Evan Mercer had built his career by being almost right.
That was Bradley's description.
"He was brilliant," Bradley told investigators. "But brilliance became his excuse for everything."
We were in a secure conference room at 0630 the next morning.
Colonel Reeves sat at the head of the table.
Two Air Force Office of Special Investigations agents occupied the opposite side.
Bradley had been given temporary restricted credentials.
His arrogance was gone.
In its place was concentration.
"Evan could solve problems nobody else could solve," he continued. "Eventually he stopped believing rules applied to him."
"What test results did he falsify?" Agent Sarah Coleman asked.
"Thermal cycling."
"Why?"
"His module failed repeatedly above one hundred twenty degrees Celsius. Fixing it would delay delivery four months."
"So he changed the results?"
"Yes."
"You discovered it?"
Bradley nodded.
"I terminated him and reported everything."
"Did he threaten you?"
"Nothing specific."
"What exactly did he say?"
Bradley hesitated.
"That people like me couldn't understand what it felt like to have everything taken away."
Agent Coleman wrote something.
"And?"
"He said one day I'd watch something I built destroy me."
Nobody spoke.
I looked toward Bradley.
"That's fairly specific."
"I thought he meant professionally."
"So did he."
Bradley frowned.
"What?"
I tapped the telemetry diagram.
"He didn't design this to destroy aircraft."
Everyone looked at me.
"He designed it to destroy Bradley."
Bradley stared.
"Explain."
"The failures point back to his credentials. The software looks like negligence. Maybe criminal negligence."
Agent Coleman leaned forward.
"You believe Mercer wanted Mr. Fisk blamed?"
"Yes."
Bradley's face tightened.
"Then why risk pilots?"
I looked at him.
"Because some people don't care who gets hurt while they're punishing somebody."
That lesson wasn't unique to war.
By noon, investigators located Mercer.
Or thought they did.
He had rented a house in Henderson.
Empty.
Laptop gone.
Vehicle gone.
Phone disconnected.
But he had made one mistake.
A neighbor's security camera captured him leaving forty-eight hours earlier carrying two large equipment cases.
Another camera caught his truck heading north.
Toward the test ranges.
The Red Flag exercise still had three days remaining.
Which meant he might not be finished.
Reeves ordered all patched aircraft grounded.
That decision created chaos.
Training schedules collapsed.
Mission planners complained.
Senior officers called.
Nobody cared.
Safety won.
Bradley and his remaining engineers began rebuilding the patch from the last verified release.
I stayed involved.
Technically, I didn't need to.
I could have gone home.
Slept.
Seen my physical therapist.
Actually eaten something that hadn't come from a vending machine.
Instead, I sat beside Bradley until midnight comparing simulator data with operational flight logs.
Around 2300, he handed me coffee.
"Peace offering."
I took a sip.
It was terrible.
"This is worse than the briefing-room coffee."
"I bought it."
"That explains it."
He smiled.
A genuine one.
"Captain Jensen."
"Claire."
He blinked.
"Claire?"
"We've nearly crashed an aircraft together. You can use my first name when nobody's wearing stars."
He nodded.
"Claire."
Strange.
"Why A-10s?"
I looked at him.
"What?"
"Why did you choose them?"
I leaned back.
The question was more personal than technical.
"Because they're ugly."
He laughed.
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
I looked through the glass toward the dark hangar.
"They're built around a gun the size of a small car. They're slow compared with fighters. They don't look elegant."
Bradley listened.
"But when someone on the ground is trapped, nobody cares whether the aircraft coming toward them looks elegant."
I thought about Korengal.
"They care whether it stays."
Bradley's expression became quieter.
"Forty-two Rangers."
"Yes."
"Did you know them?"
"Not then."
"Now?"
"Some."
"What happened after you landed?"
I looked down at my right shoulder.
"Surgery."
"I mean the mission."
"So do I."
He waited.
"People like stories where somebody does something heroic and then everyone cheers."
I turned the coffee cup between my hands.
"Reality is paperwork, investigation, physical therapy, nightmares, and wondering whether you made the right choices."
"Did you?"
"Forty-two men went home."
"Then yes."
"That's easy from a chair."
He absorbed that.
For once, Bradley didn't argue.
At 0107, our breakthrough came.
Not from code.
From fuel receipts.
Mercer's truck had been recorded purchasing diesel near Rachel, Nevada.
Less than twenty miles from the edge of restricted military airspace.
Agent Coleman called immediately.
