make sure there's no debris on the runway."
  "We're shutting Oakland down until further notice. Nothing in or out."
  "I understand your concern, but ATC is holding eight inbounds at Santa
  Rosa intersection. And we expect the NTSB to be here within a couple of
  hours."
  "I've already spoken with the chief controller. Your inbounds are being
  rerouted. If you have any aircraft on taxiways or at gates with engines
  running, they are to be shut down immediately. Right where they are, do
  you understand?"
 "No, sir. What the hell is going on?"
  "We're not sure, but it looks like sabotage might be involved."
  An off-duty controller rushed up the stairs. "The goddamned system has
  crashed! Fourteen planes down! It's on television!"
 Weiser turned, his mouth dropping open.
  "It's true," Swanson shouted. "Shut everything down now, Vance."
  "What's going on?" Weiser demanded, pulling himself together.
  "I wish I knew," Swanson replied. The connection was broken.
  Weiser slammed the phone down. "Shut the fuck up," he told the still
  shouting controller, and he started closing down his airport, one eye
  toward the smoking wreckage of United 425. What the hell was going on?

 Major General Marvin Zwiebel, CINC of Marine forces on Okinawa, arrived
 at Camp Foster operations less than ten minutes after the alert message
 had been received. Most of his staff had already arrived.
                HIGH FLIGHT 715

  "We've been ordered to DEFCON THREE, that's confirmed," his chief of
  staff, Colonel Howard Stromgren said. "But so far nobody is giving us any
  reasons."
  Zwlebel removed his uniform blouse and took a cup of coffee from a
  sergeant. "What's our readiness status?"
  "We'll be fully operational in another five minutes. But we've got no
  mission orders. All we can do is close and secure the base."
 "Where's Blisk?"
  "On his way over from communications," the chief of staff said. "He's
  been here all night."
 "Were we expecting this?"
 "Nobody said anything to me, Marvin."
  "Okay, set up a unit commanders meeting for 0525. That gives them ten
  minutes. By then this base had better be closed tighter than a gnat's
  ass."
  "Let's get Seventh on the horn," Stromgren suggested. "I'd like to know
  what the hell we're facing."
  "First set up the meeting, and then get me Hagedorn at Kadena."
 "Will do." Strorngren went to the phone on his desk.
  Lieutenant Colonel Robert Blisk, Chief First Marine Air Wing
  Intelligence, came in, carrying a leather folder. He looked worried.
  "You're not going to like this very much, General."
  Zwiebel motioned him into the glass-enclosed briefing room. "Spell it
  out," he said when the door was closed.
  "There's no particular order to this, so you're going to have to take it
  in one big bite. At this point the DEFCON THREE we're under applies only
  to this theater. Everyone else stays at FOUR at least for now. Mission
  orders for all of Seventh Fleet, including us plus Kadena, are to hold
  our ground but not to fire unless fired upon."
 "By whom?"
  "By anyone. The Japanese have increased their readiness to DEFCON TWO,
  which means they'll shoot anyone they take to be a threat to their
  homeland or their assets. Anywhere. The entire MSDF has been ordered to
  sea, fully twenty-five percent of their ASW,
 716 DAVID HAGBERG

 observer, and remote-command post aircraft are already in the air, and their
 ground defense and missile services have been scrambled. Seventh has sent
 another Orion to back up our destroyer north of here. Looks as if we're
 getting into it with that submarine."
 "More?"
  "'Fraid so, General. The Russians may be getting ready to make their
  retaliatory strike somewhere on Hokkaido's north coast, which ostensibly is
  the reason for Tokyo's jumpiness. But our DEFCON THREE is not just a
  knee-jerk response. Something else is going on that mystifies the shit out
  of me." Blisk opened the leather folder and handed the general a half-dozen
  intercept and message flimsies. "Some of that we got from CNN. The
  confirmations are from Washington through Don Moody's office in Yokosuka.
  So far a total of fourteen Guerin 522 jetliners have crashed stateside, all
  within a ten-minute period. Among them was Air Force Two, which was
  bringing the Vice President to Tokyo. General, it's believed that those
  airplanes were sabotaged. Possibly by the Japanese."
  The general leaned back against the conference table. ,"Has everyone gone
  nuts?"
 "I can't think of any other explanation," Blisk replied.

 Now that DD Thorn had turned into the wind and seas she rode much easier.
 The Barbey and Cook were fighting their way downwind. It would take them
 another twenty minutes to make the rendezvous, but they would be in firing
 position sooner. Seventh was advising caution, still not sure what had
 happened, but that made no difference to Hanrahan. Despite the surface noise
 and the damage to Thorn's towed sonar arrays, they'd gotten a good position
 on the Samisho. Besides the turbulence caused by her mangled sail, the boat
 was leaking air, which at times sounded like a whistling tea kettle.
  "We lost him, Captain," Sattler reported from CIC. "No screw noises, no air
  leaks."
                HIGH FLIGHT 717

 "What's your best estimated position?"
  "Five thousand yards, bearing three-two-zero, depth one hundred feet."
  Hanrahan walked over to the chart table where Ryder plotted the submarine's
  possible location. It was clear what the submarine driver was trying to do.
  "The sonofabitch is waiting for us," Ryder said. "In all the racket he
  could have loaded and flooded his tubes without us hearing it."
 "They're our allies, remember?" Hanrahan said.
 His XO looked up. "Nobody's fault he ran into us"
  "It'll be our fault if they sink us." Hanrahan called CIC. "Ping them once
  for range and bearing, and a second time for confirmation."
  "Aye, aye," Sattler replied. "But, Skipper, that unidentified target we
  were painting on radar is hailing us."
 "Ident?"
  "She says she's a U.S.-documented sailboat out of Okinawa. Wants to know if
  they can be of any assistance."
 "A trick?"
 "Unknown."
 "We'll find out when we're done with the sub."

 "Stand by. Thorn is going after Chrysanthemum," FF Cook's second officer,
 Ensign Tim Boyle, told his skipper. "They'll send us a position."
 "What about the surface target?"
 "Could be a bogey."

 "The MSDF duty officer sends his regrets, but Admiral Shimikaze is still in
 conference and unable to take your call," Captain Byrne said.
  "Recommendations?" Admiral Ryland asked his staff tersely.
  "I think you should move your flag out to the George Washington. She's
  three hundred twenty miles southeast, about halfway between here and the
  Bonin Islands," Don Moody suggested.
 718 DAVID HAGBERG

  11 Makes sense to me, Admiral," Byrne agreed. "It's your call at this
  point, but if we go to DEFCON TWO you might not have the time."
  The Seventh Fleet was composed of three carrier battle groups, forty-five
  ships and submarines in all, assigned to defend the western Pacific rim.
  Now that the Soviet Union was not a threat, Seventh Fleet duties had been
  reduced to showing the flag and providing operational readiness for local
  or regional conflicts. In the old days the Third Fleet, based at Pearl,
  mingled freely with ships of the Seventh. The middle of the Pacific was
  their playground. These days, however, Third kept east of Midway, and
  Seventh patrolled from the Japanese home waters down to the Philippines.
  The Pacific was a very big patch of ocean, but since the commissioning of
  the CVN 73 George Washington, an improved Nimitz-class carrier with
  superior nuclear reactors, state-of-the-art technology, and augmented air
  wing, co-mingling of the fleets was no longer considered vital. At best
  flank speed Third was one hundred hours from reinforcing Seventh. Not a
  comforting thought. In any initial trouble, Seventh was on its own.
  11 There's the matter of the rioters at the main gates," Moody cautioned.
  "The crowd is growing, and we may be faced with shooting at them, or
  allowing them to overrun the base. The Japanese military is unwilling to
  help, and the local police force is inadequate."
  The last combat Ryland had seen was the Gulf War !nore than six years ago.
  In his wildest dreams he never imagined something like this.
  "Gentlemen, I'm transferring my flag to the George Washington right now.
  Get Tony Benson on the horn, tell him we're on our way."
 "Shall we inform the MSDF?" Byrne asked.
  Ryland didn't have to think about it. "After we're aboard," he said.

 In the old days Captain First Rank Anatoli Anishchenko would not have been
 so nervous. He stood on the bridge of the 512-foot destroyer Sovremennyy,
 name ship of the
                HIGH FLIGHT 719

 class, and tried to pick out the lights of their target to the south. They
 were heading almost due west through the Soya Strait separating Japan's
 north island of Hokkaido from Russia's Sakhalin Island. These were
 disputed waters, but by agreement Russian vessels were allowed unhindered
 access to the open Pacific. All that, Anishchenko, thought, was about to
 change.
  Before Gorbachev and the Kremlin Coup that toppled him from power, the
  military chain of command was made of iron links. Now it was made of
  papier-mdchd. Moscow was in shambles and so was the officer corps. Yet
  field commanders were expected to show initiative with nothing to back
  them up if something went wrong. Three days ago Anishchenko had received
  detailed verbal orders via encrypted laser-beam transmission from CINC
  Pacific Fleet, Vladivostok. He was told to ignore all further ordinary
  telex transmissions that were not secure. The written messages would be
  a disinformation ploy. Twelve hours ago the Sovremennyy was ordered to
  return to her home port of Vladivostok at all possible speed via the
  strait of Soya. The message had come by telex transmission, which meant
  their primary orders to attack and destroy the Japanese Air Self Defense
  Force radar installation at Wakkanai were still valid.
  Anishchenko was willing and able to carry out the attack, but if
  something went wrong he would have nothing in writing to back him up. It
  weighed heavily on his mind.
  "Sound general quarters," he told his executive officer, Captain
  Lieutenant Gennadi Roskov. "Battle stations missile."
  "Aye, Captain, sounding general quarters, battle stations missile,"
  Roskov replied crisply.
  "Turn left to new heading two-three-zero degrees," Anishchenko told the
  helmsman. The new course would clear Cape Soya and Rebun Island to the
  west, but it brought them closer to Wakkanai, which was less than one
  hour away at flank speed, and already within weapons range.
 720 DAVID HAGBERG

 Thirty-two miles down the coast from the Wakkanai radar installation, the
 Air Self Defense Force Eighth Intercept Squadron at Embetsu was at full
 alert in response to the DEFCON TWO. Northern Air Defense Command at
 Misawa had been warning them for the past six, days about a possible
 attack by the Russians in retaliation for the Tatar Strait incident, so
 everyone was on their toes. Squadron Commander Major Yumiko Osani, who'd
 been bunking on a cot behind the ready room, came in, buttoning up his
 tunic.
  "It's Crimson-Three, Major," his operations officer Captain Tokako Kotoda
  said. Crimson-Three was the call sign for Wakkanai radar.
  "Anything other than that destroyer they were tracking?" Osani asked. He
  took a cup of tea from an orderly.
  "Iie. But they've turned south. Looks as if they could be targeting
  Wakkanai itself."
 "Are we going to get any help from the MSDFT'
  "The nearest surface ship is at least three hours away. But that
  destroyer is in firing range right now."
 "Anything else on the threat board?"
 "Not in our sector, Major," Kotoda said.
  "Is anybody up?" Osani asked. He picked up the direct-line phone to
  Misawa.
  "Kaifu and Tatewaki. Six others on the line and two in the alert hangar."
  "Have Wakkanai give vectors out to the ship, but make sure they stay out
  of that destroyer's Close-inWeapons-Systems envelope. When they get an
  ID, scramble the squadron." Osani held his hand over the phone. "I am not
  giving them authorization for weapons release at this time, unless they
  are fired on first."
 "We're at DEFCON TWO."
  "I am well aware of our alert status, Kotoda-san. But I want a positive
  visual on that ship first."

 Lieutenants Hisayuki Kaifu and Keisaku Tatewaki reached their crusing
 altitude of twenty-five thousand feet above the Sea of Japan southwest of
 the base within
                HIGH FLIGHT 721

 three minutes after take-off. Their F/A-18JD Hornets were equipped with
 the modified AAS-38 Forward Looking InfraRed pod, which used thermal
 imagery to display high-definition pictures of ground or sea objects on
 their Master Monitor Displays. The optic head of the FUR pod automatically
 followed either a pre-set search pattern or a designated target. If
 anything was down there they'd see it, day or night. And if anything was
 emitting, their surveillance radars would detect it. Each Hornet was armed
 with a pair of Harpoon anti-ship missiles, one Sparrow and two smaller
 Sidewinder airto-air missiles, as well as Vulcan 20 mm cannons.
  "Falcon-Eight, this is Seven-Seven-Charlie and FourThree-Delta on
  station," Kaifu radioed. "Looks clean." Falcon-Eight was Embetsu's call
  sign.
  "Roger, stand by for vectors from Crimson-Three," their mission control
  officer instructed.
 "Air or surface?" Kaifu asked.
 "Surface contact in Soya Strait. Stand by."
  Kaifu switched to his encrypted inter-aircraft channel. "Look sharp,
  Keisaku, this might be it."
 "Hai. I hope the bastards try something."
  He and Kaifu, who were second cousins, had gone through the defense
  academy and flight school together. They were both engaged to be married
  to each other's cousins. It was a small, close-knit family.
  "Seven-Seven-Charlie, this is Crimson-Three. We have an unidentified
  surface object incoming at approximately thirty knots. Bearing
  zero-four-eight,-eight-zero miles from your position."
  "Single bogie?" Kaifu asked. He hauled his Hornet in a five-G turn to
  starboard and kicked in his afterburners, accelerating smoothly toward
  Mach two.
  "Roger, Seven-Seven-Charlie. We're presuming it's a Russian destroyer,
  so watch yourself. We need a positive visual ID."
  "Copy," Kaifu radioed. At Mach two their time to target was under four
  minutes.
 722 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Report all weapons systems armed and ready," Sovremennyy's weapons control
 officer Lieutenant Nikolai Burov announced.
  "Very well," Anishchenko acknowledged. He glanced at his exec, then picked
  up the growler phone. "CIC, bridge."
  "CIC, aye," Combat Information Center officer Lieutenant Grigori Kalmykov
  responded.
 "What are our threat receivers picking up?"
  "Other than Wakkanai, nothing, Captain. But there have been radio
  transmissions between Wakkanal and the Eighth Intercept Squadron at
  Embetsu, and between a pair of patrol aircraft to the southwest. They are
  turning toward us now."
 "They've picked us up?"
  "Yes, but there's no reason for them to attack until we fire. They've only
  sent two aircraft, and we'll be ready for them. The moment they light their
  combat radar systems we'll shoot them out of the sky."
 "Could they be preauthorized?"
  "I don't think so, Captain. We detected a brief transmission between
  Embetsu and Northern Air Defense Command at Misawa. The transmission was
  encrypted, so we were unable to read it. But it's my guess the squadron
  commander asked for instructions."
 "Which were?"
  "Wait and see what we do, then act accordingly. But there'll almost
  certainly be a delay on their part."
  "We won't wait for their radars. The moment they pass overhead and present
  their tail fins to us, we will open fire on them and the radar station at
  the same moment."
  "They'll be overhead in less than ninety seconds, Captain."
 "Very well," Anishchenko said.

 "That's definitely a Russian destroyer," Tatewaki said on the inter-aircraft
 channel. "No mistake."
 They were eighteen miles out. They'd dropped down
                HIGH FLIGHT 723

 to five hundred feet above the surface and had eased back to subsonic.
 Kaifu's recognition program pinged when it had the silhouette identified.
 "I agree." He keyed his radio. "Falcon-Eight, this is
 Seven-Seven-Charlie."
  "Falcon-Eight," their mission control officer answered.
  "Sir, we have a positive identification on that surface target. She's a
  Sovremennyy-class destroyer. Looks as if she'll clear the cape. Probably
  on her way home."
 "Stand by."
  The ghostly thermal image of the destroyer grew larger and more detailed
  on their Master Monitor Display CRTs as they closed. The Russians knew
  that they were incoming, but nothing showed on the Hornets' threat
  receivers. By all outward appearances a Russian military vessel was
  clearing the Soya Strait and a pair of Japanese ASDF fighter/interceptors
  had come for a look. Routine.
  "Seven-Seven-Charlie, kill the target. Say again, kill the target. You
  have weapons release authorization."
  "Yo-so-ro, " Kaifu replied, his heart in the back of his throat. He
  switched to inter-aircraft. "Launch all four Harpoons at her starboard
  side on the count of five. Break off, come around, and if need be we'll
  go for the bridge with Sidewinders."
 "Let's sink the bastard!" Tatewaki agreed.
  Kaifu dialed up the AGM-109 anti-ship missiles with his weapons selector
  switch on his stick, and entered the distance-to-target radar program
  into the strap-down inertial system. When launched the Harpoon would drop
  to the deck and skim low over the water. At the programmed distanje-off
  the missile's radar went active and when it found its mark it locked on.
  At the last moment, the Harpoon pulled up and dove into its target. There
  was almost no defense against it.
  "Five-four-three-two-one-launch," Kaifu radioed. He hit the fire switch
  once, and then a second time.

 Anishchenko went to the windows and looked outside. The morning was pitch
 black, there was nothing to see
 724 DAVID HAGBERG

 other than the forward twin-mount 130 mm gun, and the bows crashing through
 the seas. In a matter of seconds the two ASDF patrol aircraft would pass
 overhead and he would order the attack. Four SS-N-22 SSM antisurface
 missiles would be launched against Wakkanai, and a pair of SA-N-7
 air-defense missiles would be sent against the fighter/interceptors.
  From that point he could only assume that help would be nearby. His orders
  were to shoot, then turn and run for the protection of Kuznetsova thirty
  miles north on Sakhalin Island. But that was at least an hour away. Long
  before they reached safety, the Japanese would respond.
  The time for self-doubts and recriminations was gone. He was a military
  commander, and Russia was trying to become a nation that lived by the rule
  of law, which meant civilians controlled the military. He would follow his
  orders. Someone had to know what was going on.
 "Bridge, CIC."
  Anishchenko walked back to the phone. "This is the captain."
  "Captain, the bogies have turned away! They are no longer in formation!"
  "Are they returning to base?" Anishchenko demanded.
  "Nyet, nyet! I think they've fired their missiles. Recommend we commence
  our attack now."
  "I concur," Anishchenko said without hesitation. "Launch the twenty-twos.
  Get a re-lock on the bogies, and fire at will!"
  Almost instantly two anti-surface missiles were fired from a launcher on
  either side of the ship just forward of the bridge. The flash of their
  rocket motors temporarily filled the bridge.
  "Many weapons radars . . ." CIC shouted, when something crashed in on them
  from overhead, and a tremendous yellow light filled the air.
  The Harpoon came straight through the overhead into the bridge before
  exploding. Anishchenko and the others never knew what hit them. One moment
  lights were
                HIGH FLIGHT 725

 flashing, and in the next they ceased to exist as sentient beings.

 Technical Sergeant Halvorson hesitated a moment at the open door of the
 Marine VH-3 helicopter. The emergency response team from Bethesda worked
 frantically on the Vice President, while the Secret Service detail
 watched, their guns at the ready. Everything that could be done to save
 Eagle Two's life was being done.'In the meantime, there were thirty-six
 other people aboard Air Force Two, many of them still alive. He headed
 back to the downed aircraft.
  11 Eagle Two is transferred," he radioed SARTECH control. "We're going
  back in, but we're going to need more help."
  "Roger, able leader one. Can you say condition of Sea Gull Two." It was
  Sally Cross's code name.
  "Deceased," Halvorson replied tersely. Sometimes he hated this job.
  Behind him the chopper's engines came to life, and it lifted off,
  swinging toward the northeast beneath a lowering overcast.

 James Lindsay had wanted to be President of the United States all of his
 life. As a schoolboy he wrote essays about it. In the Air Force his fellow
 officers kidded him about his ambition, telling him he should have joined
 the Navy so he could have gotten a PT boat command like Jack Kennedy. And
 in his first years as a state senator and then a U.S. congressman, he'd
 been ignored. But by the time he became Senate Minority Leader he didn't
 have to talk about his dream; everyone else told him.
  All of his life he'd studied and prepared for the job, had become an
  expert on every facet of every agency of government, had read the
  writings of every president including his predecessor, with whom he'd
  vehemently disagreed, and had'himself written a book called Crisis
  Management-Preparations Before the Storm. But he'd
 726 DAVID HAGBERG

 not expected this. In order to manage a crisis, Lindsay told himself, he
 needed an enemy. A Russian, not a Japanese, adversary.
  "The number is holding at fourteen, Mr. President," Jay Hansen said on
  the speakerphone. "It looks as if eight airports plus Andrews were
  affected. I've ordered them closed until we get this straightened out."
 "Any word on casualties?" Lindsay asked.
  "Not yet. It'll be high, but the worst should be over. We never expected
  this. There was no way to prepare."
 - "No one ever does. You're doing a good job, Jay. I'll let you get back
 to it."
 "Can you tell me what's going on, Mr. President?"
  "Not yet." Lindsay broke the connection and picked up the conference call
  to the CIA and NSA. "Has General Murphy arrived yet?"
  "He's on the Parkway, Mr. President. Should be here within the next
  couple of minutes," Tommy Doyle answered.
 "Has CIA come up with anything new?"
  "Sir, we're getting information from all over the place, but none of it
  is conclusive. We can tell you that the Yokosuka riot has spread to Tokyo
  and several other cities. It started as a Rising Sun demonstration, but
  we think they've lost control of it."
  "You are aware that fourteen airplanes have gone down, including Air
  Force Two, and that the Japanese may be involved in some way?" the
  President's National Security Adviser Harold Secor said.
  "The traffic between their embassy here and Tokyo remains heavy,"
  Amundson replied from Fort Meade. "But we're monitoring another incident
  in the Soya Strait. That's the water passage between the Japanese north
  island of Hokkaido and the Russian island of Sakhalin. The Japanese Air
  Force may have gotten into it with another Russian destroyer. The latest
  satellite infrareds show the heat signatures of multiple explosions
  consistent with air-launched missiles."
  "How do you know it was a destroyer?" the President asked.
                HIGH FLIGHT 727

  "We copied traffic between the ship-she's the Sovremennyl-and Pacific
  Fleet at Vladivostok."
 "What does the CIA know about this?"
  "We're reading the same satellite data as NSA," Doyle said. "But the
  attack is not unexpected. The Japanese self-defense forces are at DEFCON
  TWO. Under the rules of engagement they would view any near incursion
  into their waters as a hostile act. By whomever."
  "We have American people dead on American soil. Where's the connection?"
  the President demanded. "Who is doing it? Can somebody give me a straight
  answer?"
  "The airplanes were sabotaged. There's no question about that," Doyle
  said. "And the Japanese may be involved, but we're in the middle of
  another developing situation. One that we just don't understand yet, Mr.
  President. But it may have some bearing on what's going on. 11
 "What do you mean?"
  "Mr. Carrara, our deputy director of operations, has been working with
  one of our former case officers on the idea that a former East German
  Stasi assassin may somehow be involved. There has been a series of mur
  ders involving Guerin Airplane Company and our air traffic control system
  that the FBI is investigating. It's possible that another group is
  responsible for the sabotage and for some reason wants the blame to fall
  on the Japanese."
 "The Russians?"
 "It's possible, Mr. President, but not likely."
 "Let me speak with Carrara."
  "Sir, he's dead. His body was found last night in Baltimore."
  None of this was making any sense to Lindsay. "It could be the Russians
  after all."
  "Yes, sir. Or the Japanese, or a third group. We just don't have enough
  information to say for certain."
 "Fine," the President said.
  One of the Marine communications specialists turned from his console at
  the far end of the room. "Mr.
 728 DAVID HAGBERG

 President, you have an incoming call. It's Prime Minister Enchi."
  "Just a moment," the President said. "Who is this former case officer of
  yours?" he asked Doyle.
 "Kirk McGarvey."
  "Isn't there a warrant for his arrest over this business?"
 "Yes, Mr. President."
 "Did h-v kill Carrara?"
 "It's not likely."
 "In other words, you have nothing conclusive."
 "No, sir," Doyle admitted.
  The President broke the connection, and looked at his advisers. "Now what
  the hell do I say to Enchi that'll make any sense?"

 McGarvey stood in the forward galley, the telephone to his ear wondering
 what he was going to tell JoAnn Carrara when he faced her. "Was it
 Mueller?"
  "We think so, Mac," Dick Adkins said. "But it's crazy here. No one knows
  what's going on, and everyone's afraid to make a decision until the
  General arrives."
 "Has the system been shut down?"
  "Just the eight airports. There haven't been crashes anywhere else, and
  nothing in the past few minutes. Everybody is holding their breath. But
  the Japanese and Russians have gotten into it again, and our Seventh
  Fleet has been ordered to DEFCON THREE. The White House is about to start
  a war."
 "Have the Japanese made any moves against us?"
 "The submarine north of Okinawa . .
 "Besides that."
 "There are riots all over Japan."
  "Goddammit, Dick, has the government of Japan made any official move
  against us? Any military move? Has our fleet been bottled up in Tokyo
  Bay? Has Seventh's flag been moved off shore?"
 "I don't know."
 "Find out," McGarvey said.
 "Doyle went to bat for you, but the President wouldn't
                HIGH FLIGHT 729

 listen. Are you so goddamned sure it isn't the Japanese? They need facts up
 there now, not speculation. NSA is reading heavy traffic from the Japanese
 embassy here to its Ministry of State in Tokyo. Some of it has to do with
 the crashes."
  "I'll be on the ground in a few minutes. Have the General convince the
  President to hold off for as long as possible."
 "Where are you landing?"
 "Gales Creek."
  "That's within Portland's air traffic control area, isn't it?"
  McGarvey was caught off guard momentarily. "You said the eight airports
  have been shut down. What do you mean by that?"
  "Just what I said: shut down. It was your suggestion. No traffic in or out,
  especially no Guerin 522s."
  McGarvey pushed his way past McLaren to the flight deck where Socrates was
  on another phone. The engineer looked up, sensing more trouble.
  "Pull the heat monitor, George," McGarvey said calmly. "Now."
  Socrates' gaze turned toward the windshield for a moment. They had closed
  the coast, and in the distance to the northeast they could make out a hint
  of Portland, snow-covered Mount Hood rising behind it. "Right," he said. He
  put the telephone aside and climbed down into the electronics bay, Reiner
  and Callahan watching him.
 "You'll have to go manual," McGarvey told them.
  "Too late, Portland ATC has us," Callahan announced.
 "It's disconnected," Socrates called up.
  McGarvey held his breath for a long moment, waiting for their port engine
  to explode, but it never happened. He looked down at Socrates, who was
  grinning weakly.

 The Vice President was slipping away from them. Excessive blood loss, early
 untreated shock, and severe trauma to the left side of his brain, which was
 swelling inside the cranial cavity, and to his heart, which was not
 respond-
 
  730 DAVID HAGBERG

 ing to their treatment. Navy doctor Captain David Scorse, primary ER
 physician working on Cross, had suspected they were too late when he'd
 first started his examination and treatment. Now he was certain.
 "What's our ETAT' he asked without looking up.
 "Five minutes," someone said.
  "We need to relieve the cranial pressure before then," Scorse said,
  knowing they were just going through the motions. But the man was Vice
  President.

 FORTY

 Prime Minister Ichiro Enchi stared at his cabinet around the long table
 as he waited for President Lindsay to come on line. His advisers were
 suggesting one thing while his heart was telling him something else. If
 the attack against the Vice President and the airplane crashes were not
 a result of Morning Star, either the Americans themselves were doing it
 or somehow the Russians were involved. They'd just learned about the
 attack on Wakkanai. Combined with Seventh Fleet's increased alert status,
 the unthinkable was suddenly becoming plausible. It made a terrible sense.
 Yet he could not believe, would not believe, that a battle between Japan
 and the United States was imminent.
  The telephone chimed, and Enchi picked it up. "Mr. President, we are
  monitoring news reports on CNN of terrible disasters at several of your
  airports. And our observers in Washington have notified us of the
  developing situation. It is my understanding that Vice President Cross
  was on his way to Tokyo when his airplane crashed. May I offer my
  condolences for him and his wife, and for the crew and other passengers
  aboard Air Force Two."
                HIGH FLIGHT 731

  Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for your concern. At this point it looks as
  if Larry Cross will be all right. But at least thirteen passenger airplanes
  have crashed in the past twenty minutes with a great loss of life. My
  security advisers believe that the crashes may have resulted from acts of
  sabotage by an as yet unknown group ... or government."
  The call was on the speakerphone. President Lindsay's voice was kept at a
  lower volume so that the voice of the simultaneous translator could be more
  easily heard and understood. The delay caused by this arrangement was
  negligible. But the inflection in the President's voice was unmistakable.
  Hironaka, seated at the end of the table, bridled, but Enchi did not wait
  for him to speak.
  "If your advisers are correct, and if this attack was made by terrorists or
  by a government-sponsored terrorist group, then it could be considered an
  act of war."
  "That is how we view the situation. We believe we have it under control for
  the moment, but the economic summit between our countries will have to be
  delayed until our investigation has been completed."
  Enchi touched the mute button. "Can they know about Morning Star? Should I
  say something?"
  "It's possible but not likely," Nubunaga said. "They do know about our
  military readiness, however."
  Enchi released the mute button. "I agree that we should delay the summit,
  Mr. President. As you may know by now, a Russian destroyer attacked one of
  our radar installations on the north coast of Hokkaido. We had to take
  action to protect ourselves. Since we cannot rule out the possibility of
  further attacks I have placed our military forces at DEFCON TWO."
  "We are aware of the attack, and of your response, Mr. Prime Minister. I
  have advised the Russian government against such an action, and I shall do
  so again. Because of the attack against us, I have placed our military
  forces at DEFCON THREE. But this must not be taken as provocative except by
  our enemies. We are merely taking a stronger defensive position."
 732 DAVID HAGBERG

  Again Enchi pressed the mute button. "Have all their forces gone to
  DEFCON THREET'
  "Only the Seventh Fleet and the Marine and Air Force installations on
  Okinawa," Hironaka said. "It's obvious whom they consider their enemy to
  be."
  "It could simply be a response to our increased alert status."
  "They were ordered to DEFCON THREE after the attack on their air traffic
  system."
  Enchi released the mute button. "Your actions are understandable, as I
  hope ours are to you. I advise caution. Both of us face difficult
  situations that must first be resolved before we can go on."
 "I agree," President Lindsay replied.
  "May we keep this line of communications between us open, Mr. President?"
  Enchi asked.
  "By all means. Let there be absolutely no misunderstanding between us.
  We have been friends for too long to act otherwise."
 Enchi cut the connection. "What can we do?"
  "Defend ourselves," Hironaka said. "There is no other consideration."

 "The number's up to fourteen if you count Air Force Two," NTSB duty
 officer John Hom said.
  "I heard some of that on the way in," Sam Varelis replied, heading for
  his office. He was having a hard time accepting it. "Has the FAA issued
  any orders?"
  "Yes, sir. You were right about them all being Guerin 522s. So far it
  looks as if eight airports, plus Andrews, were involved. The FAA has shut
  them all down. Nothing in or out." Hom handed him the list.
  "That's a start." Varelis dialed the FBI's counterespionage number.
  "We're going to have to dig deep to come up with that many teams. Have
  our regional offices been notified?"
  "New York, Chicago, Seattle, and Los Angeles. We'll have to handle Dulles
  from here. But our last team is still in town. The 89th Air Wing is
  covering Air Force Two."
                HIGH FLIGHT 733

 "Any word on Cross?"
 "He's still alive. They're taking him to Bethesda."
  "Get Sweedler on the phone. I'll talk to him next." Alan Sweedler was
  President Lindsay's appointment as chairman of the NTSB. As a Washington
  insider, he had the connections to cut through the red tape.
  The FBI's duty officer answered. "Three-nine-three seven-one hundred."
  "This is Sam Varelis, National Transportation Safety Board. I'd like to
  speak with John Whitman."
 "Sir, Mr. Whitman is not available."
 "Tell him this concerns Kirk McGarvey. I'll hold."

 Dominique drove east on Interstate 66. Her numbness after seeing the news
 bulletins about the air crashes had given way to anger. Kirk had been right
 all along, and she felt like a fool for not believing him. They'd all been
 fools. Even David hadn't believed what McGarvey had come up with. And now
 this. They'd have to live with their mistake for the rest of their lives. It
 wasn't just the Japanese, as the news media was suggesting. There was more,
 and she was going to do something about it. She phoned a Georgetown number.
 It was answered on the fourth ring.
 "Hello?"
  "Thank God it's you, Edward. When I saw the news about the Vice President
  ... I had to call to make sure."
 Reid hesitated. "Who is this?"
  "It's me. Dominique. We had lunch together at the Rive Gauche."
 "Ms. Kilbourne?"
  "You were right, Edward. McGarvey was dead wrongIt is the Japanese. We have
  to convince Guerin, and the FAA."
  It seemed as if Reid suddenly came back from a long distance. "Do you know
  where Mr. McGarvey is?"
  "He's working with the FBI, I think. But I need your help, Edward. You're
  the only person who makes any sense."
 734 DAVID HAGBERG

 ::Where are you?"
  I'm coming across the river from Arlington. I could be at your house in ten
  minutes. Please, will you see me? Before it's too late?"
 "I don't know if that's such a good idea."
  "There's nowhere else for me to go. Nobody will listen to me alone. But
  togetber we can convince them. Dear God, you must help me!"
 "Do you know where I live?"
 'Yes. 11

 'How do you know where I live, Ms. Kilbourne?"
  "I just do, Edward. I'm not stupid. It's my job to know people in this
  town. Powerful people."
  Reid hesitated again. "Very well. In ten minutes, then."
  " You won't regret it, Edward," Dominique said. She hung up and
  concentrated on her driving, her rage solidifying. The fact that Reid was
  safely at home, not aboard Air Force Two as he was supposed to be, was one
  final check of Kirk's warning. Whatever lingering doubts she may have had
  were shattered the moment Reid answered his phone. Somehow he was involved
  with the destruction of fourteen airplanes and the deaths of hundreds of
  people.
  She reached in her purse on the passenger seat and touched the reassuring
  bulk of the 9 mm Bernadelli automatic pistol. Reid would talk to her. There
  was no doubt about it.

