Ike’s Vulture nearly flew into the rotors of the approaching helicopter. The drone’s guidance system was capable of challenges of all sorts, wind shear, rain, even lightning, while doing things bird-like, but to spot an aircraft and avoid it was not one of them. Fortunately, prop turbulence knocked it to one side and into a dive. Its programming recognized that the craft was off course and losing altitude. It recalculated its flight path and the adjustments the bird’s software needed to reset. Within seconds, it had wheeled about, regained altitude, and returned to its pre-programmed vector. People on the ground who happened to witness the near collision, laughed and wondered aloud what, if the bird hadn’t dropped when it did, would “chopped buzzard” have looked like splattered all over Mr. Pangborn’s new toy?
The tiny five-by-seven-inch screen restricted Ike’s view of what happened. He had a sudden sinking feeling that he’d lost his bird and then what he might have to say to Charlie. Charlie told him he needed the drone back and in one piece in three days’ time. What he would say if Ike shipped him a crate full of diced Styrofoam? Nothing repeatable in church, certainly. In the next instant he recognized that the drone had righted itself and cleared the chopper’s path. He breathed a sigh of relief when the drone leveled out and resumed its preprogrammed course. He made it wheel away and “disappear” for a few minutes and then had it return following a different flight pattern.
“Something big is happening,” Sam shouted. Her voice traffic had escalated quickly in the last few minutes.
“I’ve got it,” Ike shouted. “A helicopter just flew in and landed. I have our bird changing its altitude and flight pattern. I want a peek at the passengers. Any idea what the chatter on the phone lines is about?”
“Software is still installing. Another couple of minutes and we can listen in, but right now, I have nothing.”
“Why’d it take so long for the spooks to release it? Never mind. I can guess.”
“From my experience at NSA, they are not good at sharing. Charlie can do only so much.”
“Right.”
Ike checked to make sure the Vulture was recording and resumed squinting at the screen. With any luck they would be able to grab a few usable face shots and run them through facial recognition programs. He reckoned he already knew who it would be, who he hoped it would be. If they could get the author of all this craziness on the ground and close, he could end it. Ike did not think he’d bother to wait for an arrest warrant if that were the case. All this assumed, of course, that the dots, when correctly connected, led to Martin Pangborn.
“Software is up and running. I will have some transcripts from the earlier calls for you in fifteen minutes.” Sam sounded excited. Then Ike remembered that she had always sounded that way when some new techno-goodie arrived for her to play with. She piped in the live conversations.
“Star Two is on the ground,” the digitalized voice reported.
“Star Two? Assuming that is the tag for whoever just landed, who or where is Star One?”
“Remember when I looked at the analysis of the Fifty-first Star? Someone named Drexel Franks was described as the head of it. I didn’t see his name anywhere else in the material, though.”
“You sound disappointed, Ike,” Ruth said. She had come into the room when the shouting started.
“If I assume Star Two is the second in command, Star One must be the Mister Big I’m after and the guy I’m interested in. I hoped he was the one who got out of that chopper, that’s all.”
“Well, perhaps this is the advance party.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it. From what Sam just said I’m thinking it’s more likely the real brain behind all this is smart enough to put a patsy in as titular head. That would be this Franks character. Then if there were any serious breakdown, people would naturally go after him, that is Franks, not the actual manipulator of the organization. He, in turn, would glide away into the miasma and disappear.”
“He?…Miasma?”
“I’m assuming the person behind all of this is male and Star Two is our friend Pangborn. I could be wrong. It could be the Dragon Lady, or Meryl Streep having a bad hair day, or Drexel Franks, but my money is on Pangborn. Miasma…fog, mist with an ominous or foreboding valence. Miasma.”
“My ass to you, too. Don’t go all English as a Second Language on me, Schwartz.”
“Sorry, Doc. But you see what I mean. If we are going to bring this thing to a close in this decade, we need the players correctly identified and located where we can get at them, not lost in a fog by any other name.”
“And if they all show up here, what will you do?”
“Take care of business. I will make sure they know that I know and that there are always consequences for seriously screwing around with me and mine.”
“Bravely spoken, sir. There is just one problem with that. You have no hard evidence that Pangborn or Meryl Streep, if your second guess is correct—”
“She was a joke.”
“I got it. If he/she is in fact in play, you got nothing to justify going all Rambo.”
“Evidence is a vague sort of concept, don’t you think?”
“You went to law school. You tell me. Or does your sense of righteous outrage trump due process?”
“What’s up with you? You said you wanted to put an end to this. You said you understood that bad things might happen, but you were tired of having a target on your back. You know me by now. So what is the problem?”
“I said all those things and I meant them, and I do, indeed know you. That is the problem. I also said a lot of other things over the years, some of it on reflection I am not proud of and would take back if I could. Other stuff…well. Now I am saying this to you, Ike. I do not want justice at the expense of losing you. I’ve already come too close to that, if you recall. Whether from friendly fire, bad guys getting off a lucky shot, or more likely a judge who has little or no patience with vigilantism putting you away for twenty to life, I will not accept losing you because you can do what you do. I want these monsters brought down the right way. That’s all.”
“Wow. Well, at least you didn’t drop the F bomb. I’m proud of you.”
“I was tempted. If ever there was an occasion.”
“Okay, I hear you.”
“Hearing isn’t enough. I want a promise that you won’t go all Lone Ranger on me and ruin what we have just to drop one slimeball.”
“The Lone Ranger was the good guy.”
“You know what I mean.”
“You do understand that if we play straight arrow, we might never get this guy. If the source of this continuing nightmare is who we suspect, he will not be easy to nail. People like him have layers around them like an onion on steroids, to prevent anyone from getting close. And he is connected to all sorts of powerful people.”
“Ike…”
“Let me finish. Do you remember when the financial collapse hit a while back and banks had to be bailed out and General Motors teetered on the verge of bankruptcy? Some were considered ‘too big to fail’ so the bozos who engineered that fiasco not only got a pass, but to add insult to injury, gave themselves performance bonuses for their monumental incompetence. Some of what they did was clearly criminal yet, they were too big to go to jail. So, it appears there are some people in this society who are permitted to skate on moral thin ice because they are just that—too big, too important, too connected, or too rich, to bring down. They will have alibis, fall guys, high-priced lawyers, and friends in high places who will grease the skids for them. Or enough money to flee the country to a venue with which we have no extradition treaty and, by the way, take their money with them. This guy is one of those people. He might be impossible to bring down the right way.”
“So, you will do it your way?”
Ike sighed and said nothing. What could he say? Any answer he gave would be a lie—to himself or to Ruth. There was no middle ground here.
“Okay, then. I have a pot of stew on the burner. You and Sam need to eat. You can plot and scheme with Dinty Moore. I’m going to settle for a tall scotch and water and leave you to it. Just this, I don’t like it.”