The Threat

“Obviously they’re at different altitudes, but maybe there’s not that much separation at their closest point of approach. For a few seconds the contacts merge. Especially to an ionosphere-scatter radar, lower frequency, thus lower resolution, than the frigate’s SPA-60. Then N disappears somehow. Making us think plane T is really plane N. Texas tracks T and hands off to Gallery, telling them it’s Nuñez. Gallery hands it off to the E-2, telling him the same thing. And everyone just buys that identification, no questions asked, from there on.”

“Okay, two questions,” said Bloom. “What made Tejeiro’s jet blow up? And how does plane T just ‘disappear’?”

“And why was the Lear flying without IFF or lights or radio?” Quintero added.

“I don’t know how they blew it up,” Dan told him. “Maybe put a bomb aboard?”

“They do that in Colombia,” Bloom said. “Judges, senators they don’t like.”

Dan took a breath, aware that he was skating on thin ice. “But the second contact … assume Nuñez’s plane has some kind of spook gear that vanishes it from radar.” Quintero frowned. “I know, I know … but bear with me here. Once they figure we’ve merged the tracks, they turn it on for a few seconds. Long enough for us to miss the track split. Maybe it dives away till it’s below the radar horizon. So intel fusion comes out with one bird. Which we then track across the Caribbean.”

“And vector our fighters onto, at which time they trigger the bomb.” Bloom looked impressed. “But how could they make it disappear from radar? You mean like stealth?”

“Not exactly. Stealth is just very low radar reflectivity. We’re talking something different … transmitting a negative image of the returned radar pulse, which effectively erases it as far as the receiving station’s concerned. It takes sophisticated computers,” Dan told him. “But it can be done. Given the money. Which I happen to know has been going to a French electronics company that’s been trying to sell that technology to the Navy.”

“This is all new to me,” Bloom said.

“I heard about it from a guy at Treasury who tracks cartel cash flows. I called the CIA division chief in Europe and checked it out. Turns out they’ve been trying to sell the same gear, or at least the technology, to the Chinese, too.”

“What about the lights, the IFF?” Quintero asked again.

Dan said, “I can only guess at that. Maybe a radio-controlled relay in the electrical system. They’d be close enough to make it work if they transmitted the signal as the planes passed. Tejeiro loses transponders, radio, radar, lights, everything. A black airplane, like you called it. So we read — drug smuggler.”

“Beautiful,” Bloom said. “Not only does it get the top people out of the country right under our noses, it ruins us with President Tejeiro.”

Quintero said, “It’s also a message to Tejeiro from the cartel. ‘Your son first. Then you. We can screw you anytime we want.’”

Bloom said no, it would be that only if it had cartel fingerprints on it. “Which it doesn’t. To all intents and purposes, we shot down the president’s son. Oh, it’s beautiful. And it hurts.”

Quintero said, “It’s impossible to prove. And even if we do, his son’s still dead.”

“We can’t bring him back,” Dan said. “True. But I don’t think proving we didn’t do it is impossible. Not if we can find out where the second plane went. You archive your track data, right? If we can come up with a Falcon going north, that’s going to be our boy.”

* * *

They found it eventually, though it wasn’t heading north. The Falcon had headed to Port of Spain instead, far to the east, then landed to refuel before striking out along the island chain at dawn. USNS Capable picked it up there. Its flight plan was properly registered. It was squawking a proper Mode III IFF. Quintero pulled in Dutch assets to keep tracking it up the Antilles chain: a Fokker Friendship, a ground-based radar on Sint Eustatius. “Why doesn’t he just leave this masker thing on?” Bloom wanted to know. Dan explained that if the cartel had a way to make its planes invisible, it’d be smart to actually use the capability as little as possible. Once you knew such a device existed, there were ways to minimize its advantage.

Meanwhile he fielded calls from Sebold, Gelzinis, and Tony Holt. He explained to each exactly what had happened, what he thought was going on, and what he hoped to do. Holt cursed Dan as if he were personally responsible. Eventually, though, the chief of staff grudgingly agreed that De Bari had to call President Tejeiro personally. But he wasn’t going to mention the fighters, or that the leased Lear had been under U.S. surveillance. Just that it had exploded over the Straits of Florida, and a cutter was on its way to the site.

Dan pleaded with him to present the whole picture. The networks were already carrying the crash. So far no one had implicated U.S. drug interdiction, but that was only a matter of time. Holt cut him off angrily, saying he’d make that decision.