 David Kennedy parked his Range Rover on the beach at Cape Meares
 seventy-five miles west of Portland, unable for the moment to drive. It was
 happening just as McGarvey warned it would. Fourteen airplanes down now. All
 of them Guerin. All of them because of port engine failures. It looked as if
 the Vice President would survive. But hundreds of others would not. Aboard
 the other thirteen airliners there had to have been two thousand passengers
 and crew. Many of them dead, blown out of the sky. Others dying, trapped in
 piles of
                HIGH FLIGHT 735

 burning wreckage of what had minutes ago been the most sophisticated
 jetliners to fly anywhere in the world.
  He closed his eyes as he listened to the radio. By now America was well
  out over the Pacific on its way to Honolulu. The flight crew would be
  hearing the news. But there was nothing they could do about it. Even
  McGarvey, for all his skills, was powerless to stop what had already
  happened, what was happening. They had not listened to him.
  "Okay," he said, looking across the beach at the big waves rolling in
  from Japan. Vietnam had proved that we were vulnerable. That we could
  lose. Granada, Panama, and the Gulf War had not done as much to erase
  that image as the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger had done to
  prove our technology was flawed. But if this was another Pearl Harbor,
  they'd badly underestimated the American will again. As a nation, we'd
  screwed up the post-Cold War, just as he had failed Guerin and his
  marriage. But that was about to change, he thought. The bastards would
  be sorry they ever started something.
  The caller-ID system on Nancy's phone provided the number Chance had
  called from. And one of the data crunchers downstairs in Processing had
  hacked the telephone company's reverse directory to come up with an
  address. It was a place on the beach between the towns of Cape Meares and
  Oceanside listed under the name East View, which was a Marvin Saunders
  company. It was at the deve ' loper's Oswego home that he and Chance had
  been introduced to Yamagata. The bastard had taken them all in.
  Kennedy pulled out of the scenic overlook parking lot and swung back onto
  the coast road heading south * There was no other traffic in either
  direction. When he'd driven through Cape Meares the town had seemed all
  but deserted. These were primarily summer places, isolated in the winter.
  The mailbox marking East View was a mile south on the right. A chain
  stretched between two thick wooden posts blocked a paved driveway that
  led through a thick
 736 DAVID HAGBERG

 stand of trees down toward the beach. Kennedy parked off the road. Hunching
 up his coat collar against the sharp wind, he got out and walked down to the
 driveway. The chain was secured with a padlock. There was no way to drive
 around the posts. The roofline of what .appeared to be a large house was
 just visible through the trees. Kennedy thought he could smell wood smoke.
 Chance had called from here less than two hours ago, in trouble.
  He went back to the Rover and got the tire iron from the back, then stepped
  over the chain and started down the driveway. It had snowed last night, but
  there were no tire tracks or footprints on the driveway, which meant
  Yamagata had brought Chance out here sometime yesterday. The thought of
  what might have gone on during the past twenty-four hours hardened his
  already strong resolve to take it back to the sonofabitch. He could
  envision breaking the man's arms and legs with the tire iron, and then
  starting on the rest of his bones, one at a time.
  The low, expansive house was perched on a jumble of boulders fifty feet
  above the water. A gray Lexus sedan and a green Toyota van were parked in
  front. Kennedy hid behind a tree and watched. Nothing moved except for the
  smoke from the chimney and the tree branches in the breeze.
  Kennedy tightened his grip on the tire iron and started toward the north
  side of the house. He hoped to find an unlocked door or window so he could
  get inside without raising an alarm. If he could surprise Yamagata and
  whoever was with him, he'd have a chance of overpowering them. At least
  he'd give it a good shot.
  He reached a wooden walkway that led around the boulders to the front of
  the house. A small window was cranked open a couple of inches. He could
  hear music playing softly.
  A slightly built oriental man armed with a large handgun came around the
  comer from the front of the house. "Mr. Kennedy, please throw your weapon
  to the side."
                HIGH FLIGHT 737

 Kennedy stepped back. "I came for my wife."
  "Yes, we know. If you will please disarm yourself I will take you to her."
 Kennedy hesitated.
  "Mr. Kennedy, I do not wish to shoot you, but I will," the Japanese said
  calmly.
  Everything in Kennedy's soul wanted to rush forward and beat the crap out
  of the bastard. But he wouldn't get two steps, and he knew it. He tossed
  the tire iron over the rail, and it clattered down onto the rocks. "If
  you've hurt my wife, I swear to God I'll kill you."

 Edward Reid sometimes thought he lived in a vacuum, and when someone or
 something intruded on his life he was surprised, though he knew he shouldn't
 be. He'd purposely run his car off the highway on the way out to Andrews. By
 the time he'd informed the White House he wouldn't be flying to Tokyo, had
 AAA pull him out of the ditch, and had gotten home, he'd been exhausted.
 He'd been watching the frantic news bulletins on CNN, knowing he should be
 doing something, when Dominique Kilbourne's call had come out of left field.
  He stood at the window of his second-floor bedroom looking down at the
  street. He was conscious of his beating heart, of the breaths he drew, of
  the fact he'd not had a drink yet today.
  They'd done it. They'd actually pulled it off. But it was happening faster
  than he'd thought it would. Now it was up to him to deal with the
  aftermath. It was something, he supposed, that he hadn't considered as
  carefully as he should have. Secretly he never believed it would happen. Or
  he hoped that it wouldn't happen. But the young woman's call had brought
  him back to reality. Through her, he'd somehow have to deal with McGarvey.
  And before the night was out he would have to write the first of his
  Lamplighter bulletins. Try to pull something out of the ashes.
 Reid was more frightened than he'd ever been of
 738 DAVID HAGBERG

 anything in his life. As long as he could keep his wits about him, however,
 he knew he could pull it off.

 Takushiro Hatoyama stood facing Major David Ross in the twenty yards of
 no-man's land between the crowd and the police line, a dozen other
 protesters with him. The marine, Hatoyama noticed, was unarmed, though he
 was dressed in battle fatigues. When he'd come out from behind the armored
 personnel carriers, an uneasy hush had fallen over the crowd. But it'd taken
 time to spread to the rear. People were pouring in from all over the city.
 Similar gatherings were occurring across the country. It was time for Japan
 to take her rightful place among the family of nations unoccupied by foreign
 forces.
  First they would have to deal with this base. Make it so uncomfortable, so
  dangerous for the authorities that they would have to fire into the crowd.
  There would be many casualties, but they would serve the cause well. They
  would become martyrs.
  At thirty-two, Hatoyama was a full professor of history at Tokyo
  University. He had a wife and two children, and every morning when he
  kissed them goodbye a deep shame filled his chest. To bear what you think
  you cannot bear is really to bear. Honor. Patience andforgiveness. It was
  bu-shi. But the kamikaze was blowing across the land, and his shame would
  be assuaged.
  Two large ships had already left the docks. He could see their
  superstructures, bristling with antennae and radar dishes moving away. The
  entire fleet would probably head to sea because of the DEFCON THREE.
  Hatoyarna was going to see to it that they had no base to come back to.

 "My name is David Ross. I'm chief of security here. Do you speak English?"
  "Yes I do, Major," Hatoyama replied. "It is required in Japanese schools.
  Do you speak Japanese?"
  "Nihongo o amari hanashimasen. " I don't speak very much Japanese, Ross
  said. "It's possible that we can
                HIGH FLIGHT 739

 come to some agreement if you will tell me why you have come here."
  Hatoyama smiled politely. "We have come to arrest Admiral Ryland for
  crimes against Nippon."
 "What crimes?"
 "He has brought nuclear weapons to Japan."
 "That's not true."
 "It is," Hatoyama said.
  Ross glanced over his shoulder at the line of Japanese police. They
  looked very nervous. "It would appear that your government doesn't
  agree."
  Hatoyama drew a pistol. "Then it is up to you and me to convince them."
  He fired a single shot, hitting Ross in the chest, just above his flak
  jacket.
  The protestors surrounded the Marine's body before it hit the ground.

 McGarvey watched from America's cockpit as they came to a halt in front
 of the prototype hangars. Dozens of emergency vehicles were on the field.
 Several buses were parked along the ramp to whisk the VIP passengers back
 to Portland. Four Guerin LX-17B turbojet transport helicopters had also
 been brought out.
  Callahan had been on the radio to company operations, who said that
  Kennedy should have been aboard the flight. In the confusion no one had
  missed him.
  The problem would be sidestepping the FBI long enough to find out where
  Kennedy had gone. For the moment the FAA was doing the correct thing by
  closing the eight airports. If everyone did their jobs, there would,
  hopefully, be no more crashes.
  He could not get through to the CIA again, which by now would be on an
  emergency footing. Even if he talked to Adkins or to Doyle, he didn't
  think they would listen to him. From the news reports they were monitor-
  ing, the media was convinced that the Japanese government was responsible
  for the crashes. It was going to take time for him to prove otherwise.
  Yamagata was one of the keys, and it was a fair bet that Kennedy had gone
  after him. But that was over an hour ago.
 740 DAVID HAGBERG

  "No trouble, Mr. McGarvey?" McLaren asked hopefully.
  Boarding ramps had been trundled up to the three exits, and the
  passengers were already streaming off the airplane.
 "Save the handcuffs until we get out of here."
 "Do I have your word?"
  McGarvey glanced at Socrates and nodded. "Have a car pick us up at the
  forward boarding ramp. I don't want to be paraded across the field."
  McLaren motioned for his partner to arrange it. "Are you armed?"
  "if I was, you'd try to take it away from me and someone would get hurt.
  Let's just say for now that I'll cooperate."
  The FBI special agent didn't like it, but he'd read McGarvey's file. "I
  guess I'll live with that. But I hope you understand there's a lot of
  twitchy people out there."
 "Are you taking me to Portland?"
  "For now. But I'm sure they're going to want you in Washington, ASAP."
  "I'll get the word out to the fleet," Socrates said. He looked pale.
  "Watch yourself around anyone from InterTech," McGarvey warned. "It's
  going to take me a few hours to make them listen."
 "Have to prove it first."
 Joyce came back. "The car is here."
  McLaren checked McGarvey's jacket and gave it to him. "We'll do this nice
  and easy," he said. "No sudden moves."

 There hadn't been enough time to bring up a prisoner transport van so
 Portland S-A-C Jack Franson, who'd started back to the city after America
 had taken off, returned with a brown Chevy Caprice sedan. "I told you not
 to screw with us," he said when McGarvey climbed into the back seat with
 McLaren.
                HIGH FLIGHT 741

  Joyce got in front, and Franson headed away from the ramp.
  "I guess you were right, sir," McGarvey said, when they'd cleared the
  Guerin facility. He twisted around to look out the back window.
  McLaren grabbed for him, but McGarvey managed to pull the Walther out and
  cock the hammer as he swiveled back to the front. He jammed the muzzle of
  the gun into the base of Franson's skull. The S-A-C almost ran off the road
  before he straightened the car out.
  "Goddammit," McLaren swore, reaching for his own pistol.
  "Back down!" McGarvey ordered. "McLaren, hands on the back of the front
  seat! Joyce, hands on the dash!" McGarvey jabbed the pistol hard against
  Franson's neck.
 "Shit," Franson said.
  "Now!" McGarvey said, jabbing the pistol into Franson's neck again.
  The two special agents did as they were told, and although Franson had
  slowed down, his driving was no longer erratic.
  "Every cop in the country will be on your case if you kill us, you
  sonofabitch," Franson promised.
 "I'm not going to kill you. I need your help."
 "What are you talking about?"
  "I'll explain on the way. For now you're going to have to do as I tell
  you."
 "I swear to Christ, I'm going to nail your ass."
  "I need to talk to Kennedy's secretary. Try his office first."
  Franson's grip tightened on the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white,
  but he motioned for Joyce to make the call.
 "Easy," McGarvey warned.
  Joyce made the call. When he had her on the line, he put it on the
  speakerphone.
  "Nancy, this is Kirk McGarvey. I want you to listen very carefully because
  this is important. Chance. Kenne-
   742 DAVID HAGBERG

 dy* has been kidnapped, and I think David knows where she's being held.
 If he's gone after her, he's put himself in a great deal of danger. Did
 he say anything to you this morning? Do you know where he went?"
  "Dear God," the woman said. "He wasn't aboard America?"
 "No.,,
  "I was afraid of that. Mrs. Kennedy called here this morning. She sounded
  like she was in trouble. We got the number from the caller-ID system. Mr.
  Kennedy doesn't know that I know, but he used that to get the address
  from someone downstairs in Processing. It's called East Wind, on the
  coast highway between Cape Meares and Oceanside,"
 "Does he have a gun?"
  "I don't know," Nancy said breathlessly. "What's going on, Mr. McGarvey?
  We're watching the news. Is it the Japanese?"
  "We're trying to find out. I want you to stay there. If David calls, tell
  him not to go near Yamagata. No matter what he thinks is happening, tell
  him to come back to Guerin."
 "I'm frightened."
  "I know," McGarvey said. He nodded for Joyce to end the call. "Do you
  know where this place is?" he asked Franson.
 "I can find it," the S-A-C replied, puzzled.
  "I think you'd better call for backup. We might need it."

 The police line was moving forward into the roiling curtains of tear gas
 to merge with the crowd. So far, except for the one pistol shot, the mob
 had not fired back, but the noise was getting ugly, out of control. People
 continued to stream down to the waterfront, most of them armed with
 shovels and rakes and kendostaves. But a lot of them had guns, which in
 Japan were almost impossible to get. The entire city was coming alive.
 Whatever was going to happen was on the verge of happening. From the
 Marine position behind the ar-
                 HIGH FLIGHT 743

 mored personnel carriers in front of the main gate it was hard to tell what
 was going on, except that it appeared as if the police were being absorbed
 into the crowd. As each one disappeared, a cry of triumph went up.
 Lieutenant Green was worried that he could no longer see Ross. The major had
 been unarmed. If the Japanese wanted to take him, they'd do it easily. And
 if the police line disintegrated, as it was starting to do, there'd be
 nothing stopping them from overrunning the base except for one augmented
 platoon of definitely nervous jarheads.
  "All right people, look sharp," Green told the line. Unlike the police his
  men were not equipped for riot control. Their job was security, which meant
  keeping unauthorized people out.
  "Are you going to give the order to fire on Japanese nationals, L-TT' his
  platoon sergeant, Ingrid Wentz, asked.
  Green still wasn't used to working with women in combat units, but he had
  to admit that Wentz knew her job. He would put her up against any man in
  the unit and bet even money on the outcome.
  "Ross said the admiral would give the order," Green replied, studying the
  situation through binoculars.
 "The major isn't here," Wentz said.
 "Jones, raise base ops," Green shouted.
 "Yo," the radioman responded.
  "We either try to hold them or step aside," he told Wentz.
 "Big decision either way."
 "Yeah," Green said.
  "L-T, it's Captain Byrne." Jones handed him the handset.
  "Captain, this is Lieutenant Otis Green, baker platoon at the main gate.
  Looks like Major Ross is down, and the Japanese police line is folding. In
  about two minutes we're going to have ten thousand Japanese nationals
  coming at us. What do we do, sir, stand and fire, or get out of the way?"
  "Give us five minutes, Lieutenant, and then get your ass out of there."
 744 DAVID HAGBERG

 "To where?"
  "We're heading off shore. We'll get choppers back for you. Call them in
  when you've secured an L-Z."
 "Aye, aye, Captain, we'll do our best."

 "I have sounds of breakup," SSGNStrelka's chief sonarman, Lieutenant
 Mikhail Abrashkin said. "Hull compressions now. Machinery breaking loose."
  Captain First Rank Vadirn Lestov listened on a spare headset. He agreed.
  It was the Sovremennyy going down. She'd probably been attacked by the
  Japanese Air Self Defense Forces based on Hokkaido. Maybe Misawa. Their
  sonar sweeps over the past couple of hours showed no MSDF warships in the
  near vicinity. But had the Sovremennyy managed to let her missiles fly
  against Wakkanai before she was destroyed?
  Lestov took off the headset and walked back to the control room. "Come
  to periscope depth, I want to take a look," he told his executive
  officer, Lieutenant Commander Viktor Savin.
  "Aye, Captain. Officer of the Boat, make your depth one-eight meters."
  "Aye, one-eight meters," the starporn repeated. Lestov called his ELINT
  officer, Lieutenant Vladimir Bychkov. "We're coming to periscope depth.
  Put up your snoopheads. I want to know what's up there. Look sharp."
 "Aye, Captain."
  Lestov hung up. "Prepare for emergency dive on my orders," he told his
  XO. The Strelka was a Sierra-class attack submarine equipped with nuclear
  weapons. Just her presence in these waters was tantamount to a decla-
  ration of war. However, sinking a destroyer was one thing, while killing
  a cruise-missile submarine was something completely different. The radar
  station at Wakkanai would be destroyed. He would make sure of it.

 "Is it your opinion that the attack on Wakkanai was diversionary in
 nature?" Prime Minister Enchi asked his Director General of Defense.
 "It's certainly worth considering," Hironaka said.
                HIGH FLIGHT 745

 "The radar station was heavily damaged and there will probably be some
 loss of lives. The first reports are sketchy." He'd taken the call from
 Misawa a minute ago.
 "In retaliation for our attack in the Tatar Strait."
  "But it keeps our attention to the north," Hironaka argued. "Combined
  with the riots and the movement of the Seventh Fleet offshore, it gives
  one pause for thought, Mr. Prime Minister. We are vulnerable."
  "Has there been any word about Kamiya and Kobayashi?" Enchi asked
  Nobunaga.
  "Nothing yet," the MITI chief said. "They're probably in hiding."
 "Traitors."
  Nobunaga started to reply, but Hironaka motioned him off.
  "We should give thought to blocking the Seventh Fleet."
 "What are you talking about?"
  "The Forty-First Destroyer Division will be in place at Point Miura
  slightly ahead of the Seventh's lead escort ships. We could hold them in
  Tokyo Bay."
  This was developing into a nightmare from which Enchi wished he could
  awaken. "To what end?"
  "To allow us time to regain control of the tactical situation," Hironaka
  said. "We could declare an emergency aboard one or more of our ships, and
  ask for help. It would not be refused."
  "Have you spoken with Admiral Ryland?" Enchi asked.
  Hironaka shook his head. "He is unavailable to our repeated queries."
 "Try again," Enchi ordered.
 "We must defend ourselves, Mr. Prime Minister."
  "Yes, we will defend ourselves, Hironaka-san. But we will initiate no
  action. Do you object to that?"
 "No," Hironaka said.
 "Try again to reach Admiral Ryland."

 "Larry Cross is dead," Secor said, putting down the phone. "That was
 Bethesda. They lost him aboard the
 746 DAVID HAGBERG

 chopper enroute from Andrews. Massive injuries to his head and to the left
 side of his torso. His heart was badly damaged."
  President Lindsay was stunned. Cross had been his Rock of Gibraltar. No
  matter the situation, he kept his head. His counsel was always calm.
 "What about Sally and the others?"
  "Sally is dead. There'll be some survivors. Not as many as the rescue
  teams first thought, but there'll be some." Secor looked away
  momentarily. "The bastards killed them." His voice was filled with
  emotion. "Jim, it's murder, no matter how you slice it."

 Part of Mueller's tradiecraft was instinct and an almost preternatural
 attention to detail. Those inborn skills had kept him alive in situations
 where other men of his profession would have been killed. He parked the
 Probe two blocks from Reid's house on R Street, locked his bag in the
 trunk, and went the rest of the way on foot. Reid was the weak link, and
 Mueller had a hunch that the FBI had come to the same conclusion. He
 stopped at the window of a gift shop on the corner and watched the street
 for a full minute. Something was familiar. It nagged at the back of his
 head, a detail he'd seen before.
  Volta Place. Tallerico's house not far from here. When he and Zerkel had
  come out of the house they'd walked past a GMC conversion van with
  smoked-glass windows. The plates were SMP-something. The same van was
  parked across the street a half-block from Reid's house.

 Associated Press Tokyo Bureau Chief Sam Norita held the telephone in the
 crook of his neck as he furiously made notes on his computer. He could
 scarcely believe what he was hearing. Heidinori Inoguchi, who was a top
 aide to the director general of defense, was practically making a
 declaration of war.
  "We will defend ourselves. You have to see that in order to understand
  what is happening," the aide said.
 "Besides the riots at this moment, the defense forces
                HIGH FLIGHT 747

 are engaged in two battles, as you say-one with the Russian navy north of
 Hokkaido. What about the other?"
  "Forget the riots. They don't mean a thing. In hours they will be over.
  What's really happening is that the U.S. Seventh Fleet is making for sea
  and there's a strong possibility that we will have to stop them at the
  mouth of Tokyo Bay."
  Norita looked up and frantically motioned for the overnight editor, Ben
  Brown, to listen in on the call. "What do you mean?"
  "The second battle is in the south, near Okinawa, between one of our
  maritime defense ships and a U.S. destroyer and two frigates."
 Brown picked up the phone.
  "Are you saying shots have been fired between our forces?" Norita asked.
  He'd been born in Honolulu and was a U.S. citizen. But he'd been raised
  by his grandparents and spoke perfect Japanese. Inoguchi, who was a good
  source, always spoke to him in Japanese and treated him as if he were
  Japanese.
  "Yes. But it is very confusing here because of the American attitude over
  the air crashes. We are being blamed, but it is not Morning Star. It is
  not us."
  "I don't know what you're talking about. What is Morning Star?"
  "I've already said too much. If you can reach Sokichi Kamiya in Kobe he
  will tell you more. But if there is war between Nippon and the United
  States we will fight for our home waters. Let no one make that mistake."
  Inoguchi broke the connection, and Norita brought up an A-wire direct
  circuit to AP headquarters in New York City.
  "Sokichi Kamiya is the big dog at Mintori Assurance. See if you can get
  to him and find out what the hell Morning Star is supposed to mean," he
  told Brown.
 His circuit came up.

 A0023 FLASH
 TOKYO-JAPANESE MILITARY FORCES BATTLE
 748 DAVID HAGBERG

 U.S. NAVY.
 EOM 172o GMT

  Normally such an important story would not be filed unless two
  independent sources had offered corroboration. But Inoguchi had never
  given him false information before, and this was too stunning to sit on.
 He started his follow-up to the flash.

 Aoo24 BULLETIN DRAFT
 TOKYO (AP)-A reliable source in the Japanese governmert early Monday
 morning said that a ship of the Maritime Self Defense Force was engaged
 in a sea battle with a U.S. Navy destroyer and two U.S. Navy frigates
 somewhere near the island of Okinawa south of the Japanese home islands.

 The Japanese police were all dead, their bodies hacked to pieces and
 trampled by a mob that was completely out of control. The American Marines
 had pulled back through the main gates and blocked the road with the two
 APCs and Major Ross's HumVee. They had fired their weapons, and at first
 Hatoyama and the others in front had fallen back, thinking they were under
 attack. But when they realized that no one was being hit, that the Marines
 were firing into the air, they surged forward. The noise they made was
 something special. It was raw and powerful. Animalistic. Like a dinosaur
 on the rampage. Nothing could stand up to them, Hatoyarna thought.

 "Kamiya-san, pardon this intrusion, but there is another telephone call
 for you," his secretary said at the open shoji screen.
  Kamiya was watching CNN at his secret home in the hills overlooking Kobe
  and the harbor. "I will take it here," he said.
  "Pardon me, but it is not Kobayashi-san, Nobunagasan, or Hironaka-san.
  "
 Kamiya looked up in surprise. Those were supposedly
                HIGH FLIGHT 749

 the only three men of any importance in Japan who knew he was here.
  "It is an American journalist with the Associated Press in Tokyo who
  wishes to speak to you. About Morning Star."
  A callused hand closed around his heart. Chi and fin, but above all,
  yu-courage. He who shows no sign of joy or anger is the true stoic. He
  has true self-control. Kamiya composed himself.
 "Tell this man that I am not here."
 "Hai, Kamiya-san, " his secretary said.
  "Then telephone Kobayashi and the others that Morning Star should go
  ahead as planned. When that is finished, call my helicopter crew. I wish
  to go to Yamagata-san's home, where I will await the outcome."
  "Hai," his secretary said, withdrawing, and leaving Kamiya to his
  thoughts.

 "Fall back," Green ordered. "Jones, call in the choppers. We'll give them
 the coordinates as soon as we have them."
  "If we leave the APCs here, it might slow them down long enough for us
  to make the parking lot in front of base HQ,- Wentz suggested.
  Green didn't think they would make it either way, but her idea was as
  good as anything he was coming up with. He gave the order, and they
  headed away from the gates as fast as they could run, encumbered by
  combat gear.
  "Choppers are eight minutes out, L-T," the radio operator reported.
  "Tell them to pick us up in front of HQ. And pour on the fucking gas."

 The Marines had left the keys in the ignitions of the APCs and the HumVee.
 It was a mistake. Hatoyama and a couple of the others quickly moved the
 vehicles out of the way. A cry went up from the crowd as it poured through
 the gates and caught sight of the fleeing Americans.
 750 DAVID HAGBERG

  "They have called for helicopters to rescue them," Ashia told Hatoyama on
  the run. He carried a walkietalkie. "But it will take them eight minutes to
  get here."
 "Where will they land?"
 "Base headquarters."
  "Kill them!" Hatoyama shouted into the bullhorn. His amplified voice boomed
  and rebounded off the buildings. "Kill!"
  The mob spread across the road, some of the people racing down side streets
  when they realized where the Marines were headed. The noise seemed to
  double and re-double every few seconds. All sanity was gone. A blood lust
  was on them. They had a common enemy, and a fifty-two-year-old frustration
  that had come down to this place now. Their collective anger had coalesced
  on the soldiers running from them. They were like warriors on the
  battlefield, adrenalin transforming them into samurai on a righteous quest.
  The Marines would not fire back until it was too late for them. They were
  too disciplined. They'd proven that when they'd abandoned the main gate and
  called for the evacuation. Americans had become soft. Too soft.
  Three minutes after they'd stormed the gates, the first volleys of gunfire
  erupted from the mob, and at least two Marines went down in sight of the
  base headquarters parking lot. Almost immediately thousands of rounds
  poured into the platoon as the first helicopters, their searchlights
  sweeping the ground ahead of them, appeared in the distance.
  They'd won, Hatoyama thought triumphantly. Nothing would stop them now.

 Franson pulled the car across the road a hundred yards from Kennedy's dark
 gray Range Rover. The overcast had deepened, yet the wind had picked up,
 blowing snow in ragged plumes from the woods. "In fifteen minutes this place
 is going to be crawling with federal agents. Are you going to tell us what's
 going on?"
  "Kennedy and his wife have been kidnapped by a man named Arimoto Yamagata,"
  McGarvey said. "He's
                HIGH FLIGHT 751

 probably going to try to use them as hostages so he can get out of here."
  "Wait a minute," McLaren interrupted. "Are you saying now that you think
  it was the Japanese who attacked us?"
  "They might have planned something, but I think someone else got
  involved. Maybe by accident, I don't know. Yamagata should have some of
  the answers."
 "Are you talking about Bruno Mueller?"
  "I think Mueller killed Phil Carrara and another guy from the CIA because
  they were getting too close. They've been targeting Guerin and a company
  called InterTech, which I think is a link back to the Japanese."
  "What the hell are you talking about?" Franson demanded.
  "A lot of people have already been killed. I'm trying to stop it from
  escalating."
  "Okay, so we wait here until we get some backup, and then we go in and
  take them," McLaren suggested.
  "If he takes a hit he won't do us any good," McGarvey argued. "He's
  probably got help, and they'll fight back if they're cornered."
 "You thinking about taking them one on one?"
 "I'd have a better chance alone."
 "I'll go with you," McLaren said.
  "Bullshit!" Franson started to turn, but Joyce grabbed his arm.
  "Sorry, Mr. Franson, but you and I will wait here for the others."
 "Sonofabitch!"
  McGarvey withdrew the pistol from Franson's neck, eased the hammer down,
  and climbed out of the car. He started down the road. McLaren caught up
  with him as he screwed the silencer on the end of the Walther's barrel,
  then pulled the ejector slide back, jacking a round into the empty firing
  chamber.
  The FBI agent laughed. "Don't tell Franson you wouldn't have shot him.
  He'd probably kill you with his bare hands."
 752 DAVID HAGBERG

 FBI Special Agents Kris Wentworth and Brian Strong had been on
 surveillance duty since six in the morning, and they were bored.
 "How about some music?" Strong suggested.
  "I don't care," Wentworth said, lighting a cigarette. They'd not listened
  to the radio all morning.
  Reid had been re-scheduled to fly on Air Force Two, and they would have
  had the rest of the day off. Sundays were slow unless they were on
  special assignment like now. But the dumb sonofabitch had driven his car
  off the Suitland Parkway five miles short of Andrews. By the time the tow
  truck had come to pull him out of the ditch he was too late to catch the
  flight. They'd monitored his two cellular calls from the car: one to the
  AAA and the other to the White House. But it hadn't seemed right to
  Wentworth. He'd bet anything that Reid had deliberately missed the
  flight.
  "Hang on," Strong-said from the rear observation position.
  Wentworth looked up from the viewfinder of the powerful telephoto camera
  lens as a yellow Corvette came down the street, turned up the driveway,
  and parked next to Reid's house. A young, good-looking woman got out of
  the car and went to the door.
 "Who is she?" Strong asked.
  "I don't know. Run a trace on the plates." Wentworth studied her through
  the lens. She rang the bell, and a few moments later Reid came to the
  door and let her in. It was odd the way she'd clutched her purse, as if
  she was afraid she'd drop it, as if she were carrying something
  important.
  "Dominique Kilbourne, Watergate Apartments," Strong read from the
  computer screen. "No warrants."
  Kilbourne, Wentworth thought. The name was vaguely familiar, but he
  couldn't dredge it up. "See if we have anything on her."
 "Shall we call it in?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 753

  "Not yet. Maybe she's just a call girl, and the old boy is getting it
  on."

 "Here it comes again," Strong said.
  A white Toyota van had passed Reid's house a minute ago. It came back
  from the opposite direction and parked at the corner.
  The angle was wrong for Wentworth to get a clear camera shot-the van was
  fifty yards away on the other side of the street. "I can't make the
  plates."
  "Stand by," Strong said excitedly. He flipped a couple of switches on a
  bank of sensitive receivers. "That was really fast. VHF band, but
  high-speed burst. Encrypted, I think."
 "From the Toyota?"
  "Yeah, they just sent a message to somebody. It's not one of ours."

 "Amundson."
  "Sir, this is North American Intercept. We've got that back trace. It's
  Bank of Tokyo. No doubt about it now. Started out as an international
  funds transfer to InterTech Corporation's Alameda mainframe. But the
  funny thing is there wasn't any transfer of funds. The signal is being
  automatically up-linked to the company's geosync satellite, which is
  relaying a two-thousand-cycle tone modulated onto its microwave carrier."
 "Is InterTech processing the signal?"
  "No way to tell for sure. But there's no appreciable delay, so I'd say
  it's automatic. Could be InterTech doesn't know what's going on."
 "Is it still running?"
 "Yes, sir."
  Amundson sent the FLASH-designated message to the Pentagon, CIA, FBI, and
  FAA, then picked up the telephone and called the White House Situation
  Room direct.
 754 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Gentlemen, there's no longer any doubt who's behind this attack on us,"
 President Lindsay said after the NSA call. "It means Enchi is lying."
  "He might be in the dark just like we are," Secor suggested. "Could be
  some faction other than his govemment. He's had trouble with the
  Democratic Socialist Party since the beginning."
  "He would- not have placed his military at DEFCON TWO."
  "Mr. President, the FBI is sending someone to InterTech. I think we
  should wait to see what they come up with."
  "In the meantime, how much more damage will be done to us? How many more
  lives will be lost?" the President demanded. "I want all Japanese Self
  Defense Forces held to their home waters and air space."
  "Considering what's going on north of Hokkaido, they might not back
  down," Secretary of Defense Paul Landry cautioned.
  "I'll call Enchi and tell him what we're doing and why. If he's not part
  of whatever the hell is going on, he'll take steps to stop it. If he is
  part of it, he'll understand that I mean business."

