Suarez shrugged. “I imagine a lot of the support people have. Must have been to handle construction.”
Tanner shook his head, and watched her. “No. In fact, the crews have been kept almost entirely separate. There’s very little crossover. There’s Cathexis Base and its people, and there’s Forward Green and its people.”
Suarez looked at him expectantly, waiting for some kind of clue. When all he did was look back at her, she said, “So?”
“So, it’s odd.”
“Okay.”
He was an experienced interrogator and had mastered the trick of waiting. But Suarez had nothing to offer, so all she could do was wait as well.
He nodded as if he’d satisfied himself on some point, then leaned forward on his elbows. “Anyone at Cathexis ever suggest you might want to try piloting a new kind of hovercraft? Something faster?”
“Well, the navy already has—”
“I’m not talking about a piece of navy equipment.”
“Then what are you talking about, because I’m tired, I need sleep, and before that I need a drink.” She was bouncing one leg, a habit when she was impatient.
He opened his laptop, hit a few keys, then turned it so she could see. “The video is just seven seconds long.”
The film was obviously taken from a great distance. It shook and wobbled. What it showed, or seemed to show, was a sleek, low-slung object shooting across the ice.
“Do you recognize that?”
“Do I recognize what? Something going zoom across the ice?”
He laughed. “We did a bit of enhancement and a bit of informed speculation, and the best guess from Langley is that it’s a hovercraft, quite small, so not designed for cargo. There appears to be a bubble canopy large enough for one, possibly two people. Speed in excess of a hundred and twenty knots. And it appears to be armed.”
“Armed?” That stopped the bouncing of her leg.
“Mmm. Armed. With a type of Russian missile, essentially an antitank weapon, although obviously it would work even better against a tractor or a Sno-Cat or a shelter.”
The thing that came to her mind was obvious and a bit stupid. But she said it, anyway. “Weapons are forbidden on the ice. Nothing beyond a couple of handguns for the security people.”
“Yes.”
“Why would somebody need missiles? On some souped-up hovercraft?”
“That’s the question,” Tanner agreed. “Why would they? Speculate, Suarez.”
She pushed back, tilting the hind legs of her chair. “If it’s as fast as you say, it would be tough to hit from the air. White on white, going one hundred twenty knots? You’d see a hell of an infrared signature, so if you went after it in an Apache you could use the thirty mil, but an Apache’s top speed is one hundred fifty knots, so you don’t have much of an edge in speed.”
“I knew a good pilot like yourself would see it all clearly,” Tanner said. “A pilot with SEAL training, and right here close at hand. Let’s have that drink, Suarez.”
She hefted a bottle, unwound the capsule, and poured into paper cups. “Am I going to need it?”
“Lieutenant Imelda Suarez, I am informing you that pursuant to a special directive of the Department of Defense, you are hereby returned to active duty.”
“Whether I like it or not?”
Tanner raised his cup. “Cheers.”
· · ·
Sailing in the San Francisco Bay in blustery weather, Francis Janklow, the CEO of Janklow/MediStat, was not as happy as he should have been. He loved his boat in the abstract, but now that he’d bought the damned thing for two million dollars he felt as if he had to use it. But the truth was, he was just not that crazy about sailing. Especially when the wind was up so that he was constantly drenched by a spray that ranged from cooling mist to fire hose.
His guests seemed to be having a good time, though. These were a senior state senator and the senator’s much younger “assistant,” a rival CEO, a supposed painter whom Janklow’s wife was sponsoring, and of course Janklow’s wife.