Security teams moved.
Then Bradley stared at the map.
"There's an old telemetry relay station near there."
Reeves looked at him.
"Operational?"
"Officially? No."
"Unofficially?"
"Some legacy equipment remains."
"Could Mercer access exercise data?"
"Possibly."
"Could he transmit?"
Bradley hesitated.
"If he modified the equipment."
Reeves stood.
"We're going."
I rose too.
"No."
I stared at him.
"Sir?"
"You're exhausted."
"So is everybody."
"You're flight crew, not law enforcement."
"Then why am I still here?"
He sighed.
Because we both knew.
I understood the aircraft.
Bradley understood the code.
And together we'd begun understanding Mercer.
Agent Coleman intervened.
"Captain can come to forward command."
Reeves looked at me.
"Command only."
"Yes, sir."
"No heroics."
"Of course."
He stared.
"That answer does not reassure me."
By sunrise, we were operating from a secured range facility.
Security teams approached the abandoned relay station.
No Mercer.
But evidence showed recent activity.
Portable power unit.
Antennas.
Network hardware.
Bradley examined photographs.
"He's built a spoofing system."
"What does that mean?" Coleman asked.
"He can impersonate authorized telemetry devices."
"Can he upload software?"
"Not directly."
A pause.
"But?"
Bradley enlarged one image.
"He may be able to inject false sensor data into aircraft during specific training routes."
My stomach tightened.
"Which aircraft?"
He ran calculations.
"Anything using compatible receivers."
"Not just A-10s?"
Bradley looked at me.
"No."
The exercise included fighters.
Bombers.
Tankers.
Transport aircraft.
Hundreds of people.
Reeves grabbed the radio.
"Exercise suspension immediately."
Then alarms sounded.
An operator turned from his console.
"Sir, airborne package already launched twenty minutes ago."
"Recall them."
"We are."
Another operator spoke.
"Receiving conflicting navigation telemetry from Falcon Three."
Bradley's head snapped around.
"That's him."
"Can you block it?"
"I need access."
He ran to the terminal.
I followed.
Navigation coordinates appeared.
One aircraft was being fed a false position.
In mountainous terrain.
At low altitude.
"Pilot should cross-check inertial."
"They will," I said.
"Unless other data is corrupted too."
A cold silence followed.
Then the aircraft's altitude began falling.
Bradley typed faster.
"We need to transmit authentication override."
"Can you?"
"Maybe."
"That's not comforting."
"Neither is being yelled at."
"I'll stop when the aircraft climbs."
He almost smiled.
Then his expression changed.
"Wait."
"What?"
"The spoof signal isn't coming from the relay station."
"Where?"
He triangulated.
Slowly.
Then pointed to the map.
My eyes followed.
A dry lake bed.
Seven miles west.
Security units turned toward it.
Seconds later, surveillance spotted a vehicle.
Mercer's truck.
"He knows we're tracking him," Coleman said.
The truck accelerated.
Bradley typed.
"I can isolate his transmitter."
"Do it."
"I need thirty seconds."
The aircraft altitude continued falling.
Eight thousand feet.
Terrain: seven thousand three hundred.
"Bradley."
"Working."
Seven thousand eight hundred.
"Bradley."
"I know!"
Seven thousand five hundred.
I grabbed the radio.
"Falcon Three, disregard telemetry. Pull up immediately."
Static.
"Falcon Three!"
Seven thousand four hundred.
Then Bradley struck Enter.
Every false data stream vanished.
Falcon Three's pilot finally saw the real terrain warning.
The aircraft climbed violently.
Seven thousand three hundred eighty feet.
Forty seconds from disaster.
Bradley leaned away from the terminal.
Sweat covered his face.
For once, his moisture-wicking polo had earned its name.
Agent Coleman touched her headset.
"Security has Mercer."
Nobody celebrated.
Not yet.
Because a final transmission had left his system before capture.
Bradley stared at the log.
"What's that?" I asked.
He read it twice.
Then once more.
His face went white.
"An activation packet."
"For what?"
He looked toward me.
"The original twelve aircraft."
"They're grounded."
"Eleven are."
I understood before he said it.
81-0964.
My aircraft.
She had been moved for diagnostic testing that morning.
Powered.
Connected.
Bradley's voice dropped.
"The packet just commanded every compromised system to execute simultaneously."
Outside, somewhere across the base, an alarm began screaming.
And for the second time in three years, my wounded A-10 was in trouble.
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