 Mueller had no doubt that the GMC was an FBI surveillance unit. But he
 couldn't think who was in the Toyota, except they were interested in Reid
 or perhaps the young woman who'd shown up in the Corvette.
  He screwed the can silencer on the end of the Beretta. He could not
  afford to walk away, but neither could he afford to attract any
  attention. Holding the pistol out of sight at his side, he stepped around
  the comer and headed for the Toyota. Most people would be at home, glued
  to their television sets, watching the unfolding drama of America's
  greatest air disaster. The chances that someone would be looking out a
  window were slim, but present. This would have to be done quickly.
  For the first moments the advantage would be his. Most cops on stakeouts
  had tunnel vision. They were
                HIGH FLIGHT 755

 focused on the object of their surveillance. It made them vulnerable. In
 addition, most of the cops he'd ever met had little or no imagination. The
 unexpected froze them. They saw what they expected to see.
  As he approached he could see that no one was behind the wheel. The
  driver had crawled into the back. It confirmed his suspicion that it was
  a surveillance unit. Their attention would be directed elsewhere.
  Reaching the van, he opened the passenger door and climbed inside. Two
  slightly built men were in the back. One of them wore a headset, the
  other was looking out the rear window through a pair of binoculars. They
  turned in surprise.
  Mueller shot them both in the face, driving their bodies backward, blood
  splattering the banks of electronic equipment.
  They were Japanese. But it didn't surprise him. America's intelligence
  services leaked like everybody else's. No doubt there was a pipeline back
  to Tokyo from the CIA and the FBI's counterespionage division. The only
  thing that bothered Mueller was the extent of their knowledge. He did not
  want to spend the rest of his life running from them as well as the
  Americans. In many respects the Japanese were a more efficient, more
  patient people than Americans.
  He eased the Beretta's hammer down and stuffed the gun in his belt as he
  checked the GMC in the rearview mirror. Even if they'd been watching,
  they could not have seen what had gone on inside the van. But he did not
  want to give them time to think about it.
  He got out of the Toyota, waited for a cab to pass, then walked across
  the street and down the block. As he approached the GMC, he held his open
  wallet up as if he were a cop showing his ID.
  Someone powered the passenger door window down, and Mueller lowered his
  wallet. "I need to use your radio."
  "What the hell are you talking about?" the FBI agent asked suspiciously.
 756 DAVID HAGBERG

  "I've got two men down in the Toyota, and I need a Technical Services
  unit from Langley over here pronto. Will you guys call it in for me? I'm
  Tom Rheinberger, Operations. Tell them it's Scarlet Ribbon."
  "What's going on, Kris?" someone asked from in back.
 "A guy says he's CIA."
  "Look, I don't want to blow your operation, pal, but if Reid happens to
  look out his window and see us having a powwow we might as well all pack
  it in. Either call Langley for me, or let me do it. But make up your
  mind."
  "I don't know if we've got your frequency," Wentworth said.
  "You gotta have it," Mueller said, opening the door. "I'll show you."
 "Just a sec," Wentworth said. He turned to the back.
  Mueller pulled out his pistol and climbed in behind him, pushing him
  down. The second FBI agent reared back as Mueller shot him point-blank
  in the face. Then, as Wentworth tried to get free, Mueller shot him in
  the back of the head just behind his left ear.
 "What do you think about that?" he said to himself.

 McGarvey waited below the wooden walkway for McLaren to come down the
 driveway. Kennedy's footprints crossed the parking area to the walk where
 they were joined by another set. There were no signs of a struggle, nor
 was there any blood. They'd seen him coming, and they'd taken him. Simple.
 He didn't think they would shoot another lone man, apparently unarmed,
 approaching the house on foot. But they'd sure as hell come out to
 challenge him.
  Coming through the woods from the highway, McGarvey had spotted one of
  the closed-circuit television cameras trained on the driveway and had
  sent the FBI agent back.
 "Are you wearing a vest?"
  "Yeah, but it hurts like hell to get shot," McLaren said. "If it comes
  to that, don't miss."
                HIGH FLIGHT 757

 "I won't."
 "No, I don't expect you would."
  McLaren, his coat buttoned and his hands in plain sight at his sides,
  came into view at the end of the driveway. He stopped a moment, as if he
  were studying the house, and then followed the footprints toward the
  walkway around the side.
  A Toyota van and a gray Lexus were parked in front of the house. They'd
  not been moved since the last snow. Unless Yamagata and whoever he had
  with him had another way out of here, they were still inside.
  McGarvey lay still and watched as McLaren climbed the steps to the
  walkway and again hesitated a moment before starting toward the front of
  the house. Before he got halfway, a Japanese man dressed in a Cal Tech
  track suit, armed with a Glock- 17 automatic, came around the corner.
 "Who are you?" the Japanese asked.
  McLaren stopped, his hands out. "Hey, take it easy. I'm looking for Dave
  Kennedy. I was told he was here."
 "You're mistaken."
  McGarvey eased the Walther's hammer back and switched the safety catch
  off as he rose from his hiding place. "Lower your weapon now, or I will
  shoot you."
  The man's eyes flicked to McGarvey, but his aim never wavered from
  McLaren. "We wish you no harm, Mr. McGarvey. In fact, we were expecting
  you."
 "Is Yamagata here?"
 'Yes.
 "Then put your gun on the railing and step back."
 "It's not what you think."
 "Hayai, " quick, MeGarvey said.
 The man's eyes widened slightly in surprise.
 "Ima!" Now!
  The Japanese intelligence officer carefully placed the big handgun on the
  snow-covered railing and stepped back a pace.
  McLaren pulled out his pistol and pointed it at the Japanese. McGarvey
  climbed up on the walkway and retrieved the man's weapon.
 758 DAVID HAGBERG

 "How many others besides Yamagata are inside?"
 "One," the Japanese responded.
  "If you're lying, I'll kill you, and there'll be no honor in it."
  "One," the man said. "But they are seeing and hearing everything that is
  happening here. So be very careful. No one wishes to kill or be killed."
  "I hope you're sincere, because I am in a very bad mood."
 "Hai, " the Japanese said.
  McGarvey and McLaren followed him around the corner to a broad veranda that
  ran the length of the house. A sliding glass door was open. They went
  inside to a huge living room with a central fireplace.
  Yamagata was seated on the arm of a long couch, Chance Kennedy next to him.
  David was seated near the fireplace, another Japanese intelligence officer
  behind him, pointing a gun at his head.
  "I'm glad you're here, Mr. MeGarvey," Yamagata said seriously. "We have a
  lot to discuss this afternoon if we are to avert a horrible tragedy between
  our countries."
 "It's already happened."
 "It is not our doing."
 "But your design," McGarvey countered sharply.
  McLaren moved to the left so that he had a clear shot at Yamagata, who was
  unarmed.
  "We can discuss that later," Yamagata said, eyeing the FBI agent. "For now
  you must tell me who you suspect, and together we will prove it to our
  governments. Believe me, Mr. McGarvey, I do not wish a war between our
  countries."
 "Are you all right, David?" McGarvey interrupted.
  "I'm okay, but the bastards did something to Chance. Drugs, I think."
  "Nothing more than a mild sedative," Yamagata said. "I assure you we mean
  no harm."
  "They tortured me," Chance cried, her voice strangled.
 "You sonofabitch!" Kennedy roared.
                HIGH FLIGHT 759

 "Wait!" Yamagata shouted.
  McGarvey motioned for Kennedy to back down. "Listen to me, David. I want
  you to take Chance back to the highway. There are some FBI agents up
  there waiting for you."
  "We won't hesitate to kill you, assassin," Yamagata warned. "There are
  considerations at stake here that are beyond your comprehension. Put your
  guns down now, or we will start the killing."
  McGarvey switched aim and fired one shot, hitting the Japanese behind
  Kennedy in the forehead just above his left eye, killing him instantly.
  The other Japanese grabbed McLaren's gun hand and swung him around toward
  McGarvey. But he was too late. McGarvey stepped inside his guard, and
  reaching over the FBI agent's shoulder, fired point-blank into the
  Japanese intelligence officer's face.
  Yamagata jumped up, dragging Chance to her feet. He held her head in a
  vise grip. "I'll break her neck!"
  "Then I'll kill you," McGarvey replied stepping to the right.
  McLaren disentangled himself from the dead Japanese. He was shook up.
  Yamagata looked at them. "It's not Morning Star. I swear it."
  McGarvey inclined his head very slightly, and Yamagata's eyes narrowed.
  He'd caught the gesture. "Step away from the woman. McLaren can take her
  and David back up to the highway."
 "No fucking way," McLaren burst out.
  "Give me ten minutes," McGarvey said, watching Yamagata. He was
  struggling to keep his anger in check.
 "Goddammit, McGarvey."
 "You owe me."
  "You know what the fuck is going on! You know what they've done to us!"
  "Ten minutes," McGarvey said evenly. "Then you can bring Franson and the
  others down here. The Bureau will take the credit."
 760 DAVID HAGBERG

  McLaren looked at him in amazement. "You cocksucker."
 "Do it!"
  Yamagata released Chance and moved aside. He held his hands away from his
  body so that there would be no mistake that he was reaching for a weapon.
 Kennedy got to his wife before she could collapse.
 "Get them out of here," McGarvey ordered.
  McLaren hesitated several moments longer, but then he lowered his gun and
  backed off. "No shit, McGarvey. Ten minutes and we'll be back for some
  explanations. A lot of fucking explanations."
  McGarvey waited until they were gone,'and then he lowered his gun and eased
  the hammer down. "Did you torture her?"
  "I needed to get her husband here, and through him you," Yamagata said. "It
  was the only way."
  McGarvey almost raised his gun and shot the man. But he continued to hold
  his anger in check. "How were you planning on getting out of here?"
  "Helicopter. It's parked under a covering on the other side of the house.
  But you knew that."
 "Who's the pilot?"
 "I am.,,
  "Then we have ten minutes to make our escape. You can tell me about Morning
  Star on the way. Maybe we can avert a war after all."

 "Delta 142, this is Oakland Approach Control. I repeat, we are closed to all
 traffic including emergencies. Suggest you divert to San Francisco
 International, immediately.,,
  Captain Mark Quade had been in some tough spots in his flying career,
  especially as a young pilot at the end of Vietnam, but never anything like
  this. "I understand, but we have unknown damage to our hydraulic system and
  backups affecting our ailerons and rudder. I need a straight in. We're
  fifteen miles south of you over Dumbarton Bridge, requesting an emergency
  landing on three-three-left."
                HIGH FLIGHT 761

  "We are closed. Divert to San Francisco International."
  "I can't turn this fucking airplane around. I either land at Oakland, or
  I put it in the bay."
 "Stand by."

 The Delta flight was a Guerin 522, and it was in trouble. Ron Herring was
 picking up transmissions on the VHF walkie-talkie on his hip. He was
 checking one of the satellite dishes on the roof of the Oakland Airport
 Commission building with a field-strength meter. When the FAA's warning
 had come through, he'd started looking for anomalies in their own
 equipment. Something, anything that might help. He couldn't get the
 picture of Tom Reston's eyes out of his head. The man was a killer. He
 should have been able to see it.
  They were picking up a low-frequency spike from somewhere. It was showing
  up on their equipment downstairs. But it wasn't a fault in one of the
  dishes, or in the on-site amplifiers up here.
 Which meant what?
  Since he'd talked to the FBI he'd become a driven man. Reston had
  murdered Bill White in cold blood. But he'd been here, looking the place
  over, and for the past three days Herring had tried to find out if he'd
  done anything to sabotage them.
  The signal was coming from somewhere. If not up here, and not in the
  equipment in the office, the only place left was the basement.
  Herring got up. He'd shown Reston the equipment down there! Shit!

 "Oakland Approach Control, this is Delta 142. Have you got that runway
 clear for us?"
  "Roger, Delta. We have emergency equipment standing by. Suggest that you
  shut down your port engine."
  "Negative. We're having enough trouble steering as it is."
 "Roger that. Good luck."
 762 DAVID HAGBERG

 Herring pounded downstairs to the basement and fumbled with his security
 card to get the door open. He switched on the lights and stood for a
 moment looking at the racks of monitoring equipment.
  The only place they saw the signal was in the equipment upstairs that
  monitored transmissions between ATC and aircraft. But the tower had come
  up totally clean.
  Which meant that the signal had to be coming from here, but not from
  within their own equipment.
  He switched on the field-strength meter and immediately picked up the
  spike, He walked forward slowly, thesignal strength increasing ... but
  not from the front of the racks. He raised the meter toward the ceiling,
  and the signal strength decreased.
 To the left. Behind the equipment.
  He crouched in the dim light behind the rack and for a moment he wasn't
  sure what he was seeing. It looked so ordinary. A trap to catch
  cockroaches, and maybe other bugs. A small brown cardboard container.
  Herring pointed the meter at it, and the indicator went to maximum.
  "Sonofabitch." As soon as he picked up the Roach Motel he knew what it
  was. The damned thing was far too heavy.
  His walkie-talkie hissed. "Delta one-four-two reporting ten miles out.
  I have the runway in sight."
  Herring ripped the brown paper covering off the small, open-ended box to
  reveal a small circuit board. Again he was stopped by the simplicity, and
  genius, of it.
 "Roger," approach control radioed.
  Herring pulled the circuit board away from the box, and yanked it free
  of its connecting wires. He checked the field-strength meter, but the
  spike was gone. Then he sat back on his heels to listen to his
  walkie-talkie until the Delta flight was safely on the ground.
 FORTY-ONE

  n five minutes I'll call the President," Roland Murphy said. "What do I
  tell him?"
   "I don't think there's any doubt in light of NSA's intercept from Tokyo
   Bank," Ryan answered.
  They met in the conference room adjacent to the DCI's office. Besides
  Murphy and Ryan, Danielle had come from down the hall, and Tommy Doyle
  and Adkins had come from downstairs.
  "Circumstantially we can build a pretty good case against some Japanese
  group, but anyone could have initiated that signal train from Tokyo,"
  Adkins cautioned.
  "Oh, for Christ's sake, Dick," the Company's counsel said. "The evidence
  is overwhelming. The bastards are overrunning Seventh's headquarters in
  Yokosuka. Admiral Ryland is transferring his flag to the George
  Washington. " He turned back to Murphy. "It's probably not Enchi's
  government. He's lost control. But their actions are definitely
  directed."
  "Tommy?" Murphy asked his deputy director of intelligence.
  "It looks bad, but I think Dick has got a point. The Russians have their
  Abunai network in Tokyo. It's conceivable that they could have gotten
  into Tokyo Bank's computer system. Hell, my fourteen year old says he can
  get into just about any computer anywhere with his PC, and I believe
  him."
  "Those airplanes were sabotaged in this country," Ryan argued. "That
  takes resources and long-term planning."
  "Agreed," Doyle said. "I'm just saying that we don't know all the facts
  yet."
 764 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Lawrence?" Murphy turned to his deputy DCI.
  "We might have the damage contained for the moment . . ." Danielle said,
  and Ryan interrupted.
  "The death toll will top two thousand, including the Vice President, who,
  need I remind you, was en route to Tokyo."
  "If the Russians hadn't made their move at the same time by attacking the
  Japanese, I might agree without reservations," Danielle said patiently.
 "Which means?" Murphy asked.
  Danielle shrugged. "Kirk McGarvey may have something after all."
 "Please!" Ryan said.
  "If Bruno Mueller is involved, as the FBI thinks he is, it could
  implicate the Russians. He was trained by them."
 Murphy held Ryan off. "What's your point?"
  "Tell the President to go slow until we have more facts. Could be a
  Japanese faction. Could be a Russian plot to embroil us in a shooting war
  with the Japanese."
 "For what reason?" Ryan shot back.
  "I don't know, but both possibilities are, I think, worth considering.
  As is a third-that another independent organization is behind this. Every
  airplane that crashed was a Guerin 522. That means something. As does
  Phil Carrara's murder. He was working with McGarvey, and McGarvey is-or
  was-working for Guerin."
 "He went to Japan."
  "Yes, and to Russia," Danielle answered, tiredly. "Whatever your problems
  with him are, Mr. Ryan, I have known Kirk since he first started for us.
  He is a good man."
 "Did you know his parents well?" Ryan countered.
  "I don't want bickering," Murphy said finally. "Where is MeGarvey?"
 "Portland. The FBI has him," Ryan said.
 "Have him brought here as soon as possible."
 "We'll try. But it seems that every time we make a
                HIGH FLIGHT 765

 decision, he finds out about it faster than I can write a memo."

 "Mr. President, it's my understanding that you have ordered a blockade
 against the Japanese navy leaving its home waters," Murphy said. "That may
 not be the best course of action."
  President Lindsay could hear the hesitation in his DCI's voice. It was
  uncharacteristic, and unsettling. "We don't have many options, General.
  I assume you've seen the latest NSA intercept."
  "Yes, sir. But there's a possibility-it's remote but still possible-that
  something else is going on here. We just don't have all the facts yet.
  It's too soon."
  "What other possibility?" Lindsay asked, looking down the table at his
  advisers. They listened on the speakerphone.
  "A former East German intelligence officer could have something to do
  with the crashes."
 "Mr. Doyle mentioned the possibility."
  "He was trained by the Russians, Mr. President. And it seems too
  coincidental that the Russians have picked this moment to attack the
  Japanese."
 "They attacked because of the Tatar Strait incident."
  "Yes, sir. But isn't it odd that a Russian frigate was blown out of the
  water so easily?"
  "Are you saying that the Russians sacrificed that ship?"
  "No, Mr. President. I'm saying that it is one of many possibilities that
  we must consider. The Japanese are our allies."
  "Somebody brought down those airplanes for a specific reason, General.
  It was no act of random violence."
  "I agree," Murphy said. "Could be a group in Japan. Could be a Russian
  group. Or it could be a third, as yet, unknown organization with an
  unknown motive."
  "That's no help to me, Roland," the President said firmly. "Based on all
  the available information to this point, can you say it's not the
  Japanese?"
 766 DAVID HAGBERG

 "No, sir. But I can't say it's not the Russians."
  "Then I have to go with that until you can bring me some additional
  information." The President sat forward in his chair. "Nobody is going
  to war with anybody, Roland. I merely want the situation contained long
  enough to find out what's going on, who is behind it, and why."
 "I'll get back to you, Mr. President," Murphy said.
 "Do that, General."

 Ryan walked into Dick Adkins' office on the third floor and set a portable
 cassette player on his desk. "We're placing you under arrest at this time,
 Mr. Adkins. As an attorney, I can advise you that you have the right to
 remain silent, Security is waiting in the corridor."
  "What's the charge?" Adkins asked calmly, as if he had expected this.
  "Violations of the National Secrets Act." Ryan switched on the tape
  recorder. The first voice was Adkins'.
  ". . . NSA is reading heavy traffic from the Japanese embassy here to
  their Ministry ofState in Tokyo. Some of it has to do with the crashes.
  "
  "I'll be on the ground in a few minutes, " McGarvey said. "Have the
  general convince the President to hold off for as long as possible. "
 Ryan switched the tape recorder off.
  "I see," Adkins said. "Who's going to run Operations?"
 "I am," Ryan replied smugly.

 The MSDF naval and naval air station at Otaru in Hokkaido's western bight
 had been on continuous alert for seventy-two hours. During that time
 ninety percent of its ASW ships and planes were at sea or in the air.
 Lockheed/Kawasaki P-3C sub-killer, tail number 4417, was given vectors to
 the Soya Strait where the Russian destroyer Sovremennyy had been sunk.
                HIGH FLIGHT 767

  "Looks like they've sent a submarine," the pilot told his weapons officer.
  "The bastards."
  "We'd better call for more assets. Where there's one, there's probably
  another."
  "The Aukumo and Akiqumo are en route from the 23rd. We just need to buy
  them some time." The two ships were destroyers.
  "At least the American Third Air Force at Misawa is staying out of it."
  "For the moment," the pilot said, a fierce expression on his face. "This is
  our country. Our fight."

 The seas were rough in the Soya Strait. Nevertheless, Captain First Rank
 Lestov figured he would be able to spot the orange distress markers sent by
 survivors of the Sovremennyy. But nothing showed up in the scope after two
 sweeps. "Nyee-cheh-vaw nyet, " he said. Nothing.
  "Conn, ELINT. Wakkanai is still sending on at least one of her arrays. The
  others are apparently down."
 "We'll see about that," Lestov said.

 The Russian's Pacific Fleet Far Eastern Reconnaissance Center at Vladivostok
 was fully staffed. Lieutenant Arkadi Papyrin watched the thermal imaging
 down-link terminal from the RORSAT satellite currently making a pass over
 the Japanese north island of Hokkaido and the Soya Strait.
  He keyed his comms. "Major, I have an update at Zebra-Two."
  Major Ivan Isakov walked over from his command console. "Have the Americans
  at Misawa responded?"
  Papyrin enhanced the region from Otaru north. "No, but there is a new image
  in the air in addition to the two MSDF jets. Looks like a P-3C ASW
  aircraft. Almost over the Strelka. But look there, just south of Rishiri.
  Two destroyers, maybe an hour out." -
 "The Strelka is still near the surface?"
 "Da. He's probably looking for survivors."
 768 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Send it to them," Isakov ordered. "But in case he misses the message,
  we'll send it out on ELF as well."

 "I have him on the MAD."
  P-3C 4417 pilot Lieutenant Togame Muto corrected his course to the right
  and reduced throttle to bring them closer to the surface. The night was
  black. "How deep is he?"
  "Kan-cho, he's just below the surface," the ELINT officer reported. "Stand
  by. Radar is picking up his periscope and snoophead."
 "Is he looking for survivors?"
  "Maybe, but his radar is lit. He's headed toward Wakkanai."
  "Do we drop a fish on him?" the weapons officer asked excitedly.
  "Prep a pair of Mark-50s," Muto said. "And get that off to base and to the
  Aukumo and Akiqumo. " -
  
 The message from Pacific Fleet came at the same moment the Strelka's own
 sensors detected the presence of the Orion ASW aircraft.
  "Presents us with an interesting problem, Viktor," Captain Lestov told his
  XO. He lowered the periscope. "Do we wait to see if they attack, or do we
  dive now and launch a sub-sea missile on Wakkanai, which would pinpoint our
  position, or submerge and wait to see what other assets they bring up,
  which would tell us how serious they are?"
  "I think there is no question of their seriousness, Captain," Savin
  replied.
  Lestov smiled sadly. "We have no business being here."
 "No, sir. But we have our orders."
  "Indeed." Lestov looked at his crew. Good men and true. "Mr. Savin, crash
  dive the boat. Make your depth three hundred meters. Sound battle stations
  missile."
                HIGH FLIGHT 769

 "The target is diving," the ELINT officer reported. The P-3C 4417 was on
 her outbound pass, the Russian submarine behind them.
  Muto hauled the big four-engined airplane in a tight turn to the left.
  "Do we have a weapons release authorization?"
 "Stand by," his comms officer said.
 "Weapons,. do you have a positive lock?"
 "Hai, Kan-cho. "
  "Launch on my mark," Muto said, fighting the lowaltitude turbulence.
 "We have weapons release authorization alpha."
  "Stand by," Muto said. The nose of the Orion came around to
  one-hundred-eight degrees. "Weapons lock?"
 "Hai!"
 "Fire one and two!"
  The moment the two torpedoes-each weighing in excess of three thousand
  pounds-were released, the P3C's nose came up sharply. Muto compensated.
 "One and two away."
 "Time to impact?"
  "Estimate nine-five seconds," the weapons officer reported.
  "Prep torpedoes three and four. Launch sonobuoys on my mark," Muto said.
  They crossed over the submarine's submerged position, and he banked the
  P-3C hard to the right to bring them around for a second pass.
  "I have sounds of bubble making," the ELINT officer reported excitedly.
  "Many decoy buoys in the water."
 "Time to impact?"
 "Four-zero seconds."
  Out of the corner of his eye Muto could see fires burning at Wakkanai ten
  miles to the south. It made his blood boil. Almost certainly there were
  dead comrades down there. The shame of it was almost impossible to bear.
  "Stand by," the weapons officer said. "Time to impact, now."
 What the P-3C made up for in endurance and stabili- 770 DAVID HAGBERG

 ty, it lost in speed. The nose seemed to take forever to come around.
 "Negative ten seconds from impact."
 Muto looked at his co-pilot.
  I 'Kan-cho, I show a miss with both torpedoes," the weapons officer
  reported.
  " Launch the sonobuoys now," Muto ordered, his stomach sour. "What does
  the MAD show?"
 :'We've lost him, Kan-cho, - the ELINT officer saJd.
 'Not for long," Muto replied. "We've just started."

 Mueller stood at the head of the stairs listening to Reid and the young
 woman argue. She had come to kill him, but first she wanted answers.
 Hundreds of people dead, and she wanted to know why. What did he hope to
 gain? How could he live with his conscience? She wanted to batter him with
 her anger and her guilt. She was to blame, as they all were, for not
 listening to McGarvey. He was the only one who knew what really happened,
 but they wanted to arrest him.
  There it was again: McGarvey. He could hear what in the woman's voice
  when she spoke the name? Love?
  Mueller had two considerations if he was going to remain at large for any
  length of time, hunted by every legitimate law enforcement agency in the
  world. He would need Reid's money and he would have to kill McGarvey.
  Reid could transfer funds electronically once they got clear of this
  place, but McGarvey was a different story. Sooner or later the FBI and
  Interpol would give up. New issues would arise, and this case would drop
  off the most active file. But McGarvey would never give up. He'd read
  McGarvey's Stasi and KGB files, and he had a great deal of respect for
  the man. If he was going to meet McGarvey head to head, he would need an
  advantage.
  He eased the Beretta's safety off and walked down the hall to the open
  sitting-room door.
  The young woman, her back to the door, stood facing Reid. She held an
  automatic pistol at arm's length. If it went off she'd break her wrist.
  She was an amateur.
                HIGH FLIGHT 771

  Reid stood next to a wingback chair near the window. His face lit up.
  Dominique started to turn. Mueller stepped into the room, and reaching over
  her shoulder snatched the gun from her grasp.
  "No," she cried. But any thought she had about trying to fight ended when
  she looked into his eyes. She lowered her arms.
 "Who are you?" Mueller asked.
  "Her name is Dominique Kilbourne," Reid said. "She's a lobbyist for the
  airlines."
  "Let her answer," Mueller said mildly, pocketing her gun. "Are you a friend
  of McGarvey?"
  "You're Colonel Mueller," she replied in wonderment. But her eyes betrayed
  her. She was more than just a friend to McGarvey.
 "Yes.,'
 She shuddered. "You're an assassin."
  "The same as McGarvey." Mueller turned to Reid. "Are you capable of
  driving?"
 "Yes.,'
  Mueller tossed Reid the car keys. "Pack a bag and leave it in the
  downstairs hall. Then get my car. It's a green Ford Probe on the upper side
  of R Street two blocks from here. Across from a woman's boutique."
 "I can't leave."
  "Two FBI agents were out front watching your house. I killed them."
 Reid stepped back as if he'd been slapped.
  "They were gathering evidence against you, I suspect. They'll send others,
  so hurry."
 "But . . ."
  "It very nearly worked as you planned, Herr Reid, but not quite. Stay here
  and you will be imprisoned. Come with me and you will have a chance of
  continued freedom."
 "Where are we going?"
 "The Canadian border at Buffalo."
 "And then?" Reid asked.
 772 DAVID HAGISERG

  Mueller watched Dominique. "We'll see. Mr. McGarvey will come for her,
  as he has all of his women."
 "He'll kill you," Dominique said softly.
  "That is a possibility." Mueller smiled pleasantly. "It will be most
  interesting to see how it turns out."
 "I'll get the car," Reid said.
  "In the meantime, I'll get acquainted with Ms. Kilboume."

 The chopper that had tried to land on the roof of Seventh headquarters
 burned furiously where it crashed in the parking lot. Platoon Sergeant
 Ingrid Wentz figured they had five minutes before the mob reached the
 upper floors where she and Jones, who were the only survivors from Baker
 Platoon, had retreated. They'd rounded up seventeen other HQ personnel
 who'd gotten left behind in the bugout and herded them upstairs. They were
 admin types and wouldn't be able to offer much help in a knockdown
 dragout. But they were military personnel, and most of them carried
 sidearms. She raced down to the fifth-floor corridor from the roof where
 the others were covering the elevator and two stairwells.
  "Lima and Kilo companies are pinned down across base at 26th," Jones
  reported. "And I can't raise security ops."
  "An air evac is out unless they can control the small arms fire," Wentz
  said. She was so frightened that her voice wanted to catch in her throat.
  But she wouldn't let it happen. She was a Marine.
 "Search-and-rescue is standing by three minutes out."
  "Didn't you hear me, goddammit? The fucking chopper is down."
  Jones just looked at her. He knew the helicopter had crashed.
 "Okay, let me talk to them."
  The power suddenly went out, and the emergency lights at each end of the
  corridor automatically switched on.
                HIGH FLIGHT 773

 "Fuck!" someone shouted.
  "Belay that!" Wentz ordered. "It means they can't use the elevator. Kill
  those lights, and double up on the stairwells."
 "SAR One," Jones said.
  "Anything comes through those doors, kill it." Wentz took the handset as
  the emergency lights went off, plunging the corridor into darkness. "SAR
  One, Baker Platoon Sergeant Wentz."
 "What's your situation, Sarge?"
  "I'm set up on the fifth floor with fifty well-armed personnel. But I
  don't want to hurt any civilians unless I'm forced into it."
 "What about Charlie-Seventeen?"
  "No survivors, SAR One. We need some help right now!"
 "Roger that. The Japanese authorities are en route."
  "We need an air evac. Can you lay down enough tear gas to come in? I
  really don't want to use my grenade launchers or LAWS. A lot of people
  will get hurt." She hoped to Christ they knew that communications weren't
  secure, and that she was bluffing. The platoon hadn't been equipped with
  anything heavier than M16s.
  Something crashed on the floor below them, and there were many sounds of
  breaking glass, twisting metal, and splintering wood. The mob was
  destroying the building.
 "Ten minutes."
  "We don't have ten minutes, SAR One. Suggest you get serious or we're
  dead meat."

 "There weren't fifty people left in the building," Don Moody said.
 "Admiral, if we don't do something there's going to be a lot more
 casualties on both sides."
  "Don't I know it," Admiral Ryland said. "Nothing from the Japanese
  authorities?"
 "Not a thing," Captain Byrne said.
  The morning outside the windows of the Boeing Sea Knight helicopter was
  still pitch black. To the east it was impossible to pick out where the
  sky met the sea. Only
 774 DAVID HAGBERG

 behind them could they see the loom of Tokyo on the horizon.
 "Do we have any tear gas aboard those choppers?"
  "No, sir. They're search-and-rescue, not crowd control."
  "I've got an idea," Moody said. "It's a long shot, but I don't see any
  other options."
 "Go ahead."
  "Assuming the Japanese are going to send someone down there to clear out
  the base, we have to buy some time. But no matter what happens there'll
  be casualties. We need to minimize them by keeping the crowd away from
  our people."
 "I'm listening," the Admiral said.
  "The mob has reached the fourth floor. If we move our people up to the
  roof, the fifth floor will be empty long enough to bring in some
  choppers."
  "What the hell are you talking about, Don?" Byrne asked.
  "Covering fire. We shoot through the windows on all four sides of the
  building. Make the fifth floor a noman's land."
  "You're talking about the Iroquois and Super Cobra assault helicopters,"
  Byrne pointed out. "The nearest birds are at least an hour away."
 "Christ," Moody said.
  "Get'ern started, Tom," Admiral Ryland ordered. "In the meantime we'll
  put more pressure on the Japanese, and I'll call Washington. 11
 "What about Sergeant Wentz?"
 "She'll just have to hold on."

 The television monitors in the White House situation room were tuned to
 the three commercial networks and CNN, covering the carnage at and around
 the eight airports. They were all reporting death tolls in the plus-
 two-thousand range. Every major highway into those airports was jammed
 with traffic, and the nation's longdistance telephone system was so
 overloaded that it had finally broken down. Almost no calls were getting
                HIGH FLIGHT 775

 through anywhere. It was as if the entire country had gone into gridlock.
  An aide came in with the AP bulletin from Tokyo. Secretary of Defense
  Landry took it.
 "What is it now?" Lindsay asked.
  "The Associated Press is quoting an unnamed Japanese government source
  about a battle between three of our warships and the MSDF submarine north
  of Okinawa." Landry passed the wire copy down the table.
  "Has Seventh said anything about this?" the President asked.
  "There's something going on down there all right, but no one knows for sure
  exactly what. The curious thing is that someone in the government is
  willing to talk about it."
  Lindsay read the brief report. "Have shots been exchanged?"
 "I don't know."
 "Find out, Paul."
 "Yes, sir." Landry picked up one of the phones.
 "If it's true, it changes everything," Secor said.
  "Depends who in Tokyo told the AP," Lindsay said. "Call Westin and find out
  who the hell his people talked to." Bert Westin was the general manager of
  the AP.
  "Mr. President, we have reached Prime Minister Enchi," a technician said.
  "The question is whether or not Enchi is in control over there," Secor
  said.
 "I'm about to find that out."

