She accepted it, powering on her headphones. “Thanks.” Her own voice came back to her in radio timbre. She popped the cup lid to see that he’d added a touch of creamer.
His voice came through on the headphones. “I checked your FBI file to see how you like it.”
She cocked an eye at him. “Very funny.” She took a sip. It was hot and technically coffee. It would do. “Why the hell is it so cold in here?” She motioned to the exposed ducting and vents that traced along the interior.
“I want everyone ready for an intercept the moment it comes.”
“How does freezing our asses off help that?”
He nodded toward the closed cargo door. “If we have to open that door, anyone not in an insulated flight suit is going into hypothermia in seconds. This makes sure everyone’s ready.”
“Where are we headed, anyway?”
“Need-to-know, Professor.”
“Well . . . as the drone bait on your hook, I think I need to know.”
“You want to know. That’s not the same thing.”
“What difference does it make?” She looked around the cargo hold. “Who can I tell?”
“The plane could crash. You could crawl from the wreckage and post on YouTube.”
She gave him an exasperated look.
He took a sip of coffee, then grimaced. “Northern Utah. We’ve set up an interception team at a decommissioned missile base out in the desert. Anything that approaches us out there will be highly suspect. It’s fifty miles from nowhere.”
She recalled the videos of previous attacks—most of them above urban areas filled with air traffic. It would have been nearly impossible to tell friend from foe in time to intercept anything in a city. “You’re really just going to put me out there, like meat on a stick?”
“I never said you had to actually be present.”
“That’s what being bait is.”
“Your data and your likeness, Professor. That’s all we need. That’s why we scanned your head when you were unconscious on the Otter. We sent the digital model to special effects artists, and they created a simulacrum of you out of ballistics gel. Painted it, prepared the hair, clothes, everything.”
“You’re joking.”
He shook his head. “You’ll see it soon enough.”
“But the spotter drone in Africa was sniffing for my phone—which got blown up.”
“It was sniffing for your IMEI. We cloned that—and your headset Bluetooth ID. Hoov mirrored your laptop, and they’ll set it up in a hangar there. We built a whole fake military research camp with generators, computers, the whole shebang, just in case they’re watching with satellites.”
“When did you do all this?”
“We’ve had the camp set up for weeks. We just needed the bait.”
“Me.”
“Or at least a representation of you.”
She contemplated this as she sipped coffee. “Then you don’t really need me anymore, do you?”
“Don’t get carried away. We still have to fight these things, and you may be of some help there. Plus . . .” His voice trailed off.
She raised her eyebrows.
“You’re a loose end to some people, Professor. I don’t want to let you out of my sight.” He gestured to the team in the semidarkness of the cargo hold. “These are the people I trust. I’ve seen how they behave under the worst possible circumstances. That’s something that few people ever get to see in a person.”
McKinney looked around the cargo hold at Hoov and Foxy laughing as they ribbed each other about something. She could see Tin Man and Mooch intensely focused on checking equipment.
“You can trust your life to these people. I do every day.”
McKinney nodded appreciatively. “In case I haven’t said it before: I really do appreciate everything you’ve done to keep me safe.”
He nodded. “Just try to get some rest.”
* * *
In the cold dawn they disembarked from the rear cargo ramp of the C-130 in the middle of a vast reddish desert with sweeping mesas, stone outcroppings, and barren mountains to the north. The sky was mottled with fiery cirrus clouds. It was beautiful. It had been a long time since she’d been in Utah—a hiking trip in Zion. This place had a similar desolate beauty.
Close by stood another C-130 cargo aircraft, this one painted in commercial livery—red stripes with a big A on the tail. It was parked near a fuel tanker truck on a rough dirt airstrip with the crew milling about doing routine maintenance. A Hughes Model 500 chopper was tied down in the distance. She’d ridden in one of those before on a heliskiing trip in Alaska. This one was painted bright red with an Ancile Services logo.