 "There are at least four Russian nuclear submarines in the vicinity of Soya
 Strait," Director General of Defense Hironaka said.
  A light flashed on Enchi's console. He stared at it hypnotically. The
  Japanese had had no war crisismanagement practice in more than fifty years.
  He was a politician, a friend of big business, not of the military. "Is
  that confirmed?"
  "One of our ASW aircraft spotted the first submarine near where the Russian
  destroyer went down. It dropped
 776 DAVID HAGBERG

 a pair of torpedoes, but then lost the sub when it went deep."
 "You said there were four of them."
  "That one is confirmed, Mr. Prime Minister. The others are probables.
  Based on best estimates from available data."
 "Then we don't know this for sure?"
 "Where there is smoke there is fire."
  Enchi slapped his open palm on the table. "I deal with facts, not
  speculation, Hironaka-san, "
  "The Russians have attacked Wakkanai, Enchi-san. That is a fact. As is
  the presence of a Russian nuclear submarine ten miles off our coast. If
  you wait until you have all the facts the entire north island may be
  nothing but smoking cinders!"
  Enchi composed himself for a moment, then viciously jabbed the button on
  his console. "Mr. President, I have learned the unfortunate news about
  Vice President Cross."
  "He was just one of more than two thousand," President Lindsay cut in.
  The anger in his voice was unmistakable. "I have heard about a battle
  between several of our navy vessels and one of your submarines in the
  East China Sea north of Okinawa. What is going on?"
  "We are trying to recall'that submarine. But I assure you that we are
  engaged in no incident with your navy."
  "Someone in your government thinks so. They leaked the information to the
  Associated Press there in Tokyo. It has hit all of our media."
  Enchi looked down the table at his advisers, but they were just as
  nonplussed as he was.
  "My country is under attack," President Lindsay said abruptly.
  "So is mine," Enchi replied in English before the translator could catch
  up.
  "I have evidence that our air traffic control system was sabotaged. We've
  traced the triggering signal that brought down those airplanes to a
  source in Tokyo."
 Enchi was suddenly cold. "Impossible," he replied. It
                HIGH FLIGHT 777

 was Morning Star. He'd been warned, but he'd not believed it was possible.
  "Nevertheless it is so," President Lindsay said. "If you are not in control
  of the situation, I will offer my assistance."
  Enchi could scarcely believe his ears. Hironaka jumped to his feet.
  "It is my understanding that all of your naval and air forces are on the
  move. Recall them to their bases and home ports immediately. I have
  instructed the Seventh Fleet to help you with this."
 "What are you saying?"
  "I am telling you to order your forces to stand down before it is too
  late."
  "But we are uAder attack, Mr. President. We must defend ourselves."
 "We are not attacking Japan!"
  "Not you," Enchi replied sharply. "It is the Russians. They are threatening
  Hokkaido with a force of nuclear submarines. We are facing another
  Hiroshima and Nagasaki!"
 The translators were silent.
  "Mr. President, I am formally asking the United States for help thwarting
  an almost certain nuclear attack on us by the government of Russia."

 President Lindsay punched the mute button on his console. "Can we confirm
 this?" He was stunned.
  "We're working on it," Landry said. "But so far we can't even get a clear
  update on the Okinawa situation. One of our ships, the Thorn, has been
  damaged, but it may have been because of a collision. No one is willing to
  say yet whether or not shots are being exchanged."
  "Could be a rogue submarine skipper after all," Secor cautioned.
  "This is too much," Lindsay said. "Get me the CIA again, and then Yeltsin
  on the Moscow hotline." The President released the mute. "Prime Minister,
  you will have to give us a few minutes to confirm what is
 778 DAVID HAGBERG

 happening. In the meantime I suggest that you make absolutely certain that
 your military forces are clear on who the enemy is."
  "Yes, Mr. President, they are crystal clear who our enemies are. But do
  not take too much time. The situation is becoming critical."
  Lindsay cut the connection. "What the hell did he mean, 'our enemies'?
  Plural." His call to Langley came in. "Did you get that, Roland?" The CIA
  was monitoring hotline calls and messages in and out of the White House
  situation room.
  "National Reconnaissance is on it, Mr. President. There's definitely a
  military buildup in the region, both Japanese and Russian. But we're
  waiting for word about submarine assets up there."
 "What's the current situation in Moscow?"
  "The attack on the Japanese radar installation didn't come as a surprise.
  But there's been no word that the Russians are willing to escalate the
  situation."
 "How reliable is that information?"
  "We don't have a direct source, if that's what you mean, Mr. President.
  What I'm giving you is a best estimate based on available data."
  "Thanks, General," the President said. "Stay on the line."
 "Yes, sir."
  The hotline phone to Moscow blinked. Lindsay picked it up. "President
  Yeltsin, forgive me for calling you so late in the evening." It was after
  midnight at the Kremlin.
  "I know why you are calling, Mr. President, but the situation in the Soya
  Strait will be resolved soon."
  "Prime Minister Enchi believes that his country is under threat of
  imminent nuclear attack by your forces."
 "Nonsense."
  "Please withdraw your warships from the area. I believe any differences
  can be worked out peacefully."
  "The order has already been given, Mr. President. But you might consider
  who the real enemy is. Your country
                HIGH FLIGHT 779

 is under attack on several fronts. Take care that you are not misdirected."
 "Is there some information you can offer me?"
 "No, Mr. President. But I wish you luck."
 Lindsay broke the connection. "Was he lying?"
  "We'll know after the next satellite pass," Murphy responded, and Landry
  nodded his agreement.

 The air traffic control system had ground to a halt, and the only good thing
 about that, Michael Schaeffer thought, was that no more airplanes would
 crash. There'd been no mistaking Herring's urgency when he'd finally gotten
 through from Oakland, but it had taken Schaeffer the better part of an hour
 to make it out to O'Hare Airport from his home in nearby Mount Prospect.
 Herring was talking about a sophisticated system of sabotage that was
 affecting at least eight airports. Except for what he'd been watching on
 television, Schaeffer would never have believed it. As it was he didn't know
 what to think. He'd grabbed a field-strength meter from the lab, and the
 moment he'd switched it on, he started receiving the signal Herring had
 warned about. But it wasn't coming from the roof, or from firstfloor
 offices. It was coming from the basement. Schaeffer was an engineer, not a
 cop, so he felt faintly ridiculous crawling around in the dark behind the
 equipment racks looking for clues. There was dust everywhere. It was months
 since the janitors had cleaned up.
  For a moment Schaeffer had trouble accepting that what he was seeing was a
  threat. The field-strength meter pegged. It was exactly as Herring said it
  would be. But even if someone had spotted the thing they wouldn't have
  known what it really was.
  He put the meter down and picked up the Roach Motel. It was heavier than he
  expected it would be. Slitting the paper cover with his thumbnail, he
  peeled it back to expose the circuit board. The work was not exceptional,
  that of a competent amateur, but the design was intriguing. In the dim
  light Schaeffer tried to trace
 780 DAVID HAGBERG

 the intricate circuit for several seconds until he realized that he had
 become mesmerized. Whatever this was, however it worked, it killed people.
  Schaeffer pried the small circuit board from the cardboard box and ripped
  the wires away from where they connected with the battery on the bottom.
 The field-strength meter went to zero.
  With the way the telephone system was across the country, Schaeffer hoped
  to God that Herring had managed to get word to the FAA and the other six
  airports. But at least here they could start getting back to normal.

 "It's legal, Mr. Zussman," InterTech's attorney Freemont Perry said. He
 handed the search warrant back to Charles Colberg.
  "What are you looking for?" the company's vice president, Milton Zussman,
  asked. He'd been notified at home of the pending FBI search. He'd shown
  up with Perry and InterTech's chief of security Neil Hood. They met with
  a half-dozen FBI special agents in the parking lot of the company's
  Alameda Research and Development Facility.
 "We'll start at your mainframe," Colberg said.
  "No," Zussman replied. He was a corpulent man, a full head taller than
  Colberg, and he was angry. "Half the projects we're presently working on
  are under topsecret government contract. You don't have the clearance."
  Colberg held his own anger in check. "With or without your cooperation,
  sir."
 "It's going to take more than a local judge's order."
  Colberg shoved the executive up against the FBI van, pulled his hands
  behind him and cuffed them. "You are under arrest at this time for
  obstruction of justice. You have the right to remain silent . . ."
 "Just hold on there," Perry warned.
  "The charge is obstruction of justice," Colberg said, and he finished
  reading Zussman his rights. "InterTech has been implicated in at least
  fourteen acts of sabotage
                HIGH FLIGHT 781

 to our Air Traffic Control system. Does your client understand his rights
 as I've explained them?"
  "You sonofabitch, you'll fucking well take the fall for this," Zussman
  shouted.
  "Put this bag of shit in the van," Colberg instructed one of his agents.
 "This is preposterous," the attorney argued.
  "As I said, Mr. Perry, with or without your cooperation," Colberg warned.
  "This is a national emergency." He was from the East Coast, and he hated
  California. He didn't thl nk he'd be staying in San Francisco much
  longer. Especially if he played his cards right and they found something.
  "You're making a terrible mistake, but we won't stand in your way."
  "Are there any engineers or technicians on duty today?" Colberg asked.
  "I don't see any cars in the parking lot."
  "Only security personnel," Hood said. The company attorney looked sharply
  at him.
 "Is this place normally staffed on the weekend?"
  "It depends on what projects we're working on," Perry answered, clearly
  flustered.
  Hood said something into a walkie-talkie, then took them inside to the
  vast mainframe complex in the sprawling facility's east wing. The lights
  were on, and half the monitor screens were up and running. Colberg got
  the impression that the place was deserted. One moment it had been filled
  with technicians, and the next it was empty. As if they'd simply gotten
  up from their consoles and walked off. He could see that Perry was having
  the same reaction.
  "Won't do you much good unless you know the passwords," the chief of
  security cautioned.
  Kevin Winter, a special agent who'd recently graduated from Cal Tech, sat
  down at one of the term-inals, and within a half-minute brought up the
  company's financial file.
 "What the hell?" Perry said softly.
 "Can you get in?" Colberg asked.
 782 DAVID HAGBERG

  "There's no lock on the incoming cash transfers," Winter said, his
  fingers flying over the keyboard.
  Whitman had relayed the information that NSA had supplied. "It's a long
  shot, Chuck. But we're running out of options."
  "Okay," Winter said. He hit several other keys, and two files came up on
  the split screen. "At noon today there was a wire transfer for
  twenty-five million dollars from the Bank of Tokyo, but it's not showing
  up on any of InterTech's Wells Fargo accounts."
 "Where'd it go?" Colberg asked.
  "Never was any money, sir." Winter hit another set of keys. "Here it is.
  The wire transfer was shunted to their comms satellite, which keyed some
  kind of a down-link program. Microwave, with a couple-of-kilohertz tone
  piggybacked." He looked up. "It's still on line."
 "Can you explain that?" Colberg asked Perry.
  "No." The attorney shook his head. "I'm not aware of any such financial
  transaction."
 "Can you shut it off, Kevin?"
 Winter hit another set of keys. "It's down."

 Yamagata had to fight the wind shears through the Coast Range mountains.
 The helicopter was an old AugustaBell 206A Jet Ranger, past its prime, but
 he was a good pilot. He kept looking over at McGarvey.
 "You and I are the same . . ."
  "Shut your fucking mouth," McGarvey said. He dialed up Guerin's company
  frequency on the radio and called the operations center at Gales Creek.
  "This is Bell Ranger Nancy-Zero-Zero-Four-Seven-Echo. Let me speak to
  Gary Topper."
 "You are operating on a restricted frequency."
 "This is McGarvey."
 "Ali ... stand by."
  They hit a sharp updraft, and Yamagata adjusted the controls. "I don't
  know what you think is going on, but you can't imagine the truth. You're
  going to have to help me calm your government down."
                HIGH FLIGHT 783

 "You work for Sokichi Kamiya, don't you?"
  "That's beside the point," Yamagata dismissed the question.
  "Bell Ranger Four-Seven-Echo," Gary Topper radioed. "That you, Mae?"
 "Are there any FBI still there?"
  "They got out of here in a big hurry. Something's going on over in
  Oceanside. Where the hell are you?"
  "About fifteen miles out. Listen, Gary, can you fly me to Washington?"
 "I can take one of our TransStar biz jets."
 "How fast can you get it ready?"
 "Ten minutes."
  "Good. Taxi to the end of the runway, and we'll set down there."
 "What about David?"
 "He's okay. Can you do this for me?"
 "It's not over yet, is it?" Topper said.
 "Not quite."
  "I'll have to file a flight plan. They'll be waiting for us unless we
  divert."
 "It doesn't matter."
  "Ten minutes," Topper said. "But I hope the hell you know what you're
  doing, Mac. There's a lot of people pissed off at you."
 "I've been there before," McGarvey said.

 The moment the helicopter lifted off from the clearing south of the beach
 house, Franson got on the radio to his Portland office and was patched
 through to Washington on one of the direct links. Even with priorities,
 it took several minutes because of the overloaded telephone lines.
 "Where is he going?" John Whitman demanded.
  "I don't know. But he's got at least one Japanese national with him. A
  man named Arimoto Yamagata."
  "They're going to try to make it back to Washington," McLaren
  interrupted.
 Franson ignored him. "The sonofabitch won't get far.
 784 DAVID HAGBERG

 The chopper doesn't have much of a range. I'm putting out an APB from
 Vancouver to L.A."
  "Goddammit, they're headed to Gales Creek," McLaren tried to break in.
  "They can get an airplane there. Tell Whitman to watch for incomings."
  "Hang on a second, Mr. Whitman," Franson said. He motioned for McLaren
  to back off. "I've had all I'm going to take from you, Mister."
  McLaren snatched the phone from the S-A-C and bodily shoved the man away.
  "This is McLaren. McGarvey is heading to Washington. He'll probably get
  an airplane at Gales Creek. Have ATC monitor all their outgoings. If
  Dulles is closed, they'll try for Baltimore."
 "How did you guys lose him?" Whitman demanded.
  "It's a long story. Just cover Dulles and Baltimore. Phil and I will make
  it as fast as we can."
  "I'll notify Portland National Guard. What the hell is he trying to do?"
 "According to him, prevent World War Three."

 FBI Headquarters in the J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue
 between Ninth and Tenth streets was on full emergency footing. All of
 official Washington was. Whitman was too impatient to wait for the busy
 elevator, so he ran up three flights of stairs to the director's office.
 John Harding's personal secretary was expecting him.
  "They're waiting inside for you, Mr. Whitman," she said. She was upset.
  The television in the comer was tuned to CNN, showing an aerial view of
  the carnage at Los Angeles International.
  Harding and his assistant director Ken Wood were watching another bank
  of television sets all reporting on the disaster. They looked up.
 "Word from the West Coast?" Harding asked.
  "Looks like we're getting a handle on at least part of this," Whitman
  said. "The signal was definitely being shunted through InterTech's
  computer system from Tokyo Bank out to one of its satellites. We managed
  to shut it down. Colberg's people are starting to round up the
                HIGH FLIGHT 785

 company's officers, but it looks like a lot of them left the country."
 "That nails it," Wood said.
  "Not quite, Ken. InterTech might not have known about the signal relay."
 "You said its people are leaving the country."
  "Could be they headed out at the last minute when they realized what was
  happening. Means that it came as just as big a surprise to them as it did
  to us. But that's not all."
 "Go ahead," Harding prompted.
  "The signal was downloaded from the satellite to devices that were hidden
  at the eight airports, plus Andrews. Thing is, those repeaters were
  definitely not made by the Japanese. At least that's the opinion of two
  engineers who've seen the things."
 "Russian?" Wood asked.
  Whitman spread his hands. "They just said not Japanese."
  "Could Colonel Mueller have been behind the attack on InterTech?"
  "It's possible, Mr. Director. It has a lot of his earmarks, although if
  it was him, it beats the hell out of me why.,,
  "What about McGarvey?" Wood asked. "Is Franson bringing him in?"
  "Not quite," Whitman said. "But he's on his way here."
 "What do you mean?"
  "He managed to get away from our people and commandeer a jet and Guerin
  pilot from Gales Creek. They've filed a flight plan for Dulles, if it
  opens by the time they get here, or Baltimore as an alternate."
 "Then we'll have him finally," Wood said.
  Whitman nodded. "Sure will, Ken. Along with a man by the name of Arimoto
  Yamagata, who's probably a spy for Japan."

 The phone system was still jammed. McGarvey tried twice to get through to
 Dominique's office and apart-
  786 DAVID HAGBERG

 ment and to Reid's Georgetown home and Lamplighter office, without luck.
  "it would appear that we are incommunicado for the next few hours,"
  Yamagata said. He'd found the liquor locker and calmly sipped a glass of
  white wine.
  McGarvey stood just aft of the open flight-deck door. "What's our ETAT'
  "Seven our time, ten Eastern," Topper said. "They'll know you're aboard."
 "Will we have to refuel?"
 "If the winds hold out of the west we'll make it."
  McGarvey glanced back at Yamagata, his muscles bunching up. He handed his
  pistol, and the one he'd taken from the Japanese intelligence officer,
  to Topper. "I'm going to have a talk with our friend."
  Topper grinned viciously. "If you close the door, I probably won't hear
  a thing."
  An odd expression came over Yamagata's face. He put down his glass.
 "Okay." McGarvey closed the flight-deck door.

 Platoon Sergeant Wentz knew that they would run out of time before help
 arrived. She had never quite understood why American troops were still
 stationed on Japanese soil, especially since the Soviet Union was no
 longer a threat. But she was a Marine, and she knew how to follow orders.
 She also knew how to fight.
  She'd sent Jones and ten of the admin types to the roof while she and the
  remaining seven navy personnel covered the two stairwells. If their
  fifth-floor position was overrun, which she figured it would be in a
  couple of minutes, Jones and the others would be able to hold out a while
  longer.
  It was a delaying action until the choppers arrived, or until the
  Japanese authorities managed to get through.
  "They're civilians," one of the desk jockeys said, nervously. "What the
  hell are we supposed to do?"
 "Defend ourselves," Wentz said.
 There was a tremendous racket from below.
                HIGH FLIGHT 787

 "Here they come!" someone shouted.
  Both stairwell doors crashed open, and the first of the mob poured into the
  corridor. For a long second nobody fired. Some of the Japanese were women,
  many of them dressed in kimonos.
  "Fire! Fire!" Sergeant Wentz shouted, and she opened fire with her M16 on
  full automatic, ~praying the west corridor and stairwell door.
 People in the mob began firing back.
  Sergeant Wentz took two 'hits to her chest, her flak jacket saving her
  life, but the force of the blows spun her sideways, her arms flying out.
  She took a hit to her armpit, and two to her legs, before a round caught
  her in the neck just below her helmet's chin strap, the bullet angling up
  through her throat into the base of her brain.

 Director General of Defense Hironaka telephoned the communications
 supervisor downstairs. "Takefumi-san, do you recognize my voice?"
 "Hai. "
  "We are experiencing difficulty on the direct circuit to the White House in
  Washington, D.C."
 "What is the nature of this difficulty?"
  "We believe that the circuit is no longer secure. An impostor has someow
  broken in. The information we are receiving can no longer be considered
  valid."
 "That is a grave situation."
  "Cut the circuit for now, until we can determine who is doing this to us."
 "Hai. "

 "Why hasn't the White House responded?" Prime Minister Enchi demanded.
  "They asked for time to confirm what we've told them," Nobunaga. cautioned.
  "They may not have a satellite in position."
  "Or they're stalling," Hironaka said, coming in and sitting down. "We must
  consider all possibilities and act accordingly."
 788 DAVID HAGBERG

  "By attacking the Seventh Fleet?" Enchi said angrily. "That's suicide."
 "Without honor."
  "We're not discussing honor here. We're talking about lives."
  "Then we must do something, Mr. Prime Minister. Surely you can see that."
 "But what?"
  "Show them that we are willing to defend ourselves, of course."

 "Could the Japanese have built these repeating devices in such a way as
 to disguise who built them?" Lindsay asked.
  "Anything is possible, Mr. President," Murphy admitted. He'd listened to
  the call from the FBI. "But there's no reason for it. Everything else
  points their way."
 "Too much."
 41 Sir?"
  "Everything they've supposedly done to this point has been highly
  sophisticated. But now I'm being told that these devices were probably
  constructed by an amateur. It doesn't fit. We're missing something."
  "I'm afraid I have more bad news for you," Murphy said. "National
  Reconnaissance confirms that there are at least three Russian submarines
  in the Soya Strait. All of them are within Japanese territorial waters."
  "This is insanity," Lindsay said heatedly. "Get Enchi on the phone."
  "Sir, that circuit is down," one of the technicians said. "Their relay
  people say they are having some sort of technical difficulties."

 Lieutenant Fred White steadied the P-3C ASW patrol aircraft against the
 -low altitude wind gusts as they searched for the Sarnisho. The Barbey and
 Cook were slowly closing on the crippled Thorn's position, and White had
 the feeling that the Japanese submarine was lying in wait for them. The
 sonofabitch was crazy. There could be no other explanation.
                HIGH FLIGHT 789

  "Skipper, we're going to have company," their ELINT officer, Ensign Carl
  Gifford, radioed.
 "What have you got?"
  "We're being lit by many radars. The Doppler shift on two of them is
  really moving out. Looks like fighter/interceptors. Incoming."
 "Roger. Get that off to Flag and to Foster."

 Admiral Ryland's helicopter was on final vectors for the CVN George
 Washington. The call from the White House was patched through the
 carrier's communications center while they were still twenty miles out.
 It came on the heels of the update from the Orion on station above the
 Thorn and from the SAR units off Yokosuka who reported that they'd lost
 contact with the Marines cornered in base headquarters.
  "Admiral, you have a difficult situation coming your way," Lindsay said.
  "And there's not much we're going to be able to do for you from here."
  "We're all in the dark here, Mr. President. Can you tell me what's going
  on?"
  "Prime Minister Enchi has formally asked for our military help against
  a Russian attack in the north."
  "It's a retaliatory strike, sir. The Russians won't take it any further.
  We have no assets up there. But if need be the Air Force at Misawa should
  be able to help out, though I'd advise against it."
  "It may develop into something more, Admiral. They've brought at least
  three nuclear submarines into Japanese territorial waters already. We're
  waiting for updates, but we've already seen increased activity throughout
  the Pacific Fleet."
  "What can I do, Mr. President?" Ryland's stomach was sour.
 "How much of your fleet is still within Tokyo Bay9"
 "Sixty percent."
  "The Japanese may try to blockade them from breaking out."
 "Yes, sir, that's what my people tell me."
 790 DAVID HAGBERG

  "You're not to force your way out, unless you get personal word from me.
  Is that perfectly clear?"
 "Yes, Mr. President."
  "If the situation warrants action I won't hesitate. Are you clear on that
  as well?"
  "Yes, sir." Ryland was beginning to wonder if he ever knew anything about
  military or political strategy.
  "Very well. How soon can you have your carrier battle group in striking
  distance of Soya Strait?"
  "With mid-air refueling we can go now. Give me eight hours and we can do
  a more accurate job."
  "I'm not going to tell you how to do your job, Admiral. But time is
  critical. Eight hours may be too late."
 "I understand, Mr. President."
 "Godspeed, Admiral."
 "Thank you, Mr. President. You too."

 "It belongs to the Bureau," District of Columbia cop Luis Vasquez said,
 looking up from the squad car's computer.
  "So it was a crank call. These guys can take care of themselves."
  Vasquez's partner, Steve Shockley, looked across the street at the van.
  "Wonder what they're doing here?"
  "Maybe I'll ask, just in case it wasn't a fruitcake." The precinct had
  received a tip from an anonymous caller that there'd been a shooting off
  R Street near the Oak Hill Cemetery involving a GMC van.
  "If they're on surveillance, they'll tear you a new asshole."
  "What else is new?" Vasquez asked. He got out of the squad car and walked
  across the street to the driver's side of the GMC. No one was in front.
  He opened the door.
 "Yo, anybody home?"
  He cautiously stuck his head inside and recoiled at the sight of all the
  blood. "Shit!"
 FORTY-TWO

 The Samisho had eleven hours of battery power remaining before she had to
 surface. Less if she pressed the attack. Captain Kiyoda walked back to his
 compartment, locked his door, and then opened the door of a small cabinet
 beside his bunk. It was his Shinto shrine. He bowed before it, and thought
 about kathi, nature, and what it meant to his life. He asked for
 benevolent treatment and protection for his boat and all who sailed in
 her, and for all who would fight and might soon die.
 To bear what you think you cannot bear is truly to bear.
  He thought about his sensei whose idea it was to place the rock, "future"
  and "hope," in Yamagata-san's garden. A haven for the body as well as the
  spirit.
  Your primary duty will be loyalty. Obedience to the call of duty. The
  sacrifice of everything for the emperor. For the laws and the state.
  A veil descended over Kiyoda's eyes, and in the darkness a billion stars
  passed overhead, surrounded him, penetrated his body to the farthest
  comers of his soul. He smiled cruelly, his thin lips pulled into a
  grimace.
  Two years ago there'd been an incident at kendo in which he'd been
  carried away by the match and had nearly beaten his opponent to death
  before his comrades had pulled him away. Afterward he'd questioned his
  own sanity.
  Not to mar the pleasure or serenity of another by expressions of our own
  sorrow or pain is self-control. He shows no sign ofjoy or anger. This is
  stoicism.
 His opponent had understood this and had said noth- 792 DAVID HAGBERG

 ing about the incident, A few days later Kiyoda had put it out of his
 mind.
 Chi, jin, yu. Wisdom, benevolence, courage.
  Someone knocked at his door. Kiyoda slowly withdrew from his reverie.
  "Hai. "
  Minori came in. "Pardon me for interrupting you, Kan-cho. "
 "What is it?"
  "We are experiencing difficulties with one of our battery banks.
  Lieutenant Owada recommends that we shut down that cell and isolate the
  entire compartment."
 "How will it affect our endurance?"
  "If the cell remains on line, power from the other batteries will be
  dissipated very rapidly. Perhaps two hours. If we follow Owada's
  suggestion he can give us eight hours."
 "Less if we attack?"
 "Hai, Kan-cho. "
  "More if we shut down every non-essential system, except for passive
  sonar, and reduce our life-support systems to fifty percent."
  "We can operate with a skeleton crew, and the others can stay in their
  bunks. That will give us additional time. But at some point the CO 2
  levels will impair our abilities."
  Kiyoda thought about it for a moment. A picture of his wife, Moriko, came
  into his mind's eye, and he smiled again, this time gently.
  "Break out the emergency re-breathers from the escape trunks and issue
  them to all duty personnel."
 Minori's eyes widened slightly. "Hai, Kan-cho.
 "The crew will understand."
 "Shall I instruct Owada to isolate the bad cell?"
 "Yes. 19

 "Very well." Minori started to withdraw.
 "Matte, " Kiyoda said. Wait.
 "Kan-cho?"
  The veil was completely lifted from Kiyoda's eyes. He buttoned his tunic.
  "What is happening on the surface?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 793

  "Sierra-Zero-Four and -Five have slowed their speed of advance, and
  Sierra-Zero-Nine has begun to circle again."
 "What of the fourth target?"
 "it is dead in the water. Drifting downwind."
  A threat or not, Kiyoda wondered? Or an innocent vessel caught in the
  middle of a ... storm? "What of the circling action?"
 "They are still wary of us."
 "But we have not been discovered by their sonar?"
  "No, Kan-cho. Sierra-Zero-Nine is ten thousand meters out, the other two
  much farther. They have not found us. But they know that we are damaged.
  They may be waiting until we have to surface."
 "Or until they find us."
 "Hai, " Minori replied.
  "Other than the batteries, how is damage control coming along?"
  "The flooding has been stopped, and we still have weapons systems
  integrity."
 "Then we are still a fighting ship."
 "Hai. "
  "Then that is what we shall do, Ikuo," Kiyoda said. "Return to your
  duties. I will join you in the conn momentarily."

 "What do you mean, technical difficulties?" Enchi demanded. "I have
 personally asked President Lindsay for help, and now you say that the
 direct circuit to the White House is inoperative? Who is at fault?"
  "I cannot say, Mr. Prime Minister," Hironaka admitted. "Our technicians
  are working to resolve the problem, if indeed it is one of a technical
  nature."
  Enchi ignored the innuendo. The full Security Council had finally
  arrived. In addition to his cabinet, which included Hironaka and
  Nobunaga, also present were the ministers of foreign affairs and of
  finance, the chairman of the public safety commission, and the director
  general of the Economic Planning Agency. Businessmen, like
 794 DAVID HAGBERG

 himself. None of them had ever been involved in the planning or execution of
 an actual war, and yet the fate of Japan rested on their shoulders.
  "Has there been any response from the U.S. Third Air Force at Misawa?"
  "No," Hironaka said. "Nor has there been any word from Admiral Ryland. It's
  believed that he is no longer at his headquarters in Yokosuka. He's
  probably already aboard the aircraft carrier George Washington, well off
  shore."
  "The American naval base has been overrun," the public safety commissioner
  said.
  "By rioters?" Enchi asked. "Why hasn't something been done?"
  "The crowd is very large, possibly more than twentyfive thousand people,
  and already there have been many deaths. We can only hope to contain them.
  In the dark, there is too much confusion."
  "For the moment we cannot assume that President Lindsay will offer any
  assistance, other than his offer to help us recall our forces," Hironaka
  said slyly.
  "I can at least partially understand their position," the Foreign Minister
  said. "The United States is under attack by terrorists."
 "Not us," Hironaka responded angrily.
  The foreign minister shrugged. "We have not heard from Kamiya or Kobayashi.
  This could have been engineered by them. I think there is little doubt in
  this room about that."
  "What information are we receiving from our intelligence operations in the
  United States?"
  "Beyond the fact of the crashes and the high death toll, very little that
  is of any use to us at the moment," Nobunaga said.
  Enchi looked down at the table for a response from his other advisers.
  Besides MITI there were a dozen or more specialized intelligence-gathering
  agencies in Japan. Among them were the Public Security Agency; the Police
  Guard Divisioq and Agency Research Association; the Cabinet Investigation
  Board; the Defense Agency's First
                HIGH FLIGHT 795

 and Second Research Intelligence Divisions; the Security Bureau's Research
 and Foreign Affairs Divisions; the Ministry of Justice's Public Security
 Investigation Agency (which dealt primarily with subversion); the Foreign
 Ministry's Intelligence and Research Organization; and the Self Defense
 Forces individual military intelligence units. But there was no
 intelligence-data clearinghouse such as America's Central Intelligence
 Agency.
  "There were no legitimate advance warnings," the Foreign Minister explained
  delicately. "With time . . ."
  "We do not have time," Enchi interrupted impolitely. "The Russians would
  not have done this, nor did the Americans do it to themselves. That is
  unthinkable. Which leaves Kamiya and his Zaibatsu, or an as yet unknown
  organization whose purpose we can only guess."
  "Pardon me, Mr. Prime Minister, but we are still left with two intolerable
  situations," Hironaka warned. "We are under attack in the north, and
  despite your formal request to President Lindsay, the Americans have not
  responded. In fact the Seventh Fleet is making a run for the open sea."
  "Can we hold the majority of the fleet to the bay without firing shots?"
  "A diversion can be arranged. Say an emergency between one or more of our
  ships." Hironaka sat forward. "But if the Americans chose not to respond,
  our commanders would have to be given clear orders."
  "When the time comes I will consider those orders," Enchi said, "I will
  call President Yeltsin."
 "He will lie."
  "I will tell him that we mean to defend Hokkaido with everything in our
  power. In the meantime we will continue our efforts to reach President
  Lindsay and Admiral Ryland."
  "For now it's a waiting game," Nobunaga mused. "Who will blink first?"

 Marvin Amundson called from Fort Meade.
 "Mr. President, NSA has another update from our
 796 DAVID HAGBERG

 Japanese Intercept Division. Two separate orders have been issued from
 their C-and-C, presumably under Prime Minister Enchi's authority. The
 first was to their Forty-first Destroyer Division at Cape Mirua-that's the
 mouth of Tokyo Bay-to do whatever is necessary to hold the majority,of the
 Seventh Fleet from breaking out."
  "Hold on," Lindsay said. "Have they been ordered to shoot at our ships?"
  "That's not clear, Mr. President. We only have a partial decryption and
  translation. But it was a flashdesignated message, which means they're
  serious. They want to box Seventh inside the bay."
 "All right. What's the second message?"
  "Their military forces in the north have been ordered to Defense
  Condition One, which gives their local commanders unlimited weapons
  release authorization. That means they will shoot anything within their
  national boundaries."
 "That includes all of Soya Strait?"
  "Yes, sir. Presumably this is a clear message to the Russians to back
  off."
 The President looked down the table at his advisers.
  "That means us as well when Ryland sends help up there, or if Third Air
  Force responds from Misawa," Secretary of Defense Landry said.
 "What about our telephone circuit to Enchi?"
  "There is no technical trouble at our end, Mr. President," Amundson said.
  "But we're still working on it."

 "Goddarnmit, are you sure?" John Whitman swore. "What the hell were those
 guys thinking about?"
  "I don't know, but they were shot to death in the back of the van. Looks
  like maybe Kris put up a fight, but neither of them pulled their
  weapons."
  "I don't believe this. What about Reid? Have you got the sonofabitch?"
  "He's gone," Special Agent Irving Newton said. "But there's more, Mr.
  Whitman. Whoever did our people
                HIGH FLIGHT 797

 also did a couple of guys parked across the street. White Toyota van,
 registered to an invalid address in Rockville. They're Japanese. The van
 is equipped with some sophisticated surveillance gear. But it was the same
 deal. They didn't put up any resistance. Might have known who it was."
  Whitman was numb. This just wasn't happening. "Any witnesses?"
  "We're working the neighborhood. But we got a name on the yellow Vette
  parked in front of Reid's. Belongs to Dominique Kilbourne. Addriss in the
  Watergate."
 "Any sign of her?"
  "No, sir. But if you want a quick turnaround here, we're going to need
  some help."
 "Nobody left," Whitman said. "Use the D.C. cops."

 "President Yeltsin, I am told that your submarines are still in the
 vicinity of the Soya Strait, well within Japanese territorial waters."
  "These things take time, President Lindsay. I assure you that the
  situation in the strait is being resolved. Since our submarines are
  submerged, we can only communicate via ELF. It is very slow. But the
  Japanese fired the first shot."
  So far NSA had intercepted no such message from the Russian's Pacific
  Fleet headquarters in Vladivostok. But the system was not one-hundred
  percent accurate, nor did Lindsay wish to reveal that capability to
  Yeltsin.
  "Japanese military forces in the region have gone to Defense Condition
  One. Your ships are in their territorial waters!"
  "I am aware of this. We are taking every precaution. But we will defend
  our withdrawal. I have told Prime Minister Enchi this."
  "You spoke with him?" Lindsay asked, surprised. It was the first ray of
  hope.
  "Two minutes ago. But he seems, how shall I put it, agitated. I don't
  know if he completely understands the situation that we are facing. That
  all of us are facing."
 798 DAVID HAGBERG

  "I appreciate your candidness, Mr. President. Let me be equally candid.
  Since we are still not sure who attacked us, I am sending some aircraft to
  inspect the situation in the strait. I want no misunderstanding between us.
  We merely want to monitor what is going on.
  "Then allow me to repeat myself, President Lindsay. Our warships will be
  instructed to defend their withdrawal."
 :'We will shoot only in self-defense."
 'So will we, President Lindsay," Yeltsin said.
  " What the hell does the sonofabitch mean?" Secor demanded when the
  connection was broken. "His forces have already exchanged shots with the
  Japanese."

 McGarvey poured a brandy from the airplane's liquor locker and sat down.
 Yamagata had recovered much of his poise, that much was clear from his
 expression, and from the way he sat back in his seat. But there was
 something else hidden behind his eyes. Wariness. An Oriental cunning.
  "By now the situation is becoming serious," McGarvey said.
  16 I'm glad that you understand," Yamagata replied mildly. "Kennedy did
  not."
  " Fourteen airplanes are down. That's a lot of dead people. Countries have
  gone to war over a lot less. Is that what you want?'
 :'It wasn't us.'
  , Funny you should say that, when everything points to Kamiya and Mintori
  Assurance." McGarvey tossed back the drink and set the glass aside. "When
  I asked him about trying to ruin Guerin, he said it was only part of a much
  larger operation called Morning Star. Does this mean anything to you?"
  " Yes, it does. But over the past few days I've come to the realization
  that Sokichi Kamiya is insane. His plan was brilliant, and actually would
  have worked, I think, had it not been for a happenstance."
                HIGH FLIGHT 799

  MeGarvey said nothing. He'd always had trouble dealing with misplaced
  arrogance.
  "Business is war, and unless Japan acts soon, it is a war we will lose."
 A muscle in McGarvey's left leg began to jump.
  "You Americans are innovators. You have the ability to see things
  differently than we do. You are individualists. It's what you do best.
  While we Japanese are manufacturers. We can take your innovations,
  improve on them, and then produce them for a profit. As partners we could
  be unstoppable. No country on earth, not Russia with her resources, not
  China with her population, could compete. Do you understand this much?"
  A note of sarcasm had crept into Yamagata's voice.
  McGarvey focused on keeping his temper in check. He'd seen the defeated
  look in Chance Kennedy's eyes, the anguish in her voice.
  "The original idea was to engineer a small war between our countries. But
  only after we were established at Subic Bay, and after your military
  installations were removed from our soil. Then, once the shooting had
  begun, an immediate cease-fire would have been called. We are trading
  partners. Supposedly equal partners. It is something Americans cannot see
  yet. You are guilty of the worst kind of racial prejudice. Against the
  blacks as well as us. In your mind we are an inferior race."
  MeGarvey thought about how Korean and Vietnamese immigrants were still
  treated in Japan. It was an issue that the Japanese government had
  sidestepped for years. As it had sidestepped the treatment of the Chinese
  during the war, and of our own prisoners in the Pacific.
  "We were going to destroy Guerin. It was to be another indication to the
  world that American technology and manufacturing were flawed. No one
  would want to fly in a Guerin airplane. They would be unsafe."
  "Bringing fourteen airplanes down at once was extreme."
  "It wasn't us," Yamagata said, vexed. "Our plan was to create a series
  of accidents throughout the world over
 800 DAVID HAGBERG

 a period of several years. To slowly destroy confidence in the company."
 "InterTech was yours?"
  Yamagata smiled. "It was clever of you to figure out at least that much."
 "The entire fleet has been sabotaged?"
 "Yes. 11

 "What about the crash in 1990? Was it a mistake?"
 "It was a test."
 "But one of your people was killed."
  "I gave him that honor," Yamagata said matter of factly.
 "You had a remote-control device?"
  "Yes. I waited on the ground south of the city until the plane was
  overhead."
 "What about the Dulles crash?"
  Yamagata's expression darkened. "it wasn't us. Someone else has
  discovered what we've done and has taken advantage."
  McGarvey almost went across the aisle, but he willed himself to remain
  in his seat.
  "It's too soon, but between us we'll find out who it is and stop them.
  We'll share information. A partnership."
 "What about the war?"
  "We were going to create a number of incidents that would increase the
  tension between us and Russia, as well as America. A new Cold War, if you
  will, in which the Russians would finally launch an attack against us.
  It would give us a reason to rapidly build up our military without
  Washington forcing us to back down. Sooner or later tempers would run
  high, and the war would erupt. We would be defending ourselves, nothing
  more."
 "To what end?" McGarvey asked.
  "Either take us seriously as full and equal business partners, or get out
  of our way in the western Pacific so that we can develop our own
  markets." Yamagata pointed a finger at McGarvey for emphasis. "Faced with
  the same choices Japan is faced with-continue to expand or starve-the
  United States would do the same
                HIGH FLIGHT 801

 thing. And has done the same thing in the past. Any nation would to ensure
 its survival."
 "Chance Kennedy?"
  "I needed her to get to her husband and then to you. But she'll live. In
  fact her marriage will probably be all the better for her experience."
  "You made a mistake by not running when you had the chance," McGarvey
  said dreamily.
  "It wasn't us. We think a man named Edward Reid may be involved."
 "Yes, I know."
 "I want to make a deal," Yamagata said.
 "Do you?" McGarvey asked.
  "Yes. I'll cooperate with your government to put a stop to this nonsense,
  and your government-or you personally if Washington won't or can't
  help-will give me Mintori Assurance."
  "I'll need to know everything. All the details, including names."
  Yamagata grinned. "You won't believe the names I'll give you. Do we have
  a deal?"
 "Sure," MeGarvey said. "I'll give you a deal."

 "Tell me more about your Mr. McGarvey. He sounds like an interesting
 fellow," Mueller said conversationally.
  Dominique had to pretend that she was not too frightened to drive, even
  though she wanted to curl up into a ball and retreat within herself.
  Reid, lost in his own thoughts, sat in the Probe's passenger seat. He'd
  been drinking from a whiskey bottle since they'd left Georgetown. The
  German was in the back seat. They were heading toward the Pennsylvania
  state border on Interstate 83 north of Baltimore. The afternoon had
  become cold and gray.
  "I don't know very much about him," Dominique answered, trying to keep
  her voice even. She'd had fifteen minutes alone with Mueller, and it had
  seemed like an eternity in hell. He'd been so perceptive, so
 802       DAVID HAGBERG

 reasonable and rational that she'd nearly fallen under his spell. It was
 like being in the presence of a mass murderer and kidding yourself into
 believing that at heart he was a good person. Kirk had warned them about
 people like Mueller, but she hadn't believed him until now.
  Don't be coy. I think that you have fallen in love with him.
  Dominique glanced at Mueller's reflection in the rearview mirror. His eyes
  locked into hers, and she shuddered. "Do you have a wife?" she asked.
  " Oh, dear me," Mueller laughed pleasantly. "No, I have no wife. But do you
  believe that Mr. McGarvey will ask you to marry him?"
  No one could possibly know where she was. Even if they found her car in
  front of Reid's it wouldn't give them a clue. She figured her only chance
  of survival was to attract some attention. The only way which she could do
  that, without making the German or Reid suspicious, was by driving too
  fast. Since Baltimore she'd slowly increased her speed. Maryland was tough
  on speeders.
 "I don't know how to answer that."
  "With the truth, of course. Isn't it every little American girl's dream to
  marry a strong, handsome boy?"
  They passed an eighteen-wheeler, and Mueller leaned forward so that he
  could look over Dominique's shoulder. A half-mile later they passed a
  fifty-five-miles-perhour speed-limit sign. "You are driving too fast.
  Please slow down to sixty."
  "The speed limit will change to sixty-five any minute now," Dominique said.
 "Slow down."
  Dominique glanced into the rearview mirror again in time to see a police
  car, its lights flashing, catching up to them. She increased their speed.
  Mueller looked out the rear window. "I admire your courage, Ms. Kilbourne.
  But if you wish to survive the next few minutes, you will do exactly as I
  tell you. Believe me, I will not hesitate to kill you and the police
  officer."
                HIGH FLIGHT 803

  "You'll never get away," Dominique told him, and her threat sounded dumb
  even to her.
 "We're discussing your survival now."
  There was no way out. She was so stupid. "What if he wants us to get out of
  the car?"
 "You'll convince him that's not necessary."
  Reid turned ponderously to look back. His eyes were bloodshot, and he
  reeked of alcohol. "We're not going to get out of this one."
  "Hide the bottle and keep your mouth shut," Mueller ordered. "Slow down,
  Ms. Kilbourne. There is no reason for you to throw away your life so soon."
  "You bastard," Dominique swore. "I swear to God I'll see you dead if I have
  to do it with my own two hands."
  The patrol car was nearly on them when Dominique slowed down and pulled off
  to the side of the highway. The cop pulled in behind them.
  "Take your driver's license out of your purse, and lower your window.
  Smile, Ms. Kilbourne. Your life depends on it."
  She did as she was told. She could see the Maryland Highway Patrol car in
  the door mirror. The trooper got out, put on his campaign hat, checked the
  traffic behind him, and came forward. He was alert, but not on his guard.
  Dominique wanted to wam him, but her insides were churning.
  "Good afternoon, ma'am. May I see your driver's license and vehicle
  registration?"
  They hadn't thought about the registration. "It's not my car," Dominique
  said, flustered.
  Something was wrong. The trooper's attention had switched to Mueller in the
  back seat, recognition and fear dawning on his face. He stepped back as he
  fumbled for his service revolver.
  Dominique started to turn around as Mueller powered down the rear window.
  "No!" she screamed.
  The trooper had his gun out and was bringing it up, when Mueller fired two
  shots, both of them catching the cop in the chest, driving him off his feet
  onto the highway.
 804 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Drive, Ms. Kilbourne," Mueller ordered calmly. "At the speed limit,
  please."
  Dominique dropped her driver's license out the window, slammed the car
  in gear, and pulled away without bothering to check for oncoming traffic.

 In nearly twenty years of service Trooper Douglas Schultz had never been
 shot. But his luck had finally run out. He felt weak, his insides loose
 and watery, as if he had a serious case of diarrhea, but he marveled that
 there was no pain. He almost laughed out loud.
  From where he lay on his back, his head turned to the side, he could see
  that he was on the highway with traffic coming his way. It'd be a hell
  of a note, he thought, to survive being shot only to be run over.
  Holding his chest and gut with his right arm, he managed to turn onto his
  side and lever himself up to his knees.
  The Probe was speeding away, too far to shoot even if he could aim. It
  was a bitch. He'd catch hell from the lieutenant for not wearing his
  vest, but the damned thing was uncomfortable. And Peggy was going to get
  on his case big time to quit the force.
  "First things first, Doug," he told himself, getting shakily to his feet.
  The entire world was spinning around, and the overcast seemed to have
  deepened in the past sixty seconds. At least traffic was slowing down.
  He stumbled back to his patrol car, his legs impossibly long, his feet
  clumsy. He slumped against the side of the car and reached inside the
  open window for the microphone. "This is Three-Alpha-Seven, on
  eight-three north just past the Heresford exit. I need assistance. I've
  been shot."
 "Three-Alpha-Seven, roger, help is rolling."
  "It was the German the FBI is looking for. Bruno Mueller. He's in a
  ninety-seven green Ford Probe, Virginia six-niner-zero-Zulu-Mike-Tango,
  northbound on eight-three. Woman is driving, thirty to thirty-five, short
  dark hair, dark eyes, wearing a black leather coat, a light color sweater
  or blouse beneath. Front-seat passenger is
                HIGH FLIGHT 805

 a man, late sixties, maybe seventy, large build, white hair, red
 complexion. He may be drunk."
  Schultz realized he was sitting on the pavement, his forehead resting
  against the side of his car. He felt a fluttering in his chest, but he
  was too tired to think anything about it. A little sleep was all he
  needed until help arrived.

 "Mr. President, we've finally intercepted an ELF message from
 Vladivostok," Amundson said from Fort Meade. "The decryption just came up.
 They are not calling for a withdrawal of forces."
 "What was the message?" Lindsay asked.
  "Four code groups, sir. Directed specifically to the SSN Strelka. She's
  a Sierra-class attack submarine. They warned her that the MSDF is
  bringing assets into the strait."
 "Yeltsin was lying," Secor said.
  "It would appear so," Lindsay replied. "Have any shots been fired since
  the initial attack on the radar base and the sinking of the destroyer?"
  "There may have been a torpedo launch from one of their ASW aircraft. But
  we're still waiting for confirmation."
  "None of the Russian submarines has been withdrawn?"
 "Not so far as we've been able to determine, sir."
 "Keep me informed," Lindsay said.

 "Is our ETA holding?" McGarvey asked.
  "So far, so good," Topper said. "Did you get anything from our guest?"
  "He's admitted that every 522 flying has been sabotaged. He brought down
  the American flight in '90. They wanted to test the system."
  "Sonofabitch," Topper swore softly. He looked over his shoulder at
  McGarvey in the doorway. "Why? Just to get control of an airplane
  company? We would have sold them all they wanted. Al Vasilanti was right
  all along. They haven't changed since Bataan."
 806 DAVID HAGBERG

  "It's not that easy, Gary. Someone else got in the middle."
 "What are we going to do with him?"
  "I want you to try to get through to the FBI, Talk to a man by the name of
  John Whitman. Tell him who we're bringing in. He might have to talk to
  Adkins at Langley, but have them meet us when we touch down. And make sure
  the fleet is grounded. Worldwide, Gary."
 "Will do."
 "Is there a cassette recorder aboard?"
  "There might be one in the locker aft of the head," Topper said. "Do yqu
  suppose he's telling the truth?"
 "I'll ask him."
  McGarvey started to turn when something hard smashed into the side of his
  neck just behind his right ear, the force of the blow driving him to his
  knees.
  "Amerikajin, " Yamagata snarled. He grabbed McGarvey by the throat and
  dragged him to his feet. "I would have given you everything." He shoved
  McGarvey back against the bulkhead and drove a knee into his groin.
  It was a mistake. McGarvey had been momentarily stunned by the first blow,
  and his air supply was cut off so that he was seeing spots, but the sudden
  excruciating pain was like a shot of adrenalin. He tore Yamagata's hand
  away from his throat and smashed his forehead into the Japanese's face,
  just above the bridge of his nose, driving him backward.
  Yamagata recovered quickly enough to sidestep McGarvey's charge, smashing
  a rock-hard fist into McGarvey's side, breaking three ribs, before he
  danced away.
  "Mac! Here!" Topper shouted. He held out the Walther.
  McGarvey glanced at the gun, then turned back to Yamagata, who had dropped
  into a karate stance, and was watching warily. A trickle of blood came from
  his nose.
  "Just fly, Gary." McGarvey closed the flight-deck door.
                HIGH FLIGHT 807

  "It's still possible to make a deal," Yarnagata said. "You can't know
  what's at stake."
  "Tell me again about Chance Kennedy," McGarvey said, feinting left.
  Yamagata threw his right hand over his defensive left, but instead of
  fighting by the rules and trying to deflect the strike, MeGarvey reached
  up and caught the Japanese's fist in mid-air, pulling the man off-balance
  against the seats.
  Once again Yamagata recovered fast enough to pull away, expecting
  McGarvey to hesitate for just a split second, as most fighters would.
  Time enough to reverse direction and get inside the opponent's reach.
  Yamagata turned back at the same instant McGarvey's roundhouse blow hit
  him squarely on the chin, breaking his jaw and knocking him nearly off
  his feet.
  Still he had no real idea what he was up against. He managed to bat
  McGarvey's left jab away and tried to kick for the kneecap, when MeGarvey
  smashed a karate blow to the bridge of his nose, shattering the bone and
  tearing the cartilage loose.
  "fie!" Yamagata screamed, blood and bits of teeth expelling from his
  mouth.
  "I don't like bullies," McGarvey growled, and he smashed the heel of his
  right hand upward against the bottom of Yamagata's nose, driving the
  broken bones and cartilage into the Japanese's brain, killing him
  instantly.

 "The advantage could turn out to be ours," SUR Director Karyagin told
 President Yeltsin. "But the situation is extremely fluid."
  They were alone for a moment in an antechamber outside the Kremlin's
  situation room. Karyagin, who'd just arrived, was agitated.
  "This was not the response we expected," Yeltsin said. He'd approved the
  attack on Wakkanai against his better judgment because he'd seen the
  military logic of the situation. The Japanese were at long last starting
  to flex
 808 DAVID HAGBERG

 their considerable military muscle. Each success would spur them to
 greater adventures. Each failure would give them pause. For more reasons
 than anyone could count, the Russian Pacific Fleet was a shadow of its
 former self. There was much at stake including national honor and
 prestige.
 "Because we didn't have all the facts, Mr. President."
 "What have you learned?"
 "The Japanese want war with the United States."
 "Nonsense!"
  "On the contrary, Mr. President. In fact, it has already started under
  the code name Morning Star, and we have played a vital role toward
  ensuring Japan's success."
  Yeltsin tried to find the advantage Karyagin was seeking with such a
  preposterous lie. But he couldn't. "What do you mean?"
  "Our Tokyo asset Abunai figured out that the attack against the American
  air traffic control system was just one element of a much larger plan.
  President Lindsay and his advisers believe the Japanese did it, but they
  have no hard proof. It enables Prime Minister Enchi to deny any
  involvement."
 "But the Americans will suspect he is lying."
  "For the moment," Karyagin said. "But as soon as any serious fighting
  erupts between them, the Americans will call it off. They still have
  guilty consciences over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And President Lindsay is
  a moderate."
  "You're not making sense. The Japanese could not possibly win."
  "But they can and will, Mr. President. All they want is a concession from
  the United States to leave the western Pacific to Japanese business, and
  the Japanese navy. Not such a big price to pay for peace. Lindsay will
  agree."
  "What part are we playing in this scenario of yours, Aleksandr
  Semonovich?"
  "The Japanese forced us into attacking them so that they would have an
  excuse to mobilize their defense forces."
                HIGH FLIGHT 809

 "What do you recommend?"
 "Press the attack against Japan."
 "What are you talking about?"
  "We've served Japan's purpose by striking against one of its radar
  stations. Now we're supposed to back off. I think we should attack in
  force."
 "Then the Americans will help them."
  Karyagin shook his head. "I would agree with you, Mr. President, except for
  one overriding consideration. The Japanese navy has been ordered to contain
  the U.S. Seventh Fleet within Tokyo Ba~i It is a clear act of aggression."
 "But why would Enchi give such an order?"
  "Because he does not know who his enemies are. He is simply defending his
  country to the best of his abilities."
 "It is confusing."
  "Yes, Mr. President. And the confusion can be turned to our advantage. If
  Japan is forced to relinquish her plans for expansion, it will give us at
  least twenty years of breathing room in which to consolidate and strengthen
  the commonwealth."
 "You recommend that we attack Japan," Yeltsin said.
  "Yes, Mr. President. While the advantage is still ours."

 The P-3C ASW patrol aircraft climbed out of five thousand feet over the East
 China Sea so that it would be well above the surface clutter that might
 confuse a targeting radar. They wanted the oncoming Japanese
 fighter/interceptors out of Tanegashima to be crystal clear that they were
 heading away from the area.
  They were running low on fuel, so it was about time to turn back to Foster
  anyway. But Fred White felt odd about ducking a fight, even if it involved
  an ally. Something screwy was going on. One of their ships was in trouble
  on the surface, but all Seventh ordered up was a single sub-killer with no
  backup.
 "They're turning away," the ELINT officer said.
 "Did you establish comms?" White asked.
 810 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Skipper, we tried, but they didn't answer on any of their tactical
  frequencies."
 "Okay. Keep a sharp eye."
  "What the hell is going on?" White's co-pilot, Lieutenant, j.g., John
  Littlemore, asked.
  "Beats me. I'd just like to see us start kicking some ass. 11
 "Yeah, right. Against the Japanese."

 Tony Benson, skipper of the George Washington, and his XO, Lieutenant
 Commander Paul Horvat, were waiting in the captain's ready room when Admiral
 Ryland and his chief of operations, Tom Byrne, arrived. The nuclear aircraft
 carrier had turned into the wind, ready to launch her aircraft when the
 order was given.
  "We're at minimums, but the weather is supposed to hold or improve slightly
  over the next six hours, so we should be okay," Benson said. He was a
  slightly built wire-haired terrier of a man.
  "What's the latest from Mike Hanrahan?" Ryland asked. Horvat handed him a
  cup of coffee.
  "He's been damaged, but he says he's still operational. Can you tell me
  what the hell is going on, Al? The ASDF scrambled at least four Hornets out
  of Tanegashima and chased one of our Orions off station. Gene Hagedorn is
  waiting for word. He wants to put up a squadron of sixteens. It'd been
  screening for Okinawa. Can't say as I blame him."
  "We're not going to war with the Japanese," Ryland said. "But we are going
  to defend ourselves."
  "The MSDF on Hokkaido has been ordered to DEFCON ONE."
 "What about their air force?"
  "Intel couldn't say, but I'm assuming the order included all their northern
  commands."
  "Makes sens~p,if they're expecting further attacks from the Russians,"
  Horvak suggested.
 "Any answer from Admiral Shimikaze?"
 "No," Benson said. "But in about fifteen minutes the
                HIGH FLIGHT 811

 majority of our fleet is going to come head to head with the Forty-first.
 What do we tell them?"
  "They're to proceed unless challenged, in which case they're to stand
  by."
 Benson raised his eyebrows.
  "We're going to stabilize that situation first, before we do anything
  else, Tony," Ryland said. "In the meantime I want you to make best speed
  possible to the north. In a few hours we can be in position to carry on
  operations from Tokyo Bay all the way north to the Soya Strait."
 "Like I said, Al, what's going on?" Benson said.
  "I don't know yet. I don't think anybody does. So we're going to wait
  until we find out. In the meantime, I want another Orion on station over
  the Thorn, and tell Hagedorn he can scramble one squadron, but I want
  them to keep station fifteen minutes out from the Thorn. "
  Horvak lifted the phone on the desk and issued the orders.
  "How about some breakfast?" Benson asked. "We won't be needed on the
  bridge for several hours."
 "Just coffee," Ryland said. "I talked to the President."
 "How'd he sound?"
 "Confused, but in control."
  Benson managed a slight grin. "That's something anyway." He got serious.
  "I heard you lost some people at HQ."
  "Tony, that's the part I understand the least. I think that no matter
  what happens it's time for us to get out of Japan."
 "I hope it doesn't become a moot point, Al."

 "Bridge, sonar, we have a positive contact," the Thorn's chief sonar
 operator Ed Zwicka said. "Depth two hundred feet, bearing zero-eight-five.
 I have hull popping noises ... she's on the way up. Turning now inboard
 ... bearing changing to zero-eight-zero ... speed six knots."
 812 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Roger," Hanrahan said. "CIC, bridge. Don, how's it look to the north?"
  "The bogies are gone, but so is the Orion. Seventh advises us to stand
  by."
 "Is the admiral aboard the George Washington?"
 "Last word I got, he was en route."
  "Means we're on our own out here for the time being." Hanrahan glanced
  over at his XO braced against the plotting board. They had a job to do,
  and he was going to do it. "Prepare to launch ASROC one and two on my
  signal."
  "Goddammit, Mike, are you sure about this?" Sattler demanded.
  "Give me a firing solution, Don, or relieve yourself of duty."
  Ryder and the others on the bridge were looking at Hanrahan. The growler
  phone was silent. Sattler finally answered.
  "Aye, aye, Skipper. Recommend we turn right to new course
  one-niner-zero."

 "Kan-cho, we have Target Motion Analysis on ZeroNine," the Samisho's
 weapons control officer, Lieutenant Shuichlyo Takasaki, said.
  A great serenity had come over Kiyoda. His crew could see it, and they
  were at ease. They understood.
 "Open doors one and two."
  "Yo-so-ro, opening doors one and two," Minori answered.
 "Check weapons visually."
 "Yo-so-ro. "
  They would be firing on the way up from a depth of under thirty meters.
  Since the Samisho's mast-mounted sensors and periscopes were inoperative
  they would rely on the SQS-36 attack sonar for final range and bearing
  to target. The data would be entered automatically into the
  Japanese-designed GRX-2(2) torpedoes' guidance systems.
 "Weapons in place and armed," Minori reported.
 "Very well. Ping once for range and bearing, and a
                HIGH FLIGHT 813

 second time for verification, then launch. No further authority
 necessary," Kiyoda said, his gut tightening despite his resolve.
 The sonar went active for two pings.
  "Target data entered," Takasaki said. "Launch one. Launch two."
  The Samisho shuddered as the two torpedoes were launched.

 "Bridge, sonar, two torpedoes incoming," Zwicka shouted. "GRX."
 "Give me a bearing," Hanrahan replied.
 "On our port bow, low, on the way up!"
 "Helmsman, make your rudder amidships."
 "Aye, rudder amidships."
 "Ring for all ahead slow."
  The Japanese torpedo was very fast and accurate, but its warhead was
  small, less than one hundred fifty pounds of high explosive. With a hit
  on the Thorn's heavily plated bow they stood a good chance of surviving.
  The torp had one other weakness: it was guided by its own sonar.
  "Launch sound-producing canisters aft," Hanrahan ordered. "Bridge, sonar.
  Go active with the bow unit. Hit them with everything we've got."
  "Sonar, aye," Zwicka responded. "Time to impact ten seconds."
  "Brace yourselves," Hanrahan shouted. "Prepar~ to launch ASROC one and
  two on my order."
  "If we lose our bow sonar we'll be blind," Sattler warned.
 "Time to impact, seven seconds."
  "The Barbey and Cook can give us targeting data," Hanrahan said.
  "We're bow on," Zwicka reported. "One of the torps is turning away ...
  it's definitely taking the bait! Now four seconds to impact on two."
  Hanrahan wedged himself against the radar console. The explosion hammered
  -them, shoving their bows
 814 DAVID HAGBERG

 fifteen feet to starboard and momentarily stopping them dead in the water
 "Damage reports," Hanrahan shouted.

 "Detonation on number two," the Samisho's chief sonarman Tsutomu Nakayama
 reported unnecessarily. They'd all heard the explosion. "Number one is a
 definite miss!"
  "Come right to two-seven-zero degrees," Kiyoda ordered. "Crash dive the
  boat. Make your depth six hundred meters."

 "The thermocline is at three hundred meters, Kan-cho,
 Minori pointed out. "In our condition I do not think we can survive beyond
 that depth. Recommend we level off at three hundred fifty meters."
 Kiyoda walked back to sonar. "Was it a good hit?"
  "On the bow, Kan-cho, " Nakayama said. "But I don't hear any breakup
  noises."
 "Are they searching for us?"
  "Their sonar is silent, but Sierra-Zero-Four and -Five have us."

 "We have target acquisition from Barbey, " Sattler reported. "Cook
 confirms. Skipper, she's diving fast."
 "Can we fire on their data?" Hanrahan asked.
 11 Aye."
  Ryder came across the bridge and pulled Hanrahan aside. "Mike, we've got
  a hole in our bow, and we've taken casualties. We need to break off and
  turn downwind, or we're in danger of sinking."
 "The sonofabitch attacked us."
 "If he shoots again we might not be so lucky!"
  "We're a U.S. warship, and we will defend ourselves. That's from
  Seventh."
 "Goddammit . . ."
  "Either you're with me or against me, X!" Hanrahan shouted angrily.
  "Which is it?"
 Ryder backed off. "You're the boss."
                HIGH FLIGHT 815

  Hanrahan keyed the growler phone. "Fire ASROC one, fire ASROC two."
  The eight-tube anti-submarine rocket launcher was on the deck just
  forward of the bridge. The weapons launched one after the other on long
  trails of fire and smoke. At a pre-set distance from two thousand to
  eleven thousand yards out, the Mark 46 acoustic homing torpedo would
  detach itself from the rocket and splash down.
  "Bridge, CIC. Estimate we'll lose the target in ninety seconds if she
  continues to dive."
  Too late, Hanrahan said to himself. They'd waited too long. "Follow it
  down," he told Sattler. "Maybe we'll get lucky."
  "If we miss, he'll run," Ryder said. "He's hurt. He won't come back
  against three-to-one odds."
  "Yes, he will," Hanrahan replied. "And we'll be waiting for him."

 "Two torpedoes in the water, eight thousand meters to starboard and
 fading," Nakayama reported.
  The Samisho was sharply down at the bow. Everyone in the conn was holding
  on to something for support.
 "Have they found us?"
 "Iie, Kan-cho. "
  "We are passing beneath the thermocline," the diving officer said.
  Kiyoda looked across at Minori. "Level off at six hundred meters, then
  shut down all non-essential systems. Bring life support to forty
  percent."
  "We could make the run around Okinerabu and surface for repairs," Minori
  suggested.
  "No," Kiyoda replied, and he turned and headed back to his compartment.

 The Fair Winds lay ahull. Stripped of sails, her tiller lashed hard to
 starboard, her bows were held forty-five degrees off the wind so that she
 slowly skidded down the waves, making a half knot to leeward.
 816 DAVID HAGBERG

  Liskey steadied himself against the boom gallows as he scanned the
  horizon to the west through binoculars. He and Carol had been below to
  get some rest when they'd heard the explosion. They'd scrambled topside
  in time to see what looked like a pair of rockets taking off.
  Now there was nothing but blackness to the west, although the eastern
  horizon was gray.
 "What was it?" Carol shouted.
 "I'm not sure. Maybe cruise missiles."
  " That was one of our ships. Are we fighting the Japanese?"
  "Damned if I know, Carol. But it sure as hell isn't an exercise in this
  weather."
  Carol glanced at the apparent wind indicator. "The wind is dropping.
  Let's put up the trysail and storm jib and get out of here."
 "Not yet. I want to see what happens."
 "Downwind."
 "The islands are downwind," Liskey said.
 "A beam reach, then. Back to Okinawa."
  "We don't know what's out there. We're okay here for the time being."
 "Okay?" she cried.
  "Easy," Liskey said. "Whatever it was, the shooting has stopped, and
  we're drifting away from it. We'll be okay here, trust me."
 Carol looked into his eyes. "I do," she said, shakily.

 It was late. John Whitman was alone in his office for the moment, watching
 CNN, one part of his mind tying to figure out what had gone wrong. The
 mistakes he'd made over the past couple of weeks were enough to fill a
 hard disk drive. Trouble was none of them had ever understood what they
 were facing. And the call from Gary Topper, the Guerin pilot, had done
 nothing but muddy the waters. Adkins was apparently no longer running
 operations at Langley, and Howard Ryan was unavailable, but Whitman left
 a message for him. Nothing made sense.
 One of his clerks came in with a message from Dulles.
                HIGH FLIGHT 817

 The Guerin TransStar had just touched down. Two of Whitman's people, Special
 Agents Mark Lusk and Don Harrington, were standing by with a half-dozen D.C.
 cops to take McGarvey into custody. "Even if you have to bring hl m in a
 body bag, do it," he'd told them.
  Whitman called upstairs to the assistant director's office. "They just
  touched down."
 "Did you call the FAAT' Wood asked.
 "Yes, sir. The fleet is being grounded."
 "Call me when they get here," Wood said.
 11W'll do."
  A call came in. "Mr. Whitman, this is Special Agent Newton, I'm in
  Hereford, Maryland. It's Mueller again. He offed a Maryland Highway Patrol
  cop a few miles from here."
 "Tell me you have him."
  "No, sir. Pennsylvania Highway Patrol thought it spotted him, but we just
  got word from New York that he's been seen north of Elmira. They're setting
  up roadblocks."
 "How'd he get that far?"
  "Well that's the problem, Mr. Whitman. The shooting took place a little
  before six."
  "That was four hours ago, for Christ's sake," Whitman swore.
  "I just found out about it. Maryland H.P. wanted to handle this on their
  own, since it was one of their people who bought it. But I convinced them
  otherwise."
  Whitman patted his shirt pocket for a pack of cigarettes. He'd quit five
  years ago, but he still felt the urge when he was under stress. "You say
  New York Highway Patrol is setting up roadblocks?"
 "Yes, sir."
  "Has he got Reid and the Kilbourne woman with him?"
 "Looks like it."
  "Don't try to force the issue, Newton. Make damned sure New York H.P.
  understands that they're dealing with a professional. You make damned sure
  you understand."
 818 DAVID HAGBERG

 "I hear you, sir. Nobody is going to take a chance."
  Whitman's other line rang. It was Special Agent Mark Lusk.
 "We're just leaving the airport."
 :'Any trouble?"
 'McGarvey's cooperating for now."
 'What about the Japanese?" Whitman asked.
 'He's dead."

 The ride from Dulles seemed to take forever. It had begun to snow and the
 roads were slippery, but there wasn't much traffic, so they made good
 time, Lusk driving and McGarvey and Harrington in the back seat. They were
 bracketed front and back by D.C. cops, lights flashing and sirens wailing.
 Lusk pulled up at the Tenth Street entrance to the J. Edgar Hoover
 Building, and McGarvey was hustled upstairs to a fifth-floor conference
 room, where Whitman waited with Kenneth Wood and a steno. The guard at the
 door was armed.
 "At long last, Mr. McGarvey," Whitman said.
 "Are you John Whitman?"
 "That's right . . ."
  "Have your people picked up Edward Reid or Bruno Mueller yet?"
  41 1 think we'll ask the questions here," Wood said, motioning for the
  steno to begin, and for McGarvey to take a seat.
  "Unless I miss my guess the President is in the White House situation
  room trying to figure out why the Japanese attacked us, and how to avoid
  an all-out war."
 "We'll get to that in due time."
  If you don't listen to me right now, it'll be the biggest fucking mistake
  of your life. The Japanese didn't bring down our airplanes this time.
  Reid and Mueller did it through a company called InterTech."
 'Sonofabitch," Whitman said. He looked at Wood.
 'What do you have?" McGarvey asked.
  "We think all of Guerin's 522s have been sabotaged. We got that from you.
  But the triggering signals were sent through InterTech to a series of
  devices that were
                HIGH FLIGHT 819

 planted at the eight airports, plus Andrews. The signals were generated in
 Tokyo, we know that for sure, but the repeaters were not Japanese-made."
  "A computer hacker could have set up the signal transfer to make it look
  like it came from Tokyo."
 "It was confirmed from NSA."
 "For Christ's sake, John," Wood warned.
 "What do you have on Reid and Mueller?"
  "Even if they are involved, they're working for the Japanese," Wood said.
  "A Japanese zaibatsu called Mintori Assurance sabotaged the fleet. They
  brought the American Airlines flight down in '90, and they were going to
  bring down a few others over the next couple of years. But not this time."
  "This is crazy," Wood shouted angrily. "You've been directly linked to I
  don't know how many murders. You've had meetings with Japanese spies and
  Russian spies, and the CIA thinks you should be shot on sight."
 "You've seen my file."
 "You're damned right we have!"
 "Then what would I have to gain?"
  "Frankly I don't know, yet. That's why you were arrested."
  "I called you, remember?" McGarvey said. "Unless you want a lot more people
  killed, you'd better cooperate with me."
 "Jesus Christ!" Wood swore.
  "If it was Reid and Mueller, how did they do it, and why?" Whitman asked.
  "I don't know. But Reid has the answers, if we can get to him in time, and
  convince the President."
  "Put him downstairs, and get an interrogation team in here. Maybe they can
  get the truth out of him," Wood ordered.
  "Just a minute, sir," Whitman cautioned. "What if he's right?"
 "He's a murderer. Even the CIA cut him loose."
  "But what if he's right? Can we afford to take the chance now?"
 820 DAVID HAGBEIRG .

 Wood was fuming, but he said nothing.
  Whitman turned back to McGarvey. "Reid and Mueller are in upstate New
  York right now. They're probably going to try for the Canadian border."
 "How many people has Mueller already killed?"
  Whitman hesitated. "A pair of our agents in front of Reid's place, two
  Japanese nationals in what appeared to be a surveillance van, and a
  Maryland Highway Patrol cop. New York H.P. is setting up roadblocks, but
  they're taking it easy because of the woman."
 MeGarvey went cold. "Dominique Kilbourne?"
 "Yes. 1~

  McGarvey looked away for the moment. Mueller would know that Reid was
  under suspicion by the FBI as well as the Japanese, but he would protect
  his benefactor because running and hiding took money. But why take
  Dominique?
  "Would Reid know that I was involved in the investigation?" McGarvey
  asked.
 "It's possible."
  He should have killed her. She was excess baggage. She would slow him
  down. Almost impossible to get across a border with a hostage. Too many
  things could go wrong.
 "What is it?"
  "He knows that he's lost, so he's willing to exchange Reid and the woman
  for me."
 "Do you know him?"
  "He's one of the ones who killed an old friend of mine in Paris a few
  years ago. He'll think I want to settle an old score."
  Wood shook his head. "What the hell are you talking about?"
  "There's no place for him to go. Has he switched cars since he killed the
  highway patrol officer?"
  "Presumably not," Whitman said, understanding dawning in his eyes.
  "You're talking about some high-noon standoff", Wood said. "You're
  crazy."
 McGarvey thought about it. Compared to the Ken-                HIGH FLIGHT 821

 nedys and Socrates and Kilbournes of the world he probably was.
  "Have the local cops isolate them until you can fly me up there."
 Wood was speechless.
  "You want answers that only Reid can give you. But you'd better make up
  your mind, before it's too late."

 After a few hours sleep on Okinawa while his Orion P-3C was refueled, Fred
 White's eyes were gritty, but he was alert. So was his entire crew. Shots
 had been exchanged between the Thorn and the Sarnisho, and Seventh was
 taking the situation very seriously. The Japanese sub-driver was probably
 crazy, and it had everyone worried.
  Kadena had sent out a squadron of F- 16/9 1 As, designated Charlie-Seven,
  which were on station keeping, in relays, one hundred miles south. They
  were seriously crowding the fifteen-minute separation order-in fact at
  Mach two they could be overhead in a little more than four minutes-but
  nobody was complaining.
  They'd found nothing on MAD in a dozen sweeps over a grid ten miles on
  a side, so White had dropped to within two hundred feet of the surface
  and throttled back to deploy dipping sonobuoys. Either the sub had bugged
  out, or it was hiding beneath the seasonal thermocline, which around here
  was at about nine hundred feet.
  "We've got company," Ensign Gifford said. "Two bogies in the air, bearing
  zero-one-zero. They have us on radar."
 "Tanegashima?" White asked.
  "Definitely F/A-18s, estimated closure speed above Mach one-point-five."
 "Sonar, have you got contact yet?"
 "Negative, the buoy is still deploying."
  "I have a definite weapons radar lock," Gifford reported excitedly.
  "Skipper, they have us."
 "Get that off to Charlie-Seven."
 "Aye, aye," Lieutenant Littlemore said.
 822 DAVID HAGBERG

 "How far out are they?"
  "Forty miles ... Skipper, they've launched missiles! Two missiles
  incoming, same bearing!"
 "Deploy ECMs!" White shouted.

 "Home Plate, this is Charlie-Seven leader."
  "Charlie-Seven leader, Home Plate, we've monitored the transmission. You
  are authorized to engage. Splash them."
  "Roger," Lieutenant Todd Kraus said. "Let's go, Gene," he radioed his
  wingman.
  Kraus hauled his aircraft.left in a seven G turn, hit the afterburners,
  then set the weapons selector on his stick to the new Hughes AIM-140
  air-to-air missile. He activated his target-detection radar, but they
  were still too far out for a positive lock. The Orion was probably as
  good as dead, but the two bogies wouldn't survive either.

 'I have a positive contact," the Orion's sonarman reported. "Depth two
 thousand feet ... sounds quiet ... she's just lying there."
  "Get that off to the Thorn, " White ordered. He slammed the throttles
  full forward and forced the nose of the big four-engine ASW aircraft
  down. Their only chance of survival was to fly so low to the waves that
  the incoming missiles' targeting radar would be confused by the surface
  clutter. It was a long shot.
  "Oh, shit . . ." Gifford shouted. A split second later the Orion exploded
  in a ball of flames.

 "The Orion is splashed," Sattler reported excitedly from CIC.
 "Charlie-Seven has orders to engage!"
  "Have we got the targeting data on Chrysanthemum?" Hanrahan demanded. His
  blood was singing.
 "Roger that."
  "Program two Captors for zero delay at two thousand feet and launch
  immediately." The Captor, or Encapsulated Torpedo, consisted of a Mark
  46 Mod 4 torpedo housed in a tube. It was designed to sit on the ocean
  floor
                HIGH FLIGHT 823

 and, using its passive sonar, watch for traffic. When a submarine was
 identified the sonar system went active and the torpedo was launched.
 "The data is entered," Sattler reported moments later.
 "Launch one, launch two!"

 "Shit, the Orion is a definite kill," Kraus's wingman, Gene Levitt, said.
  "Range is forty-four thousand yards. I have target acquisition on bogie
  one," Kraus replied calmly, although his heart was pounding.
  "I have a lock on two," Levitt reported. "But they're starting to turn
  away."
  The pipper on Kraus's head-up display was correct. He hit the trigger
  once, and then a second time. Both AIM-140 missiles streaked away,
  accelerating to better than Mach four.
 A second later Levitt launched his pair of missiles.

 "Kan-cho to the conn!" The battle stations Klaxon sounded throughout the
 Samisho.
  Kiyoda felt sluggish because of the high C02 content in the air. He
  stumbled to the attack center without bothering to button his tunic.
  Sweat poured from his forehead.
  "Sonar reports two objects passing through the thermocline, but we can't
  make them out," Minori reported, his voice hoarse. "No sounds of torpedo
  screws."
  Kiyoda tried to think it out. He stepped back to the sonar compartment.
  Nakayama, his head cocked, was intently listening to something in his
  headset. He looked up and shook his head.
  -ASROC?- Kiyoda asked. He had to think. His boat and crew were in
  jeopardy.
 "Re, Kan-cho. -
  "Captor," Kiyoda said, suddenly making the connection. He raced back to
  the attack center. "Launch all weapons! Ima! Ima!" Now! Now!
 824 DAVID HAGBERG

 "What range and bearing?" Minori shouted.
  "Extrapolate from their last known position!" Kiyoda screamed. "Emergency
  surface the boat. Launch the SOS buoys! Ima!"

 The distance was too great for Kraus to see the flash of the explosions,
 but both enemy radars went off the air within moments of each other, and
 his targeting radar showed a clear sky.
  "Home Plate, Charlie-Seven-Leader. Splash two bogies."
 "Many targets incoming!" Levitt radioed.
  Kraus switched his APG-88 to search mode, which expanded his look-up
  radar range to one hundred miles. At least six targets were just entering
  their sensor envelope.
 "Say again, Charlie-Seven," Kadena demanded.
  "Many targets incoming from the north," Kraus responded. "We need help!"

 "We've lost the Captors below the thermocline," Zwicka reported.
  "We had good targeting data," Hanrahan said triumphantly. "The
  sonofabitch won't get away this time."

 A tremendous explosion hammered the Samisho somewhere aft, increasing the
 already severe upward angle they'd assumed to emergency surface the boat.
 Still the submarine's extremely tough double hull withstood the hit.
  Kiyoda was violently thrown against the attack periscope, breaking his
  shoulder. He tried to straighten up when the second Captor torpedo struck
  them just below the attack center. The last conscious thought he had was
  that they'd not had time to launch their weapons when the tremendous
  pressure of the ocean at this depth crushed the hull like an eggshell.

 "Charlie-Seven, Home Plate. Disengage! Repeat, disengage!"
                HIGH FLIGHT 825

  "Roger, returning to station," Kraus radioed. "Gene let's get out of
  here."

 "That's a kill!" Zwicka shouted.
  "One down, one to go," Hanrahan said grimly. "Give me a range and
  bearing on the surface target."
  Sattler was on the growler phone. "Skipper, that target could be just
  what she claims to be. A sailboat out of Okinawa."
  "What's she doing out here, Don? Doesn't make any sense."
 "Let's give them the benefit of the doubt."
  "Range and bearing to the target," Hanrahan overrode his CIC officer,

 FORTY-THREE

 Yeitsin looked coldly down the table at his advisers. It seemed to him
 that the higher one went in any organization the less access he had to the
 truth. He wondered if President Lindsay had the same problem.
 "We are not going to war with the Japanese," he said.
  "Judging from the thermal images we're receiving from our satellite over
  the East China Sea it would appear that the Americans are," Minister of
  Defense Solovyev said.
  "Nonsense. It was an unfortunate accident. You said yourself that the
  MSDF had trouble with the skipper of that submarine. The same captain,
  need I remind you, who was responsible for sinking the Menshinsky. "
  "Yet the captain was allowed to leave Yokosuka with his boat and crew,
  presumably reprovisioned."
  "That has nothing to do with what is happening at this moment in the Soya
  Strait," Yeltsin replied angrily.
 826 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Morning Star," Karyagin inte~ected.
  Yeltsin glared at his Secret Service director. "In my estimation there
  is no directed effort on the part of the Japanese government to foment
  a war either between the United States or us. It would be folly for
  them."
  "Begging your pardon, Mr. President, but I cannot agree with you,"
  Karyagin pressed his point. "The sinking of the Sovremennyy and the high
  state of readiness of all Japanese forces would suggest otherwise. As has
  the attack on the American air traffic control system. That was no act
  of terrorism. It was a highly sophisticated and very directed operation."
  "Has the order been sent to our ships in the Soya Strait to withdraw?"
  "There has been some difficulty with the transmitting equipment,"
  Solovyev admitted.
  "The American National Security Agency has the ability to monitor our ELF
  messages," Yeltsin said.
 "That has not been confirmed," Karyagin cautioned.
  "Assuming they can, President Lindsay now believes that I am lying."
 No one said a thing.
  Yeltsin lifted the telephone. "This is Boris Yeltsin. I wish to speak to
  Admiral Aladko at his headquarters in Vladivostok."
  Aladko was CINC of the Pacific Fleet. He came on the line a few seconds
  later.
 "Good morning, Mr. President."
  "Listen to me very carefully, Stefan Mikhailovich. I want you to send a
  message immediately, by any and all means at your disposal, to all your
  warships in or near the Soya Strait, or near any Japanese national waters
  and airspace, to unilaterally withdraw. As of this moment I am revoking
  their authorization to fire their weapons. Have I made myself clear?"
  "Yes, Mr. President. But what if my ships are attacked as they withdraw?
  Are you taking away their ability to defend themselves?"
  "Of course not," Yeltsin shot back. "But we will launch no further first
  strikes."
                HIGH FLIGHT 827

 "I understand, Mr. President. And I agree with you." "It's good that you
 do, Admiral," Yeltsin replied coolly.

 Admiral Aladko gazed out of his office window, which overlooked the busy
 navy base and, beyond it, the breakwaters to the Golden Horn Bay. Japan
 was less than four hundred miles to the east across the treacherous Sea
 of Japan. In this day of modern weapons and delivery systems, it was an
 impossibly small distance. Now Japan was beginning to flex her muscles.
 This day, he suspected, would come again.
  He wrote out the disengage order and called for an aide to hand deliver
  it immediately to the communications center.
  These were the twenties and thirties all over again. At fifty-three he
  fully expected to be a part of the next war, though he did not look
  forward to it. No rational professional soldier would.

 "Takefumi-san, we are faced with another grave problem," Director General
 of Defense Hironaka said.
 "How may I be of assistance, Director General?"
  "A telephone call has been monitored between Moscow and Vladivostok."
 "Hai, I saw to the translation myself."
  "I admire your efficiency, But we have learned that President Yeltsin was
  speaking in a carefully crafted code."
 "Sir?"
  "The actual order for the Russian Pacific Fleet is to press the attack
  against the North Island."
 "This is very serious."
  "I want you to establish a communications link with Seventh Fleet
  Commander-in-Chief Admiral Albert Ryland, who is currently aboard his
  flagship, the George Washington, off shore to our east. Tell him, in my
  name, about the Russian intent. We need his help."
  "Hai, " Takefumi, who was a devotee of Mishima, replied without
  hesitation.
 828 DAVID HAGBERG

  " Your patriotism does not go unnoticed, Takefumisan. "

 "Sir, this is Morrison from Security. A Mr. Ryan and two other gentlemen
 from the CIA are here to see you. They say it's urgent."
  Whitman put his hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone. "Howard Ryan is
  downstairs."
  "It's your choice," McGarvey told Assistant Director Wood. "Reid has the
  answers, but in order to get to him we're going to have to take Mueller."
  11 We'll discuss this with the CIA," Wood said. "Have Mr. Ryan brought up."
  " We don't have the time. As it is it'll take a couple of hours to get me
  up there. Ryan will insist I return to Langley. He's probably brought
  muscle."
  " He's right," Whitman said. "I can get a chopper over here from Anacostia
  within a few minutes."
 "You're playing into his hand!"
  "I'll go with him," Whitman argued. "Ken, we've got too much to lose."
  Wood shook his head in irritation. "Have Ryan escorted to my office. I can
  stall him for at least ten minutes."
  Whitman gave the order to the security guard downstairs.
  Wood eyed McGarvey. "If you're fucking with us, I'll probably shoot you
  myself."

 Director General of Defense Hironaka walked back across the hall and was
 admitted by the security guard into the situation room. In the seven minutes
 he'd been absent the atmosphere in the room had changed dramatically.
  Prime Minister Enchi barely seemed able to control his anger. The others
  around the long polished teak conference table seemed stunned.
  "Is it the Russians?" he asked, the first warning signals going off in his
  head.
 Enchi held up two pieces of paper, without a word.
                HIGH FLIGHT 829

  Hironaka went stiffly around the table and took them. One was a
  transcript of the telephone intercept between Yeltsin and Admiral Aladko.
  The other was a transcript of the burst telex that had just been sent
  from the Ministry of Defense Communications Center downstairs to Admiral
  Ryland aboard the aircraft carrier off shore. His hand shook.
 "Can you explain the discrepancy?" Enchi demanded.
  Hironaka looked up defiantly as he gathered himself. "It is time for
  Nippon to take her rightful place in the world."
 "By going to war?"
  "It was you who asked for American help defending against a Russian
  attack."
 "President Yeltsin has recalled his ships."
  "He may have given the order to the Pacific Fleet, but they have not
  complied. The submarines remain within the Soya Strait. We are still
  under attack."
  "We will deal with the United States on the basis of truth."
  "Mr. Prime Minister, the Americans no longer belong on Japanese soil. If
  you seize this opportunity, you can drive them out. All the way back
  across the Pacific."
 "Have you such a short memory?"
 "Not as short as yours."
 "Has the past fifty-two years meant nothing?"
  "On the contrary, Mr. Prime Minister, the years since Hiroshima and
  Nagasaki have meant everything. They have reopened our eyes. We rebuilt
  ourselves from the ashes, rebuilt our cities, our factories, our ships
  and airplanes, and our economy. We no longer need to be a dependent
  nation."
 "Perhaps you are correct."
 Hironaka was momentarily speechless.
  "But you cannot believe that we are ready for such an adventure. Perhaps
  in twenty years. Perhaps fifty."
  "If you believe that, Prime Minister, and yet you are still against us
  ... it makes you a traitor to Japan."
  "No, Hironaka. It is you who i are the traitor to Japan." Enchi lifted
  the telephone. '7ma. "
 830 DAVID HAGBERG

  Hironaka looked to the others for support, but they avoided his eyes.
 "You are relieved of your duties," Enchi told him.
 "It's not over."
 "I will try to see that it is."
 Two uniformed civilian police officers came in.
  "The Director General of Defense is to be placed under close arrest for
  treason," Enchi said. "See that no harm comes to him until his trial."

 Secretary of Defense Landry put down the telephone. "I'll be damned if I
 know what that meant."
  "What is it, Paul?" the President asked. They'd been at it for more than
  eight hours, and his eyes were bloodshot.
 "The Japanese are talking to Al Ryland."
 "Did he establish contact with the SDF?-
  "Not two-way. But Director General of Defense Shin Hironaka sent him a
  transcript of a telephone call between Yeltsin and Russian Pacific Fleet
  Commander Admiral Aladko. Naval Operations Pacific is faxing us a copy.
  According to the Japanese, Yeltsin has ordered Aladko to press the attack
  on Hokkaido."
  Lindsay lifted the phone and punched the button for NSA. "Amundson, this
  is the President. The Japanese are sending us the transcript of a
  telephone call between Boris Yeltsin and Admiral Aladko in Vladivostok.
  Presurnably this call was made within the past half-hour or less. Can NSA
  help? We would like a confirmation."
  "Mr. President, we probably monitored that call. But it'll be in our
  computer system. I'll have to dig it out."
  "Do that. In the meantime have we monitored any further ELF traffic from
  Vladivostok?"
 "No, sir."
  "Very well." Lindsay hung up. How the hell was he supposed to make
  informed decisions when the information he was receiving was
  contradictory and confusing?

 Dulles Airport was in chaos. It took Sam Varelis the better part of an
 hour to make his way from the wooded
                HIGH FLIGHT 831

 field south of the active runway where Delta 756 had gone down, to the
 hangar where the NTSB had set up shop next to the hangar where the remains
 of the Guerin company jet that had gone down two weeks ago were still being
 studied. All crash sites were nightmares, but this time it was something out
 of hell. The bodies they were still prying out of the wreckage here
 represented only one-fourteenth of the total nationwide.
  The reports he'd gotten from the other teams were sketchy because of the
  overloaded long-distance telephone system, which made calls almost
  impossible. But it definitely pointed to the InterTech-designed heat mon-
  itor subassembly. His technicians had removed one of them from an American
  Airlines Guerin 522 that was down for maintenance, and they were analyzing
  the circuitry.
  Varelis parked his car near one of the service doors, and, an unlit cigar
  clamped in his mouth, went inside where a test stand had been set up in
  back.
  "The problem is the thermocouple frame attached to the engine," NTSB
  technician Mason Dillard said. "We didn't pick it up before because nobody
  was looking for it. The frame is explosive. Semtex blended with a magnesium
  alloy. A CPU in the monitor triggered it."
 "Japanese?" Varelis asked.
  Dillard looked up from his test equipment. "Well, that's the problem, Sam.
  The monitor and CPU are Japanese design. But the Serntex-magnesium frame is
  called P-4. It was being experimented with about ten years ago. By the
  Russians."
  "Holy shit." Varelis took the cigar out of his mouth. "No mistake?"
 "I.don't think so."

 "NTSB, John Hom."
  "The monitor is definitely Japanese, but what brought the airplanes down
  was an explosive thermocouple frame on the engines. Russian."
 "Sam, are you sure?"
 "Dillard pulled a unit out of an American Airlines
 832 DAVID HAGBERG

 bird in the hangar. He's sure. Stuff called P-4, Semtex and magnesium. Get
 that over to the FBI, CIA, and FAA. "
 "What about you?" Hom asked.
  Varelis looked back to the growing pile of Delta wreckage being brought
  in. "I guess I'll stay here and help out. It's a goddamned mess."
 "Yeah."

 Acting Deputy Director of Operations Howard Ryan was in love with the CIA
 and even more in love with his new title. Lawyers had to make the best
 spies because by training they had more practical sense than just about
 everyone else. This time he was Foing to nail McGarvey, who'd not only
 outlived his usefulness in the new world order, but who had become so
 dangerous he could no longer be allowed to remain at large anywhere in the
 world. He'd obviously cut some sort of a deal with Bruno Mueller, and he'd
 managed to convince the FBI that he was a knight in shining armor. Ryan
 was going to catch him in the act. It was the only way anyone would
 listen.
  The Marine VH-3 helicopter, the same model that the President used,
  touched down in a clearing in the Ellipse eight blocks from the J. Edgar
  Hoover Building. Ryan and the two bodyguards he'd drawn from the Domestic
  Operations Division, Brian Pratt and Warren Hughes, climbed aboard.
  "Where are we going, Mr. Ryan?" the pilot called back.
  "Upstate New York. Southeast of Buffalo. I'll have an exact destInation
  for you when we get close."
  Ryan grinned to himself. Two could play McGar-vey's game. He too had been
  convincing. Wood had agreed to keep him up to date on Whitman's progress.
  This was easy.

 Amundson read the transcript of the NSA intercept of the telephone
 conversation between Yeltsin and Admiral Aladko.
                HIGH FLIGHT 833

  "That's the opposite of what the Japanese told us," President Lindsay
  said.
  "Sir, the Russians know that we monitor at least some of their sensitive
  telephone circuits, so it's a safe bet that President Yeltsin figured we
  might be listening. What's not clear is whether the Russians believe the
  Japanese have the same capability."
  "So you're saying that Yeltsin may have said what he did for our
  benefit?"
  "Either that or they spoke in a code," Amundson said. "I think it's a
  possibility."
 "Still no ELF from Vladivostok?"
 "No, sir."

 Russian Ambassador Yanis Zagorsky was in conference with SUR Washington
 rezident Stanilas Soroshkin when Yemlin was summoned upstairs, He was
 admitted immediately.
  "It's unbelievable, but nobody is listening," Soroshkin said.
  Zagorsky looked up as if it were an effort. "Our patriotic navy has
  attacked a radar squadron on the north coast of Hokkaido, and now the
  fools cannot be recalled. The Japanese fear that we mean to invade them,
  and Prime Minister Enchi has asked for U.S. military assistance against
  us."
  Yemlin knew something was coming, yet he was stunned by how far it had
  gone. "How are the Americans reacting ... especially with everything
  they're facing?"
  "Not good, Viktor Pavlovich. I spoke with President Yeltsin who believes
  that President Li ' ndsay thinks he is lying. Shots are being exchanged
  not only between our navy and the Japanese, but between the American navy
  and the Japanese. The situation is very confusing. Very dangerous."
  Yemlin sat down. "The catalyst is the attack on the American air traffic
  control system. That was a Japanese operation, not Russian. Surely
  Lindsay's advisers know this."
 834 DAVID HAGBERG

  "That's why we called you," Soroshkin said. "The ambassador believes that
  you should convince Mr. McGarvey to somehow get a message to the
  President about Mintori Assurance and everything else that Abunai
  supplied him."
 161 can't."
  "You cannot simply turn your back and walk away!" Zagorsky shouted.
  "No, Mr. Ambassador. I mean that I don't know where Mr. McGarvey is, nor
  would I know how to find him."
 Zagorsky looked at Soroshkin with despair.
  "I think that you should go to the President and tell him everything."
  Yemlin suggested. "Perhaps more can be accomplished in person."
  "He's right," Soroshkin agreed. "In any event we have nothing to lose."
  "I'll call the White House immediately," the ambassador said. "Gather
  whatever materials you may need for your presentation, Viktor Pavlovich,
  and meet me downstairs in five minutes."
 "Mr. Ambassador?"
  "You'll brief the President, naturally. You know more about this than
  anyone else."

 Lindsay, Secor, Landry, and Murphy met with the Russian ambassador and
 Viktor Yemlin in the Oval Office.
  "We are dealing with a difficult situation, so I will give you only a few
  minutes," Lindsay said coldly.
  "I appreciate the difficulties you are facing," Zagorsky said. "But we
  have some important intelligence that was gathered for us in Tokyo."
 "We're listening."
  "Mr. President, my name is Viktor Yemlin. Until recently I acted as SUR
  rezident here in Washington. Several weeks ago Kirk McGarvey came to me
  for help with a situation he felt was becoming dangerous for the United
  States. Do you know this man?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 835

 "Go on."
  "Mr. McGarvey uncovered a plot by a Japanese group to sabotage Guerin
  airplanes in such a way that public confidence in the company would be
  seriously eroded. When that happened the Japanese group would attempt an
  unfriendly takeover. Our ... sources in Tokyo found out that such a plot
  indeed existed and was being directed by a group of powerful corporations
  called Mintori Assurance, led by Sokichi Kamiya."
 "Get to the point," Lindsay warned.
  Yemlin was confused. "Mr. President, the attack on your nation's air
  traffic system was conducted by the Japanese,-not us. Russia has no
  desire to damage the good relations we have with the United States."
  "Your warships are at this moment attacking Japan. President Yeltsin has
  promised to withdraw his forces, but so far that has not happened. Can
  you tell me why?"
  "Mr. President, it is my understanding that the Pacific Fleet has been
  ordered to stop all activities in the region-" Zagorsky said. Lindsay cut
  him off.
  "We will consider any further acts of aggression against Japan an act of
  war to which we will have to respond. Have I made myself clear?"
  "Yes, Mr. President, you have," Zagorsky replied. "Let us all act with
  care."

 "They were telling half-truths," Secor said on the way back down to the
 situation room. "But the effect is the same as an outright lie. They're
 obviously stalling for time."
  "We have to base our judgments on the facts alone," Murphy advised.
 "I tend to agree with you," Lindsay said.
  A message from Naval Operations Pacific was waiting for them. Landry took
  the call. When he was finished he was ashen.
  "That was about the Thorn in the East China Sea. The Japanese submarine
  has been destroyed."
 "Were there casualties on our side?" Lindsay asked.
 836 DAVID HAGBERG

  "One of our Orions was shot down. No survivors. Our fighters out of
  Kadena shot the two Japanese jets out of the sky."
 "I want it stopped now!" Lindsay roared.
 "The Japanese have backed off, and so have we."
 "Make sure," the President ordered.

 "Mr. President, we are monitoring 4 lot of encrypted traffic between the
 Russian Embassy here in Washington and the Kremlin," Amundson said.
 "Do you have a decryption?" Lindsay asked.
  "Not yet. They're using new equipment. But we think the messages are
  being directed to the Kremlin's Situation Room."
 "Any ELF traffic out of Vladivostok yet?"
  "No, sir. And the latest satellite pass still shows Russian warships
  approaching the Soya Strait."
 "Keep me informed."

 "Mr. Director, this is Tommy Doyle. We just got a message from the NTSB."
 "Where's Ryan?" Murphy demanded.
  "I don't know, General. He's not in the building, so this was bounced
  over to me."
 "What do you have?"
  "NTSB says that what brought down the planes was an explosive
  thermocouple frame on the engines. One of their engineers at Dulles
  figured it out. The frames are Russian built. Stuff is called P-4, Semtex
  and magnesium."
 "Sonofabitch!" Murphy swore. "No mistakes?"
  "I talked to their chief investigator out there, Sam Varelis. He says
  they're real sure about it. Thing is the triggering signal came from a
  Japanese-designed unit. And the repeating transmitters that were placed
  at the eight airports were of an unknown design. Could have come from
  anywhere."
 Lindsay was looking at Murphy.
  "I'll tell the President," the DCI said. "In the meantime find out what
  the hell happened to Howard."
                HIGH FLIGHT 837

 "Will do," Doyle said. "General?"
 "Yes?"
 "Good luck, sir."

"I think there can no longer be any doubt," Lindsay said. "Just a minute, Mr.
 President, anyone could have purchased the material from the Russians,"
 Murphy cautioned.
  "Isn't it also possible that the Russians copied the design for the
  triggering mechanism from the Japanese?"
 "Yes, sir."
  "We'll deal with facts," Lindsay asserted. "Fact is the incident in the
  East China Sea happened because of a rogue submarine captain. But the
  situation in the Soya Strait is definitely by design."
  Murphy closed his eyes. He was bone weary. They A were. And tired men
  under stress made mistakes. There was too much that was confusing here.
  For the first time since this all began, he found that he was actually
  wishing McGarvey were here. He was a sonofabitch. But he was usually
  right.
  "Mr. President, the circuit to Tokyo has been reestablished," a
  technician said. "Prime Minister Enchi is calling."
  "Good. Now we're getting somewhere." Lindsay put the call on the
  speakerphone. "Mr. Prime Minister, I have just learned something that has
  clarified the situation between our countries."
  "That is why I am calling, Mr. President, to explain the message that my
  director general of defense sent to Admiral Ryland."
  "We understand the mixup. We also monitored the telephone call that
  President Yeltsin made to Admiral Aladko. We know that the Russians mean
  to follow up their initial attack on your Hokkaido radar station."
  The circuit was quiet for several long beats. Lindsay figured Enchi was
  waiting for the translators to catch up.
  "The Russian submarines have not withdrawn from the strait?" Enchi asked
  cautiously.
 838 DAVID HAGBERG

  "Not at this time. I have ordered Admiral Ryland to send forces to
  monitor the situation."
 "Have you spoken with President Yeltsin?"
  "Yes, I have. He understands that it is our intention to repel any
  further attacks against you."
 Again there was an odd pause on the circuit.
  "I will inform my local commanders," Enchi said. "Now, about the incident
  north of Okinawa-"
  "An unfortunate misunderstanding, Mr. Prime Minister. Let us deal with
  first things first."

 "I have a solution on the target," Sattler reported. "Range forty-seven
 thousand yards, bearing zero-ninerseven."
  "Prepare to launch TASM Tomahawk on my mark," Hanrahan said. The
  surface-to-surface missile carried nearly a half-ton of high explosives
  to its target at more than five hundred miles per hour.
 "Skipper?"
 "On my mark," Hanrahan repeated.
  Ryder slammed down the phone he was using. "Belay that order!" he
  shouted.
  Hanrahan turned on him. "You're relieved of duty right now, XO!"
  "Skipper, we've been ordered to disengage immediately: Comes direct from
  Seventh. What do you want me to tell them?"
 Hanrahan was shaking. "Goddammit!"
  Ryder came across the bridge. "For Christ's sake, Mike, it's just a
  sailboat. We got confirmation from Foster on Okinawa. Belongs to a
  jarhead lieutenant."
 "What the hell is he doing out here?"
 "Trying to survive," Ryder said. "Just like us."

 z'00417ZFEB

 TOP SEC R ET

 TO: CINC 7TH FLEET

 FM: CINCPAC
                HIGH FLIGHT 839

I .EVIDENCE CONTINUES TO MOUNT THAT RUSSIAN NAVAL FORCES INTEND TO CONTINUE
 THEIR ATTACK ON THE NORTH AND EAST COASTS OF HOKKAIDO XXX RPTD WARNINGS TO
 WITHDRAW HAVE BEEN IGNORED.

 2.                                PROCEED AT BEST POSSIBLE SPEED TO A
 POSITION FROM WHICH
   AIR OPERATIONS CAN BE CONDUCTED IN THE SOYA STRAIT.

3.USE ALL MEANS AT YOUR DISPOSAL TO WARN RUSSIAN NAVAL FORCES OUT OF THE
 REGION XXX IF THAT FAILS YOU WILL ENGAGE THE ENEMY WITHOUT RESTRICTION.

 4.                                YOU MAY ACT INDEPENDENTLY OF LOCAL
 JAPANESE FORCES.

   xxx

   EOM

   GOOD LUCK, AL.

  Admiral Ryland and Captain Benson stepped off the George Washington's
  bridge into the admiral's ready room.
 "We can't stall any longer," Benson said.
  "Was that what we were doing, Tony?" Ryland asked. The Japanese were
  withdrawing their blockade from the mouth of Tokyo Bay, and after a brief
  but deadly skirmish in the East China Sea, the ASDF had also withdrawn to
  Tanegashima. He'd truly believed that the Russians would step back from the
  brink as well.
  "You wanted the situation to stabilize. Well, it's gone about as far as
  it's going to go."
  "What can they be thinking? There has to be a mistake."
  Benson didn't ask who the admiral was referring to, the Russians or
  Washington. "We have our orders, Al."
  Ryland reread the message. It was tantamount to a declaration of war on
  Russia. "I want a confirmation, ASAP. We'll hold until then."
 "Very well."

 Since they'd crossed the state line into New York, Mueller suspected that
 they were being followed. When
 840 DAVID HAGBERG

 they'd stopped for gas outside Coming, Reid had come back from paying
 certain that the clerk had recognized him. A highway patrol car had
 followed them for about ten miles north of the rest stop, and then had
 dropped back, only to be replaced by another for a dozen miles. Either the
 Maryland Highway Patrol trooper he'd shot had survived to radio their
 description or eyewitnesses had provided a description of the Probe.
 Whatever the case, the authorities were showing what he thought to be
 remarkable restraint. They were wary. But they were too wary, which meant
 someone had told them who they were dealing with. McGarvey?
  The roads had become slippery from the snow, which had increased in
  intensity throughout the evening.
  "If you lose control and slide off the road, I will kill you," he'd told
  Dominique, and she'd taken care with her driving.
  Mueller studied a map which showed 1-390 curved to the north toward
  Rochester in the next few miles. South of the city, 1-90 branched off to
  the west to Buffalo and the Canadian border.
  He looked up. Although it was dark and heavily snowing he could see that
  the countryside they were passing through was hilly and thickly wooded.
  A couple of miles to the west was a state park that would be closed at
  this time of the year, although he suspected there might be a park ranger
  on duty. In Europe park rangers lived through the winter seasons with
  their families in cabins. He couldn't think why it would be any different
  here.
  He was faced with a difficult decision. The authorities might stand off
  for now, but they would never allow him to cross the Canadian border.
  Even if they did, he wouldn't get far with Reid and the woman. Either he
  would have to cut Reid loose and continue with Dominique as a hostage,
  or he would have to kill them both and make his own escape. In either
  event he needed to get off the main highways so that he could buy some
  time.
  He was still faced with the problem of McGarvey, who would never stop
  coming after him.
                HIGH FLIGHT 841

  He sat forward. "Take the next exit to the west. It will be marked Mount
  Morris. About five miles."
  Dominique glanced in the rearview mirror at him. She was terrified.
 "What's wrong?" Reid asked.
  "We are being followed, so we need to get another car," Mueller replied.
 .Dominique glanced in the mirror again.
  "If you do exactly as you are told, Ms. Kilbourne, no harm will come to
  you," Mueller said reasonably.
 "Yeah, right."

 The navy pilot expertly set the ponderous Sikorsky SH3D/L Sea King
 helicopter down in the median strip within twenty-five yards of the
 roadblock. The ceiling was low, and in the darkness and blowing snow they
 would have missed the landing spot except for the flashing lights from the
 dozen highway patrol cars.
  "I'm damned if I know why we're going along with you, except I don't see
  any other choice," Whitman said. He handed McGarvey his Walther, the two
  extra magazines of ammunition, and the thick silencer tube.
  "I'll owe you a drink when this is over," MeGarvey replied, pocketing the
  ammo and silencer and holstering his pistol at the smallof his back. He'd
  worried about Dominique all the way up. It was d& vu. He'd been here
  before.
 "If you're fight, it'll be us owing you."
  They jumped down from the chopper and made their way up to the roadblock,
  where they were directed to the New York Highway Patrol officer in
  charge, Lieutenant Earl Lawton.
  Whitman clipped his FBI badge to the zipper flap of his coat. "What's the
  situation?"
  Lawton, a tall, slender man with drooping moustache, eyed McGarvey
  uncomfortably. "They should be coming up the road in about five minutes.
  Green Ford Probe. Bad guy is in the back seat. Woman driving. A second
  man in the passenger seat."
 842 DAVID HAGBERG

  "How do you know they'll be here in five minutes?" McGarvey asked.
  "We've been following them so they can't double back."
 "Show me on a map."
  Lawton pulled a map out of his car. "We're here, at the Lakeville exit.
  They've already passed Sonyea, about fifteen miles south."
 "What's this?" McGarvey demanded.
 "Mount Morris. Letchworth State Park."
 "Closed?"
 Lawton nodded.
 "Anybody living in or near the park?"
  "There's Mount Morris, and I think there's probably a ranger on duty,"
  Lawton said. "What are you driving at? If they're trying to make 1-90,
  and then the border at Buffalo, there'd be no reason for them to turn
  off."
  McGarvey looked down the highway. "Don't count on it."

 "Al, your orders are confirmed," CINCPAC Admiral Billy Floricher said.
  "I'm going strong on the warnings before I start shooting," Ryland
  replied. "They're stupid, not crazy."
  "The President has cleared it with Prime Minister Enchi. The Russians are
  telling us one thing while they're doing another."
 "There's a lot of that going around."
 "Good luck, Al."

 Captain Lestov met with his officers in the Strelka's wardroom. They'd
 hovered in silence just below the thermocline at four hundred meters into
 the morning hours. Although they knew that other Russian submarines were
 somewhere in the vicinity, their passive sonar had picked up nothing in
 the past six hours. Nor had they received any ELF traffic from
 Vladivostok. For all intents and purposes they were utterly alone at the
 bottom of the sea.
 "I think it is safe to say that although the Japanese
                HIGH FLIGHT 843

 suspect we're down here, they cannot know our exact position," Lestov
 said. Within an hour after they'd gone deep, he'd stood them down from
 battle stations missile. His officers were tense, as well they should be,
 but they were rested.
  "When we launch a missile they'll know how to find us," his XO,
  Lieutenant Commander Savin, said.
  "This close to shore would put us in a difficult position, with little
  room to maneuver."
 "We have our orders."
  "Da, Viktor Abramovich. We have carried them out, have we not?"
 "We did not completely destroy Wakkanai."
 "You suggest we press the attack?"
  "Unless we receive orders to the contrary." Savin was becoming
  uncomfortable, as were the other officers. It was a captain's duty to
  lead by decision, not by committee.
  "I agree. But we also have a responsibility to our fine boat and crew.
  We've not been ordered to recklessly endanger our lives."
  Savin nervously fingered his cigarette. "Captain, I am confused. What are
  you telling us?"
  "I am simply trying to gauge the mood and determination of my officers."
 "Captain, we are with you!"
  "Even if my orders are to slink away like a coward in the night? Before
  a fight two men are boasting; afterward only one. Do you remember that
  proverb?"
  Savin looked around the table at the other officers. He nodded. "Da. If
  that is your order."
  "If I turn the boat to the south and order full speed ahead so that we
  would be driven onto the beach?"
 "That too, Captain."
  Lestov closed his eyes for a moment. God help him, but he did understand
  Moscow's orders, as he did their silence now. The Japanese had to be
  contained, even if it took a sacrifice of good men and ships.
  "We will obey our orders," he said. "First let's determine if Wakkanai
  is still transmitting. If it is, we shall
 844 DAVID HAGBERG

 finish our attack. Afterward we will go home ... defending our retreat with
 every resource at our command."
 Savin nodded grimly.

 President Lindsay recalled the Russian ambassador to the White House. This
 time Zagorsky came alone.
  "I'll come directly to the point, Mr. Ambassador. I have ordered the
  Seventh Fleet to the Soya Strait to assist Japanese forces in defending the
  island of Hokkaido and their territorial waters."
  "We are not attacking Japan," Zagorsky said, keeping his voice as even as
  possible.
  " At least three Russian submarines remain within a threatening position in
  the Soya Strait. No communications have been detected from Pacific Fleet
  Headquarters in Vladivostok ordering the withdrawal of those warships,
  despite President Yeltsin's promise to do

 I
 so*:There are technical difficulties at the ELF transmitter."
  "Inform your government that a continued refusal to withdraw your forces
  will be considered an act of aggression against Japan, and, as our allies,
  against us."
 :'Mr. President . . ."
 'That's all," Lindsay said coldly.

 "They should have been here by now," McGarvey said, looking at his watch.
  Lawton got in his squad car to use the radio. "TwoSeven-Baker, this is
  Lawton. Where are you?"
  "We're coming up on the Mount Morris exit. Have they reached you?"
 :'No," Lawton said.
  'They turned off," McGarvey said. "Get your people on the other side of the
  park and block those roads. In the meantime I need to borrow one of your
  cars."
 :'We'll do this my way-"
  'If you crowd him a lot of your people are going to get hurt. This guy is
  a professional."
                HIGH FLIGHT 845

  "Who the hell do you think you are?" Lawton demanded angrily.
  "You don't want to know," Whitman said. "Give us a car and a driver who
  knows the area."
 "Is the FBI taking over this case?"
  "We're here to assist," Whitman said. "We want to take Mueller and the
  others alive. How about a car? We don't have a lot of time."
  "Goddammit," Lawton swore. He got out of the car. "Alger," he shouted.
  One of the highway patrol cops came back. "Lieutenant?"
  "Take these guys down to Mount Morris," Lawton said.
 "Block the roads out," Whitman advised.
  "You've got one shot, then I'm sending my people in," Lawton warned.

 The Marine VH-3 helicopter landed a few yards from the Sikorsky parked in
 the median strip. Ryan and his two domestic operations officers hurried
 over to where Lawton was radioing orders to his people.
 "You in charge here?" Ryan interrupted.
 "Now who the hell are you guys?" Lawton demanded.
  Ryan showed him his CIA identification. "Where's McGarvey?"
  "Mount Morris," the cop said. "Would you mind telling me what's going
  on?"
 "We'll need a car and driver."
 "Of course."

 "Mr. President, I think you should call Yeltsin and explain to him what
 we're doing," Secor suggested.
  "He knows what we're doing," Lindsay replied. "When an ELF message is
  sent from Vladivostok ordering their warships out of the strait, and when
  they actually leave, we will stand down. Not until then."

 "Captain, you have permission to launch," Admiral Ryland said from his
 chair on the bridge.
 846 DAVID HAGBERG

  Benson relayed the order, and within fifteen seconds the first of the six
  Lockheed S-3C Viking ASW jet aircraft lifted off the deck of the carrier.
  The Vikings would be followed by eight F/A- I 8L fighter/interceptors
  from the Peregrine Squadron. Their job would be to maintain air
  superiority over the strait so that the Vikings could find the submarines
  and kill them if necessary. Twenty minutes ago they had launched an E2C
  Hawkeye early-warning aircraft, designated Sugar Hill, to provide
  over-the-horizon contact information. It would take up station at thirty
  thousand feet fifty miles out.
  The George Washington's diminished battle group consisted of one Aegis
  cruiser, two guided missile destroyers, and two ASW frigates. The rest
  of the fleet was playing catch-up out of Tokyo Bay and deployed with the
  Thorn in the East China Sea north of Okinawa. They were too spread out
  to be an effective force, but Ryland hoped he wouldn't need the entire
  fleet. If that were the case a lot of people would be killed, and peace
  would be a long time coming. It would not be another hundredhour war like
  they had pushing Iraq out of Kuwait.
  They were a little under three hundred miles from the strait. The F/A-18s
  would make that in less than fifteen minutes, but it would take the much
  slower Vikings thirty minutes to get on target.
  It seemed like an eternity to Ryland. Like all rational fighting men he
  abhorred battle. But when one was imminent he wanted to get it over as
  soon as possible.

 "I have contact," the Strelka's ELINT officer Lieutenant Bychokov
 reported. "Wakkanai is still on the air."
  They'd slowly risen to one hundred meters from where they'd sent up an
  extremely low-profile intelligence-gathering buoy capable of receiving
  on a broad band of frequencies. Connected to the sub by a long wire, the
  device was practically undetectable by surface ships or aircraft.
 "Anything from Pacific Fleet?" Lestov asked.
 "Nyet. "
                HIGH FLIGHT 847

  "Very well. Cut the buoy loose and come left to threezero-zero degrees.
  Make your speed fifteen knots."
  "Aye, aye, coming left to three-zero-zero degrees, make my speed fifteen
  knots," Savin acknowledged the order. "The buoy is away."
 "Sound battle stations missile."
  A Klaxon sounded throughout the boat, and one by one the watertight doors
  were closed and dogged. Lestov's plan was to gain as much sea room as
  possible before turning and firing.
 "Sonar, conn. Anything ahead of us?"
  "Two contacts, bearing two-one-five degrees ... range fifteen thousand
  meters and slowly closing. Type signature looks like a pair of
  Yamagumo-class destroyers. Designate Sierra-Thirteen and Fourteen."
 "Have they got us?" Lestov asked.
 "Nyet. "
  "Keep a close eye on them, Vladi. They're in a position to cut us off."
 "Aye, aye, Captain."

 They spotted the green Ford Probe abandoned in front of a metal barrier
 gate on the park road a hundred yards from Highway 408. The highway patrol
 cop slammed on the brakes, slewing them sideways half into the ditch.
  McGarvey leaped out of the car and drew his gun as he raced the rest of
  the way on foot, keeping to the trees at the side of the road in case
  Mueller had set a trap for them.
  Three sets of footprints in the freshly fallen snow disappeared in the
  darkness down the road into the park.
  Whitman, his gun drawn, joined him. "Are they gone?"
  McGarvey held up his hand for silence. He cocked his head to listen. In
  the distance someone was shouting, or crying something. A woman's voice.
  "He'll know we're coming, so watch yourself," McGarvey said.
 "He might suspect . .
 848 DAVID HAGBERG

 "He'll know."
 Whitman nodded.
  "You take the left side of the road, I'll take the right. Whatever it
  takes, I want Reid and the woman alive."
 "I want to take Mueller in too."
  "It'll never happen," McGarvey said. "Don't underestimate him. He's the
  best the Stasi ever fielded. If you see him, shoot him immediately. If
  you hesitate he'll kill YOU."
  "Hold up, you guys. Help is on the way!" the cop shouted.
 "Christ," McGarvey swore softly. "Tell him okay."
  "Okay, we'll wait," Whitman called to the cop. When he turned back,
  McGarvey was gone.

 Ryan rushed over to the squad car half in the ditch. "Where the hell are
 they?" he shouted, holding up his CIA identification.
  "I tried to stop them, sir," the flustered highway patrol officer
  explained. "They went into the park on foot."
 "Let's go," Ryan told his two bodyguards.
  "Mr. Ryan, I don't think that's such a good idea," Hughes warned. "We
  stumble around back there in the dark somebody could get shot."
  "You wait here then," Ryan instructed. "Give me your gun.
  "Sir, he's right. You shouldn't go after them. New York H.P. is right
  behind us," Pratt said.
 "I'll watch myself. Give me a gun."
  Hughes took out his Colt 10 mm automatic. "Safety's on the left side."
  "Right," Ryan said. He snatched the gun and raced down the road into the
  park.

 Lieutenant Paul O'Neil's Peregrine Able Flight lined up with the four
 Hornets of Lieutenant Bill Gifford's Baker Flight, and they hit their
 afterburners rapidly accelerating to Mach two, passing above the much
 slower Vikings already on their way to the strait.
 Their flight path would take them along the northeast
                HIGH FLIGHT 849

 coast of Hokkaido, over Japanese air space, which under normal conditions
 would be no cause for concern. But everyone was on their toes this morning.
 The ASDF was at DEFCON ONE, which meant a lot of nervous fingers were on a
 lot of cocked triggers.
  For this mission the F/A-18s were armed with two AGM-84 Harpoon anti-ship
  missiles with a range above seventy nautical miles; four air-to-air
  AIM-9/1, Sidewinders, which used the Argon-cooled Indium Antimonide Sensor
  that was extremely sensitive. to infrared emissions of a hot jet exhaust;
  as well as the 20 mm Vulcan cannon, capable of shooting one hundred rounds
  per second.
  If the Russians decided to send MiG-31 Foxhounds from their bases on
  Sakhalin Island, or the Sukhoi-27s from Khabarovsk on the mainland, they
  would be in for a nasty fight. There was little doubt in anyone's mind who
  would hold air superiority over the strait.
  O'Neil's threat receiver pinged. He was being illuminated by several ground
  radars. "They've got us, Bill," he radioed Baker Wing leader. "Squawking
  eight-sevenseven-seven." The 8777 transponder signal identified them as
  friendlies to Japanese ground radar.
  They crossed the coast at Akkeshi, but nothing rose from the ASDF base at
  Misawa seventy miles away, and O'Neil allowed himself to relax a little.
  They'd passed the first hurdle. For sure he didn't want to get into it with
  the Japanese like the Thorn had. Their orders were very clear. If they were
  illuminated by Japanese aircraft weapons radar and were warned off, they
  were to bug out immediately. The Russians were their targets.

 "Conn, sonar. I have a possible submarine contact, bearing three-five-five
 degrees, approximately twenty thousand meters, and below us."
  "Is it one of ours?" Lestov looked across the attack center at his XO. So
  far as they knew, no American submarines should be in these waters.
  "Hard to tell, Captain. It's very quiet. I think it just went into drift
  mode... wait. Da. I have it now. She's
 850 DAVID HAGBERG

 one of ours. Definite Sierra class. She just turned right, speed under ten
 knots, and she's on her way up."
  "It seems as if we're not alone after all," Lestov observed. "What about
  Sierra-Thirteen and -Fourteen?"
  "Twelve thousand yards now, same course and speed, bearing two-six-five
  degrees."
  "Our other sub must be hearing them," Savin suggested.
  "Providing our comrades know where we are and what we're qp to, we'll be
  okay."
  "Conn, weapons. Report tubes one and two loaded and ready to fire."
  "Aye," Lestov replied. He walked over to the plotting board. "If the
  Japanese destroyers continue on their same course and speed, they'll find
  our submarine."
 "It looks like it," Savin said.
 "Then let's be quick about this."

 "Sugar Hill, Able and Baker Wings on station," O'Neil radioed. The clouds
 toward the Siberian coast were thick, but above the strait the skies were
 clear. Hokkaido was off his left wing, and the Russian-held Sakhalin
 Island rose ruggedly on his right. He was being illuminated by many ground
 radars, including the one array at Wakkanai that was still transmitting.
 He could see smoke rising from the installation twenty miles away.
  "We show contacts to your south. One commercial transponder heading away,
  the others look like MSDF Orions from Otaru."
  "Paul, ten o'clock low," his wingman radioed. "Two on the surface."
  "Stand by Sugar Hill," O'Neil told the Hawkeye controller. He turned his
  Hornet into a shallow diving turn to the left. His look-down-shoot-down
  radar picked up the targets almost immediately.
  "I got 'em," Bill Gifford radioed. "Japanese destroyers, just coming
  around the cape."
  Moments later O'Neil's AAS-38 FLIR-ForwardLooking-Infralked pod-produced
  a clear image on the Master Monitor Display on his panel.
                HIGH FLIGHT 851

  "Sugar Hill, this is Able Leader, we have two Japanese destroyers making
  for the strait around Cape Soya."
 "They're hunting. Stand by."

 "I have two additional submarine contacts, both definitely ours ... Sierra
 class. Bearings zero-one-five and zero-nine-zero degrees ... range on both
 targets is above thirty thousand meters."
 "Course and speed?" Lestov demanded.
  "They're both making forty knots, course two-sevenzero."
  It was immediately obvious that both submarines were closing on the two
  destroyers. But they were making so much noise that their presence would
  be detected.
  "The destroyers have gone active," Bychkov reported excitedly. "They're
  turning toward our submarines."
  The Strelka's tubes one and two were fitted with the conventional
  high-explosives version of the SS-NX-21 cruise missile. Once they were
  launched, however, and until they struck their targets, they would be
  indistinguishable from the nuclear-tipped version. It was a very
  dangerous game they were playing by trying to teach the Japanese a lesson
  in vulnerability and humility.
  "Open doors one and two. Prepare to launch on my order," Lestov said.

 "Able and Baker leaders, this is Sugar Hill. The friendlies are in
 acquisition of two submerged targets. Spread out at flight level
 twenty-five to provide air cover. Eliminator Squadron will be on station
 momentarily."
  "Roger," O'Neil responded. "Bill, go north, we'll take this end."
 "Roger.-
  Eliminator Squadron had the six Viking ASW aircraft. If the Japanese
  missed, they wouldn't.

 Mueller had lost his sense of urgency. Escape was becoming increasingly
 unlikely, especially dragging Reid and the woman with him. They stood in
 the darkness
 852 DAVID HAGBERG

 just outside the pool of light cast from a window in the house adjacent
 to the park's visitors and information center. Parked beneath a carport
 was a four-wheel-drive Jimmy.
  "I can't go any farther," Reid wheezed. He slumped down into the snow.
 Dominique, her eyes wide, stepped back.
  "You'll spend the rest of your life in prison," Mueller said mildly.
  "I don't have much life left," Reid looked up, and shook his head. "The
  Japanese will be blamed. I've accomplished at least that much."
 "They'll know it was you."
  "The equipment was of Japanese design. The message is clear enough."
  Mueller shifted his gaze to Dominique, and she flinched. He'd always had
  to fight this detachment in himself, the feeling that he'd rather stand
  back and watch events unfold than take action. It was a sense of
  inevitability in him that had increased since the collapse of the Soviet
  Union and the dismantling of the GDR. And the walls came tumbling down,
  the line crossed his thoughts. America was Joshua's seven trumpet-blowing
  priests. Her time in history had come.
 "Remain here. I'll get us a car," he told Reid.
  "You're going to kill the park ranger," Dominique said.
 Mueller shrugged.
  "For God's sake stop!" Dominique cried. "Hasn't there been enough
  killing?"
  Mueller smiled despite himself. "My dear little girl, hasn't your Mr.
  McGarvey told you that the killing never stops? It's our nature."
 "You're not human!" Dominique started for him.
 Mueller raised his pistol. "No, I'm not."
 Dominique stopped.
  "If you cry out, I shall come back and kill you," Mueller said matter of
  factly. "Do you believe this?"
 "Yes."
                HIGH FLIGHT 853

  Mueller turned and crossed the road to the ranger's house without looking
  back. He knocked at the door, and moments later a man dressed in a
  sweater opened it and Mueller went inside with him.

 A muffled pistol shot came from somewhere ahead, and moments later
 Dominique came running up the road.
  "Don't shoot!" McGarvey shouted to Whitman, who was in the woods across
  the road.
 "Mac?" Dominique screamed.
  McGarvey rushed out to her and pulled her back into the safety of the
  woods. She was all over him, crying and babbling incoherently.
 "Where's Mueller?" McGarvey shouted her down.
  "Back there! He's killed the ranger, and he's going to steal the car!
  Reid's back there too!"
  Whitman came across the road in a dead run. "What's going on?" he
  demanded.
 "McGarvey!" someone shouted from behind them.
  "Jesus Christ, it's Howard Ryan," McGarvey said. "Stay here with
  Dominique," he told Whitman. "And try to stop Ryan. He's going to get
  himself killed."
  "No," Dominique cried, but McGarvey pulled away from her and moved off.
  He kept to the side of the road. Just now it was snowing much harder,
  which reduced visibility to thirty yards. Mueller had made very few
  mistakes to this point. Nor had he made a mistake allowing Dominique to
  escape. He had created a diversion, hoping to slow them down. Or he had
  sent a specific message, targeted to one man. It would explain why he'd
  taken Dominique in the first place, and not killed her at Reid's. The
  thought was chilling.
  The woods ended abruptly at a wide clearing across which was a large log
  building, and beside it a low ranchstyle house, lights in the windows.
  McGarvey stopped at a picnic table. He could just make out what appeared
  to be a figure of a man sitting in the snow at the side of the road. He
  switched the Walther's safety off and raised the gun.
 854 DAVID HAGBERG

  Someone was coming up the road behind him. "McGarvey!" Ryan shouted.
  The hunched figure turned at the same time the engine of a car started.
  A second later its headlights came on, illuminating Reid, and the Jimmy
  roared out of the carport, sliding on the slippery road as it turned
  left, toward the lake.
  McGarvey raced up the road and fired five shots at the retreating Jimmy,
  the last one hitting its gas tank just before it reached the woods. The
  rear of the car exploded, a fireball lighting up the entire clearing.
  Ryan fired from behind, the single shot catching McGarvey in his side,
  just above his right hip, knocking him to the ground.
  "You bastard, you're under arrest," Ryan shouted triumphantly.
  McGarvey rolled over as Ryan came up holding his gun in shaking hands,
  a wild look on his face.
  "You're under arrest, you sonofabitch! You're under arrest."
  Two shots were fired from the direction of the burning Jimmy.
  McGarvey leaped up and shoved Ryan down, the third shot catching the CIA
  lawyer in the side of his face just below hl s jaw.
  Whitman fired toward the Jimmy as McGarvey disentangled himself from
  Ryan.
 "He's down! He's down!" Whitmari shouted.
  McGarvey scrambled painfully to his feet and trained his gun on what
  appeared to be Mueller's body lying at the edge of the road twenty feet
  from the furiously burning Jimmy.
  Ryan, hurt but still alive, was fumbling for his gun, which he'd lost in
  the snow. In the distance they could hear sirens.
  "Stay with him," McGarvey said, and he limped down the road before
  Whitman could object.
  Mueller lay on his back, his arms outstretched, his eyes open. He still
  had his gun in his right hand. "McGarvey," he said, and he started to
  rise.
                HIGH FLIGHT 855

  "You lose," McGarvey said, lanquidly raising his own pistol. He waited
  a moment, then fired one shot, hitting the German in the middle of the
  forehead above the bridge of his nose.

 FORTY-FOUR

 Many active sonobuoys in the water!"
 "Range and bearings," Lestov demanded. The destroyers had probably
 deployed LAMPS ASW helicopters. But he would have thought they'd be too
 busy with the other two submarines to venture this far out.
  "Captain, they're all around us. Must be eight, maybe ten of them."
 "Do they have us?"
 "I don't think so ... but it won't be long."

 "Has Reid said anything?" McGarvey asked hoarsely.
  "He insists on talking only to you," Whitman said. "But it'll have to
  wait. We'll get what we need from him once we're back in Washington."
  "It can't wait, and you know it. We'll take the chopper back. Have it
  brought here."
  "Listen, pal, you're not going anywhere except to a hospital," the
  paramedic bandaging McGarvey's wound told him. They sat in the back of
  one of the ambulances Lawton had sent up. "You're mostly one lucky
  bastard, but I think there may be some internal bleeding."
  "I need a couple of hours, so do the best you can." His entire body was
  on fire, and he didn't think that he could walk ten yards without help.
  But the crisis wasn't over. More than ever they needed to get to the
  President.
 "The chopper's going to try for it," Whitman said.
 856 DAVID HAGBERG

 "But in this weather the best he can do is follow the interstate."
  McGarvey closed his eyes. He'd refused any pain medication, but he
  blocked that out of his mind. They still didn't have all the answers.
  More than two thousand people were dead, and they could only guess why.
  "Ms. Kilbourne is shook up, but she's okay. We'll take her back with us,"
  Whitman said.
 "What about Ryan?"
 "On the way to the hospital. He'll live."
  "They won't listen to me, John, so it'll be up to you to convince them."
 "Convince them of what? What the hell happened?"
  McGarvey shook his head. "That's what Reid's going to tell us."
 "You hope."
  McGarvey managed a grim smile. "You're learning, John."

 "Conn, sonar. They've dropped a DLC buoy," Bychkov said excitedly.
  "Are they sending us a message?" Lestov asked. The DLC was a down-link
  communications buoy used by aircraft or surface ships to communicate with
  submerged submarines.
 "Aye, Captain. But it's in Russian!"
  "Conn, Elint. It's not one of our buoys, but they have the proper codes."
  Lestov tried to work it out. It was thought that the Americans had their
  ELF codes, but they could have shared them with the Japanese.
  "They're sending three groups. Are you ready to copy, Captain?"
 "Go ahead, Mikhail."

     X I K              11 C 6
 Disengage immediately Come to Periscope Depth
              X 3 14
     Prepare for Further Xmssn
                HIGH FLIGHT 857

 "What do we do, Captain?" Savin asked.
 "I don't know," Lestov admitted.

 From where they were parked at the side of the road in the hills above
 Yokosuka, they could see the entire city as well as the harbor and naval
 bases, which were nearly empty of warships. With the morning, the riot had
 begun to collapse of its own accord. They'd accomplished what they'd set out
 to accomplish, and the people had begun to drift away. For the most part the
 police had done nothing, but fifteen minutes ago a halfdozen troop transport
 trucks had pulled to the gates, and a hundred Ground Self Defense Force
 soldiers were helping the remaining U.S. Marines clear out the base. Dozens
 of ambulances and police cars came and went from the Seventh Fleet's
 headquarters building, while several American helicopters hovered overhead
 like a swarm of angry, but ineffectual, bees. Considering the size of the
 demonstration, and the resistance they'd met, there'd been surprisingly few
 Japanese casualties.
  "Rising Sun has won this battle, Ashia-san, " Takushiro Hatoyama said. "Now
  it is up to our navy and air force."
  "It worries me that we cannot reach Kamiya. Is Morning Star taking place?"
 "If not now, the day will come."
 "We are not ready."
  Hatoyama smiled. "No matter the outcome, from this day forward the United
  States will treat us differently."
 "Hai. "
 "Isn't that what we wanted, Ashia-san?"
 Ashia nodded uncertainly.
  "Let's return to Tokyo. I'm hungry. I'd like to have a steak and some beer.
  We'll celebrate."
 "I hope it's a celebration," Ashia said.

 They rode in two highway patrol cars back to the interstate highway where
 the Sikorsky Sea King helicopter waited for them. The snow was still heavy,
 but the navy pilot said they could get over the low clouds with
 858 DAVID HAGBERG

 no real problem. Already it was beginning to show signs of breaking up to
 the south.
  Dominique was strangely aloof from McGarvey as Whitman and a cop helped
  him aboard the helicopter and strapped him in. She sat in the rear,
  leaving McGarvey and Whitman to sit with a very subdued Reid, who looked
  like he was on the verge of collapse.
  As soon as they were airborne and headed south, McGarvey lit a cigarette
  and Whitman bummed one from him. The smoke made him lightheaded for a few
  moments. Reid did not look like a monster, just like a tired old man.
  "You wanted to talk to me?"
  "I saw them taking Colonel Mueller away in a body bag. Did you kill him?"
  McGarvey nodded. "I'm surprised he didn't kill you and Dominique."
  "He wanted a diversion. Something to slow you down. But it didn't."
  "How did you discover that the Japanese had sabotaged Guerin airplanes?"
  McGarvey changed subjects.
  "It was a stroke of luck. A company in California by the name of
  InterTech designed an electronic subassembly for Guerin under a secret
  contract with a Japanese company." Reid stopped. "But then you know most
  of that, otherwise you wouldn't have come this far."
  "Was it the engineer who killed Jeanne Shepard?" Whitman asked.
  Reid glanced at him. "His name was Louis Zerkel. He figured it out and
  designed a triggering mechanism that they hid at eight airports, plus
  Andrews."
 "Where is he?"
  "Dead, like the others. Colonel Mueller buried them in the garbage pit
  behind my country house in Sterling."
 "How about Phil Carrara?" McGarvey asked.
  "There were two of them. Mueller took them up to Baltimore somewhere."
  "Your house in Sterling, is it near the airport?" Whitman asked.
 "We can see the runways from the upstairs windows."
 "Did you cause the crash two weeks ago?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 859

  "Zerkel was conducting an experiment. But it came as a surprise to all
  of us."
  "Were you working with the Japanese?" McGarvey asked.
  "On the contrary," Reid replied. "I wanted them to be blamed for the
  crashes. I wanted Americans to see what they were still capable of, and
  do something about it before we're faced with another Pearl Harbor. You
  can't believe how politically naive we, as a people, have become. It's
  going to happen all over again unless we do something about it."
  "More than two thousand innocent people were killed," Whitman said.
  "The number will probably go higher. Remember the Japanese killed more
  than twenty-six hundred Americans in their attack on Pearl Harbor.
  They're willing."
 "But they didn't do it. You did."
  "It doesn't make any difference. The effect will be the same. America
  awakened today."
  "Okay," McGarvey told Whitman. "Call your boss and tell him what we've
  got, He'll have to convince the DCI, who's probably in the White House
  situation room."
 "It's that simple?" Whitman asked.
 "Does it surprise you?" McGarvey asked tiredly.
 "I don't know."
 "You'd better hustle, John."
  "Didn't it bother you thinking about all the people you were going to
  kill?" McGarvey asked Reid.
  "It was a lot less than would be killed in a war with Japan," Reid
  replied. "You're too young to remember the last war. Three hundred
  thousand Americans lost their lives. But worldwide the number killed was
  over twenty-five million. The horror of it is beyond imagination."
  "You were going to make a profit, weren't you?" McGarvey accused. "When
  Guerin failed, you were going to buy its stock for next to nothing, bols
  ' tering the company. It would have made you a hero."
 "Actually we would have bought their bonds for ten or
 860 DAVID HAGBERG

 fifteen cents on the dollar," Reid said smugly. "Stocks don't mean much.
 He who owns a company's bonds is the one who owns the company. You see,
 we need Guerin, so I was willing to do whatever it took to save it.,,
  McGarvey sighed to relieve the pressure in his chest. It would be easy,
  even in his condition, to reach across and kill the man. But it would
  serve no purpose. There'd been too much killing. The pain and suffering
  would continue for a very long time. This was like Pearl Harbor,
  Kennedy's assassination, and the shuttle disaster all wrapped into one.
  It was a watershed for the United States. Now they would have to end it,
  to make sure the killing stopped.
  "I know what you're thinking," Reid said. "But even if we do step back
  from a war with Japan, it'll come in the not too distant future, for the
  same reason it came in 194 1. The same pressures are building, now that
  the Cold War is over. With Japanese bases in the Philippines, and a
  Japanese nuclear weapons program because of the threat of North Korea,
  the next war won't be so easily won."
 "Shut up," McGarvey said. "Just shut the fuck up."

 It took fifteen minutes to convince Ken Wood and FBI Director John Harding
 that McGarvey had something. They patched the call through to Roland
 Murphy at the White House situation room.
 "Where are you, McGarvey?" Murphy demanded.
  "We're in a helicopter an hour and a half from Washington. What's the
  situation there, General? Have we exchanged shots with the Japanese?"
  "It's more complicated than that now. You'd better tell me what you've
  come up with."
 "Is the President there?
 "Yes, he is."
 "Does he know what I've been working on?"
 "Yes. 11

 "Put this on the speakerphone."
                HIGH FLIGHT 861

 "All right," Murphy said. "Okay, you're on."
 "Mr. President, can you hear me?"
  "Yes, we can, Mr. McGarvey. It's my understanding that you may have some
  information'for me. But be quick about it. We are in a very difficult
  situation."
  "Mr. President, the Japanese did not bring down our airplanes. They did
  not attack us."
  "We know that," Lindsay said. "We have evidence that some of the
  sabotaged equipment aboard the Guerin fleet was of Japanese manufacture,
  but other more important elements were of Russian design."
  "No, sir. That's wrong. I have a confession from one of the men who was
  responsible for the crashes. His name is Edward Reid. He worked with an
  engineer from an electronics company in California and an officer from
  the former East German intelligence service. Reid has told me how he did
  it, and why."
  "He must have been working for the Russians," the President said. "At
  this moment the Russians are attacking Hokkaido in force."
  "The attack is in retaliation for the Tatar Strait incident, Mr.
  President. The Russians do not want a war with Japan."
  "The war is with us," Lindsay said. "Prime Minister Enchi has
  formallyasked for our help."
  "Call President Yeltsin. Tell him that we know who sabotaged our fleet,
  and to back down."
  "I have spoken with him. He promised to withdraw his forces, but he
  lied."
  "They could be experiencing technical difficulties," MeGarvey insisted.
  His head was spinning. It was becoming increasingly difficult for him to
  hang on. "Think it out, Mr. President. Reid has no reason to work for the
  Russians. And the Russians have no reason to go to war with us over
  Japan. Just the opposite is true."
  "I appreciate what you've done, Mr. McGarvey. But you cannot know all the
  facts. I do."
 "I don't think so, Mr. President."
 "You're wrong."
 862 DAVID HAGBERG

 "Conn, sonar. I have torpedoes in th ' e water. Five, no six.
 Range above thirty thousand meters. They've just gone
 active."
 "Our torpedoes?" Lestov demanded.
  "Aye, Captain. Range and bearing match the two Japanese destroyers."
 "It has finally begun," Savin said.
  "Fire tube one, fire tube three," Lestov ordered. "And then get us the hell
  out of here."
  "Fire one ... fire two!" the weapons control officer, Lieutenant Zukko,
  responded. Seconds later the two cruise missiles were launched.
  "Crash-dive the boat, make your depth one thousand meters, make your speed
  forty-five knots."

 Murphy held his finger on the mute button. "I think we should listen to him,
 Mr. President."
  'I did listen," Lindsay said. "The Russians continue to press the attack
  against Hokkaido, despite Yeltsin's promise to withdraw his forces. The
  vital part of the system that brought down our fleet was Russian designed.
  And Mr. McGarvey just told us that Edward Reid worked with a former officer
  of the Stasi-a service, need I remind you, that was.de facto an adjunct of
  the Soviet KGB."
 "McGarvey knows the Russians . .
  "Are you saying that he's done a better job than the CIA? Because, General,
  you've told me that you could produce no clear evidence against Russian
  involvement."
 "In this case, Mr. President, perhaps he has."

 "I have two sub-sea missile launches," the Viking leader ELINT officer
 reported.
  "Do we have a positive fix on the target?" the pilot, Lieutenant Frances
  Kane, demanded.
  "Aye, Skipper. Twenty thousand yards, bearing twosix-zero degrees. She's
  diving."
 Kane hauled the twin-turbofan ASW aircraft in a
                 HIGH FLIGHT 863

 sharp turn to the left, her stomach tight. This was her first actual
 combat mission.
 "Holy shit! Those are nukes!"
  Two missiles had just surfaced and streaked to the south on long fiery
  tails.
  "Skipper, I confirm the launch of two SS-NX-21 Russian missiles! They are
  nuclear!"
  "Get that off to Sugar Hill, and prepare to launch two Mark 46 torpedoes
  on my command," Lieutenant Kane said. The crazy bastards. "Estimate time
  to im-pact?"
  "Less than two minutes," the ELINT officer reported excitedly.
  "Stand by," Kane said. She pulled the Viking back to the right, away from
  the coast, so that they would not be blinded by the flash. "Did you get
  that to Sugar Hill?"
 "Aye, aye!"

 "Mac, do you have Reid with you?" Murphy asked.
 "Yes.,'
  "Okay, I'll clear it for you to land here behind the White House. An
  escort will be waiting to bring you down to the situation room."
  "You'd better try to calm everybody down, General. I'm sure about this
  one. Reid was trying to engineer public sentiment against the Japanese,
  but he wasn't working for the Russians."
  Secretary of Defense Landry was on another telephone. His face turned
  white. "Mr. President, the Russians have launched two nuclear missiles
  against Hokkaido from one of their submarines in the strait."
  Lindsay was silent for several seconds. "That is a clear declaration of
  war against Japan, and against us."
 "No!" McGarvey shouted.
  Murphy realized that he'd left the line open and that McGarvey had heard
  everything. He reached out for the disconnect button.
 864 DAVID HAGBERG

  "It's a mistake, General!" McGarvey shouted. "Somebody made a mistake!"

 "The launches were clean," Lieutenant Zukko reported.
  "Time to impact?" Lestov asked. Everyone was braced against the steep dive
  angle.
 "Impact now!"

 "Eliminator Leader, this is Peregrine Able Leader. Those weren't nukes! They
 were conventional explosives!"
  It took just a moment for the news to sink in. "Does Sugar Hill copy?"
  Lieutenant Kane radioed as she reversed course in a savage turn back toward
  the Russian submarine's position.
 "Eliminator Leader, this is Sugar Hill. We copy!"
  "We have target acquisition," the Viking's weapons officer reported.
  "Stand by to launch torpedoes on my mark," Kane ordered. "Fire one ... fire
  two!"
  Landry was on a direct circuit to Admiral Ryland aboard the George
  Washington. He got the word on the missile strikes within seconds of
  impact.
  "Mr. President, they were not nuclear missiles. Al Ryland says they were
  conventional high explosives. Not nuclear!"
  The President recovered before anyone else. "What was their target?"
  "The radar station at Wakkanai," Landry said. "We're engaging that
  submarine and two other submarines that are attacking a pair of Japanese
  destroyers."
 Murphy put McGarvey back on the speakerphone.
  "Mr. President, order everyone to stand down," McGarvey shouted.
  Lindsay looked accusingly down the table at his DCI. "The attack may not
  have been nuclear, but it was an attack against one of our allies."
  "Yes, Mr. President, but it was nothing more than a retaliation for Tatar
  Strait. It's gotten out of hand. Stop it now before it's too late."
                HIGH FLIGHT 865

 "Cut that circuit," Lindsay ordered.
 Murphy reached for the disconnect button.
  "Please, Mr. President, I'm begging you," McGarvey pleaded. "Set up a
  three-way circuit between yourself, President Yeltsin, and Prime Minister
  Enchi."
 "Now, General!" Lindsay roared.
  "Mr. President, talking is better than fighting! Enough people have died!
  End it now! At least try to end it now, for Christ's sake, unless you're
  afraid to make a decisive move for once in your career-"
 Murphy punched the disconnect button.
  Lindsay's face turned red. "Let me talk to Admiral Ryland. I'm ordering our
  forces to DEFCON ONE."
  The button on the President's console for the National Security Agency lit
  up. He hesitated a moment before pressing it.
  "Mr. President, we've finally intercepted an ELF message from the Russian
  Pacific Fleet Headquarters in Vladivostok. All their submarine forces have
  been ordered to disengage immediately."
 "Is it a trick?" Lindsay asked.
  "Sir, the codes are correct. We're evaluating the order as genuine."
 The President hesitated a moment longer.
  "Call President Yeltsin and Prime Minister Enchi," Harold Secor suggested.
  "Admiral Ryland is standing by for your orders, but he'll wait. The delay
  will only be minimal."
 "The Japanese have asked for our help."
  "Yes, Mr. President," Murphy agreed. "I think you're in a position now to
  do just that."
 "Who attacked us?"
  "Mr. McGarvey gave us the answer. We'll sort out the details later. Let's
  step back from the brink before it's too late."
  Lindsay studied the faces of his advisers. Normal color was returning to
  his face. "Very well," he said.
 "We can stop the killing," Secor prompted gently.
 Lindsay sat up straighter. "Send the order for our
 866 DAVID HAGBERG

 forces to stand by. Then set up a conference call with President Yeltsin and
 Prime Minister Enchi."
  "Yes, Mr. President," Murphy said, breathing the biggest internal sigh of
  relief in his life.

 "Two American Mark 46 torpedoes have gone active," the Strelka's chief sonar
 operator reported.
  "Range and bearing?" Lestov demanded. They'd not counted on the Americans
  to enter the fight.
  "Above and on our port quarter. Captain, they are in pinging mode! They
  have us!"
  "Release countermeasures! Come right to one-eightzero degrees."
  "Conn, communications. We are receiving an ELF message from Pacific Fleet
  ordering us to disengage immediately!"
  Lestov looked across the attack center at his XO. "Too late," he mouthed
  the words.
 "They're close!"
  The torpedoes hit, one after the other, breaching -the Strelka's hull,
  breaking her in two. The forward half of the warship, containing the
  control center and most of the crew, lazily rolled to starboard and headed
  down to the bottom of the sea, her waterproof bulkheads falling like
  dominoes in a row as the pressure increased beyond design limits.

 FORTY-FIVE

 Night had somehow turned to day. When McGarvey awoke in the hospital he
 looked up into the eyes of Dominique. She smiled uncertainly, distantly.
 "Hello," she said.
 "Hello to you. How are you feeling?"
                HIGH FLIGHT 867

 "I'm supposed to be asking that question."
  "I'll live," McGarvey said. He felt stiff, his mouth pasty, his eyes
  filled with hot sand, and his head splitting with a booming headache.
  "I heard everything aboard the helicopter. What you said, what you did."
  She looked away for a moment, overwhelmed by everything she'd gone
  through.
  McGarvey reached out and touched her hand, but she flinched away.
  "They came very close to succeeding, didn't they? We almost went to war."
 "Yes. 11
  "But you stopped it. Nobody would listen, so you had to finally force
  them into it. Is it always that way?"
  "Sometimes," McGarvey replied tiredly. He wanted to tell her everything,
  but she didn't deserve that burden. He was like a soldier home from the
  battlefield who refuses to talk about his experiences, in part because
  he does not want to relive the horrors, in part because there is no way
  to make anyone who'd not been there understand.
  When he awoke briefly, she was gone, and he drifted off to sleep again.

 "Stan!" Carol Moss called urgently from the co~kpit.
  Liskey roused himself from a troubled few hours sleep and hurried aft to
  the companionway. He'd not bothered to take off his wet foul-weather gear
  in case he'd have to go topside in a hurry. But the motion of the boat
  was much easier. And the setting sun, now that the skies had started to
  clear, was red and gold and purple on the western horizon.
  "What?" he said, when he followed her open-mouthed gaze. Fifty yards
  downwind the gray mass of what he recognized was an American Knox-class
  frigate rose like the Great Wall of China. The number 1088 was painted
  on her bow, but there was no name.
  Two officers stood on the starboard wing off the bridge. One of them
  raised a bullhorn. "Hello, Fair Winds!"
 868 DAVID HAGRERG

  Liskey cupped his hands over his mouth. "Hello, Navy!"
 "Do you require assistance?"
  Liskey started to shout an answer, but Carol touched his arm.
  "We don't need any help, do we, Stan?" she asked. "We went through all
  that, and now it's okay?"
 "It's up to you, Carol."
 "We came out to sail. To be together."
  Liskey cupped his hands over his mouth again. "Negative, Navy! We're just
  fine!"
 "Where are you heading?"
 "South."
  One of the officers ducked back onto the bridge for a few moments. When
  he came back he took the bullhorn. "The weather is clearing. Long-range
  forecast looks good. Do you need any supplies?"
 "No, thanks!"
 "Good sailing, Fair Winds."
  "Thank you," Liskey shouted. "Can you tell us what happened this
  morning?"
  The officers heard him, he was sure of it, but they didn't answer, and
  the frigate slowly pulled away, thoughtfully waiting until it was a
  half-mile off before accelerating.
  They watched the warship until it disappeared over the horizon, leaving
  them alone on the sea.
 "South," Carol asked. "Back to Okinawa?"
  "We'll take our time," Liskey replied. "You said something about a ten
  knot breeze in a sheltered cove?"

 Murphy showed up at the hospital on Wednesday as McGarvey was checking out
 over the doctor's protests. His bodyguard stood watchfully to one side.
 It had been a busy few days, and the strain showed on the DCI's face.
  "Every time we underestimate you, we end up with egg on our faces," he
  said, helping McGarvey with his coat.
                HIGH FLIGHT 869

 "Have you come to apologize?" MeGarvey asked.
 "No."
 "Well, at least that's honest."
  "The President asks that I convey his thanks. It was close."
 "Has everything settled down?"
  "For the time being. But our relationship with Japan has been strained,
  even if it wasn't Enchi's government. We're still figuring out what to do.
  Half the country is calling it another Pearl Harbor, and the other half
  thinks it's our own fault. The disintegration of the family has turned us
  into the most violent country in the world."
 "Live by the sword, die by the sword?"
  "Something like that," Murphy said. "But how did you figure it out when
  everything pointed toward the Japanese?"
  "It was a Japanese plot. But they didn't push the button on the Guerin
  flight to Dulles. They weren't ready. It meant someone else was involved,
  and Yamagata was just as desperate to find out who it was, and why, as I
  was."
 "How the hell did Reid stumble onto it?"
 "Ask him."
 "For profit? Was that it?" Murphy asked.
  "And idealism," McGarvey explained. "He's convinced that we're going to
  have another war with Japan. He wanted to wake us up to the fact, so that
  we'd do something about it before it's too late. Thing is, I think he's
  right,"
 "Even if that's true, we won't do anything about it."
 McGarvey shrugged. "Am I under arrest?"
  Murphy shook his head. "No. But I'd like you to come in for a debriefing."
 "Give me a few days."
 "Fair enough," the DCI said. "Can I give you a lift?"
  "NTSB," McGarvey said. "Socrates and some of the others are meeting with
  the board."
  "Did you hear about Al Vasilanti? He died last night in his sleep. Heart
  attack."
 870 DAVID HAGBERG

 "I'm sorry. He was a good man."
  "A lot of good people are dead. They're still identifying bodies."
  They walked out of the hospital and got into Murphy's limousine. The sun
  was out, and the city looked lovely under the fresh blanket of snow.
 "How's Howard Ryan?" McGarvey asked.
 "He got in over his head. Thanks for saving his life."
 "He should look for a new line of work."
 "He's a good attorney."
  "But a lousy spook," McGarvey said. He watched out the window for a few
  seconds. "Have you spoken with JoAnn Carrara?"
 "Not yet," Murphy said.
 "He was a good man."
  "One of the best. Dick Adkins will do okay for us. He and Phil were close."
 McGarvey looked at Murphy. "It goes on, doesn't it?"
  Murphy nodded. "Howard's internal investigation into your background is
  finished. We didn't come up with much of anything, except that we made a
  mistake firing you over that Santiago assignment."
 "I don't want the job, General."
  "I wasn't offering you a job, Mac. I'm just telling you that those records
  ... all the records ... are being sealed for fifty years."
 "Thanks," McGarvey said.
  "Take care of yourself," Murphy told him in front of the NTSB headquarters
  downtown.
 "I'll try."

 Reid stood on the edge of the chair in his holding cell thinking about the
 future. He'd told his interrogators everything they wanted to know within
 the first few hours. But they'd recoiled from him as if he were a poisonous
 snake. He'd seen the look in their eyes. There'd be more questions, of
 course, because it was impossible for people like them to understand
 anything in more than small bites.
                HIGH FLIGHT 871

  He'd managed to tear several long strips out of his bed sheet, which he had
  fashioned into a long rope, a simple slip knot forming a noose at one end.
  Standing on a chair he'd tied the other end of the rope to the ceiling
  grille that covered the single light bulb. With the noose around his neck,
  all he had to do was kick the chair away and in a few minutes he would be
  dead. Only a few minutes of pain and it would be over.
  He contemplated his own death. Not such a frightening idea, although he
  didn't relish the idea of pain.
  But another idea came to mind. They'd not allowed him to see a television
  news broadcast, nor had they brought him a newspaper, despite his repeated,
  and he felt reasonable, requests. They were frightened of him, which on
  reflection he thought was a good thing. It meant that although they might
  not understand, at least they were listening.
  There would be more questions, more answers. And almost certainly there'd
  be a public trial at which he would be allowed, by law, to state his case.
  Twenty-six hundred people had been killed at Pearl Harbor, and the war with
  Japan had resulted. At least that many men, women, and children had given
  their lives on Sunday across America. But their deaths would be wasted
  unless he remained alive to get this message to his countrymen. This time
  he would make certain that the tragedy would not be repeated. This time
  twenty-six hundred deaths would be used to prevent war with Japan.
  Reid smiled as he reached up to slip the noose from around his neck. He
  would become their advocate. It was the least he could do for them and his
  country.
  His left foot slipped and in panic he kicked the chair out from under him.
  The pain was sudden and intense. He thrashed blindly, trying to find a
  foothold, his fingers clawing uselessly at the fabric biting into his neck,
  cutting off his air, cutting off the blood supply to his brain. It wasn't
  fair! He wasn't ready to die! He had so much to live for now! So much he
  had to tell his fellow
 872 DAVID HAGBERG

 Americans! Somebody would come to help him! They had to come now! His
 vision blurred, and he knew that he was dying. No one was coming. No one
 cared.

 The fifth-floor auditorium in the Department of Transportation on
 Independence Avenue was nearly full. As chief investigator for the NTSB,
 Sam Varelis, an unlit cigar clamped between his teeth, sat at the head
 table, along with representatives from the Federal Aviation
 Administration, the FBI, and the House Subcommittee on Aviation. George
 Socrates stood at the podium explaining how the sabotaged engines had
 caused catastrophic wing failures that brought the airplanes down. Behind
 him a slide of an uncowled Rolls-Royce engine was projected on a large
 screen. As the Guerin engineer spoke, he used a light pencil to point to
 the various critical components in the engine.
  "It'll be a long time before we recover, if we ever do," Newton Kilbourne
  said, sitting next to McGarvey at the back of the auditorium.
  "I heard about Al Vasilanti," McGarvey said after a couple of minutes.
  "It was more than he could take. He was from the old school where honor
  and fair play still meant something." Kilbourne nodded toward Socrates.
  "We'll figure it out so that it won't be so easy the next time."
 "Don't believe it,"
  "We're coming up with a redundant cross-check system. Anything fails for
  any reason, no matter how slight, and the on-board monitors will catch
  it and automatically kick in the fix."
 "If you design it, someone will find a way around it."
  Kilbourne looked at McGarvey. "They won't go through ATC either. We'll
  have that covered."
  "Then they'll plant a bomb, or shoot it down with a missile, or hijack
  the flight. If they want you, they'll get you. No way of stopping them,
  at least not one hundred percent."
 "You didn't do such a hot job," Kilbourne retorted,
                HIGH FLIGHT 873

 but he backed off immediately. "Shit. I'm sorry, Mac. You were right from
 the beginning. You and Dave Kennedy."
 "Doesn't give me much pleasure."
 "No, I suspect it doesn't. I'm sorry."
 "You were doing your job," McGarvey said.
  "And you were doing yours, only I didn't want to listen."
 "It's a problem we all have, Newt." McGarvey got up.
 "Aren't you going to stick around?"
  "I have a couple of things to do. You people know the situation now. As
  you say, you'll figure out how to build a safer airplane."
  "That's not the problem," Kilbourne said. "The problem is figuring out
  how to make a safer world."
  "That's a thought," McGarvey said tiredly. He started to go, but
  Kilbourne stopped him.
 "Dominique wants to see you."
 McGarvey looked down at him. "She tell you that?"
  Kilbourne shook his head. "Not in so many words. But she does."
 "Sure," McGarvey said.

 "Did he make a difference, Mac?"
  McGarvey sat at the kitchen counter drinking a cup of coffee laced with
  brandy that JoAnn Carrara had fixed for him. "Of course he did."
  "Are you sure? You're not lying to me? Because Phil said that you were
  one of the few men he knew who never lied about anything important. Have
  any of you made the slightest bit of difference?"
 "We won the Cold War."
  She waved it off. "So many innocent people were killed on Sunday. Are you
  saying it was just an act of terrorism?"
 "That's exactly what it was, JoAnn."
 "Funny, I don't know if I can believe you."
 "Phil did."
 "It could have been worse?"
 874 DAVID HAGBERG

 "A lot worse," McGarvey said.
  She brushed a strand of hair from her forehead, and managed a slight,
  off-center smile. "Thanks, Mac." She looked toward the den where her
  children were watching television. "You can find your own way out?"
 :'I think so."
 'You won't mind?"
 "Not a bit."

 Finally he drove over to the Watergate. He parked in the visitors lot and
 took the elevator upstairs. He'd thought about returning to his classes at
 Milford, but it wouldn't be fair to Dominique. She was confused and
 frightened, as she had every right to be. Her carefully constructed world
 had been torn apart. It was as if she'd been living in a small town that was
 safe from the real world, and one morning she'd awakened to find out that a
 mass murderer had been living next door all along.
  He rang the bell. There was so much that he wanted to explain to her, but
  he wasn't quite sure that she would understand any of it. His first wife,
  Audrey, hadn't, and she'd drunk herself to death. Nor had his second wife,
  Kathleen, understood, but she'd been smart enough to walk away before she
  was destroyed. He wondered now if he was in fact doing Dominique any favor
  by coming here.
  He rang the bell again, and then listened at the door. But he could hear
  nothing inside the apartment. It was possible that she'd gone back to her
  brother's house in Detroit. She'd felt safe there. But there were other,
  darker possibilities.
  McGarvey pulled out his gun, his stomach in a knot, and using the key
  Dominique had given him, unlocked the door. Standing to the side, he pushed
  the door open with his toe. The apartment was in darkness.
  He slipped inside and, keeping low, made his way down the hall to the
  living room. It was night, but enough light came through the big windows
  for him to see that she wasn't at home.
                HIGH FLIGHT 875

  "Dominique?" he called softly. There was no answer. He checked the kitchen
  and bathroom, then held up at the bedroom door which was slightly ajar. The
  apartment was utterly still.
  "Dominique," he called. He closed his eyes for a moment, steeling himself
  against whatever he might find. In his mind's eye he could see a legion of
  bodies in great piles and in trenches. It was like seeing a film made of
  the Nazi death camps after the war. Only these bodies were his
  responsibility.
  He pushed the door open. Dominique sat cross-legged in the middle of the
  bed. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt, and she held a gun in her lap.
  Relief washed over him. He holstered his Walther, then went to her and took
  the pistol out of her hands and put it aside.
  She looked at him, her eyes sparkling. "I wanted to kill him."
 "It's over," McGarvey said. "No more killing."
  Her lip curled. "He called me his 'dear little girl.' He asked if you'd
  told me that the killing never stops. He said it was in our nature."
 "Stop it."
  "You believe that, don't you?" she said. "Because now I do. And if I would
  have gotten the chance I would have killed him without even thinking about
  it. And I would have enjoyed it." Her mouth twisted into a hard, ugly
  grimace.
  McGarvey wanted to take her in his arms, but she was so fragile he was
  afraid she would break. He touched her face, and she shivered. "You don't
  believe that."
 "Oh, but I do. You were right."
 "No."
  "Then have the decency to explain what happened on Sunday before you leave
  me again." She looked into his eyes earnestly. "Because either you're an
  incredible cheat and liar, or what you've done with your life-what you're
  still doing-is some kind of horribly macho bullshit game." She shook her
  head, as if she were trying
 876 DAVID HAGBERG

 to pull herself out of a daze. "Talk to me, Kirk. Tell me things. Mueller
 did. Make me see where I'm wrong, before you go."
  "I'm not going to leave you," McGarvey said, hating the lie.
  "Yes, you are. And the reason you're going to leave is because you love
  me."
 "No. 1~

  "As long as I'm with you, I'll never feel safe. But when you're gone, it's
  much worse."
  "Everything will be okay now," McGarvey said. He started to leave, but she
  took his hand and held him back.
  "Not yet," she said softly. "I want you to stay, for just a while."
 McGarvey felt as if he were falling into her eyes.
 "I love you," she said. "Just for a little while."
 "It won't work."
  "We'll make it work," Dominique said. "I'll try, you'll try. Maybe it'll be
  different this time. Maybe you can stop running, and maybe I can stop being
  afraid. That's worth trying, isn't it?"
  He took her into his arms, finally, and she was careful not to hold him
  where he was wounded.
  "You love me," she said. "That's enough for now. The rest will come."

 Sokichi Kamiya sat on his haunches in front of a low table on the broad teak
 deck overlooking the peaceful garden. A slight breeze caused the chimes in
 the gnarled tree to tinkle gently. He contemplated the rock, "future" and
 "hope," as he thought about his long life in the service of the Yamato
 Damashi-the soul of Japan.
 Chi, fin, yu. Wisdom, benevolence, and courage.
  He opened his spotlessly white kimono, pulled his arms out of the sleeves,
  and tucked the sleeves beneath his knees so that he would not fall backward
  in death.
                HIGH FLIGHT 877

 WHEN HONOR IS LOST, 'TIS A RELIEF TO DIE.
 DEATH'S BUT A SURE RETREAT FROM INFAMY.

  He sat at peace with himself for a long time. With a heightened sense of
  awareness, he could hear the wind in the trees farther down in the
  valley. He could hear the water gurgling in the pond. And when the
  morning sun began to rim the horizon, he smiled.
  He took the wakizashi, which was a nine-and-a-halfinch razor-sharp knife,
  from its sheath,'wrapped a white cloth around its handle, and placed its
  point against the left side of his abdomen.

 IT IS TRUE COURAGE TO LIVE WHEN IT
 IS RIGHT TO LIVE,
 AND TO DIE ONLY WHEN IT
 IS RIGHT TO DIE.

  He plunged the knife to the hilt into. his body and, mindless of the
  horrible pain, drew it slowly to the right while turning it over, so that
  in the end he cut straight up.

 David Kennedy sat across the dinner table from his wife, Chance. The doors
 were locked, the telephone shut off, the lights turned low.
 "I'm sorry," she said.
 "Neither of us did very well. But we'll get past this."
 "Will we, David?"
 "If we want it badly enough."
 "That easy?"
  He shook his head. "It won't be easy, but I don't want to toss away what
  we had."
  "Now that Al is gone, you've got a struggle ahead of you.
  "I'm resigning. I think I can go back to work for NASA."
  "No," Chance said sharply. "If you give up now they will have won.
  Everything." She looked away for a moment. "It'd all be for nothing."
 878 DAVID HAGBERG

 "My marriage is more important."
  "Our marriage," Chance corrected, looking into his eyes. "Don't ever
  forget it. I won't."

 The Guerin P/C2622 majestically touched down for a landing at Portland
 International Airport, six weeks to the day after the air disasters that
 had brought the United States, Russia, and Japan to the brink of war. A
 huge crowd waited in the grandstands in front of the terminal to watch the
 boarding ceremonies for her maiden flight to Honolulu.
  Incredibly, in that short time, the country had gotten back on its feet,
  and many of the 2622's systems had been redesigned and rebuilt to include
  Kilbourne's redundant cross-check system. She was the most sophisticated,
  and now the safest, airplane that ever flew.
  "Al should have been here for this," David Kennedy said.
  "He knew you wouldn't quit," McGarvey replied. He shaded his eyes against
  the bright sun as he watched the magnificent machine turn onto the
  taxiway. Even on the ground she looked like she was flying at the edge
  of space.
 "We would have, except for you."
 "It doesn't stop here."
  "I know," Kennedy said, a dark look momentarily passing over his
  features. "But the next time we'll be ready."
  McGarvey looked at Dominique, and she smiled radiantly, only the
  slightest hint of fear and uncertainty at the comers of her eyes. He
  couldn't help himself from thinking that they were still so terribly
  naive that they actually hoped their troubles were behind them.
  Kilbourne and Socrates came over as the big hypersonic airliner turned
  onto the ramp and came to a halt in front of the grandstands, America
  painted in bold blue letters across her fuselage.
  "That was Al's idea, naming her America, " Kilbourne said. "He told me
  that it would mean hope, promise for the future, fair play, and honesty."
                HIGH FLIGHT 879

 Kennedy smiled. "We don't always get it right." "But we do most of the
 time," Kilbourne said. Dominique squeezed McGarvey's arm. Then again,
 McGarvey thought, maybe it was he who was naive. Maybe they were right
 after all.
  I thank the following relatives, friends, advisers, and colleagues for
  their generous, expert help in writing this book. The mistakes are
  entirely my fault.

 Peter Bagley
 Bruce Carlson
 John DelGaizo
 Laurel Erickson
 John Foggia
 Bob Gleason
 Kevin Hagberg
 Laurie Hagberg
 Joe Jerick
 Richard Martinez
 Kenneth Nebel
 Nancy Nebel
 Robert Roningen
 David Scorse
 Paul Vesterstein
 : C"       swe - Zip -