Silent Enemy Read Online Free

up and turned the copilot’s stall system back on. Felt the sweat on his upper lip and under his arms.
    Whoa, boy, he told himself. Don’t let coming back to Afghanistan spook you. Just a nuisance warning. The airplane is old. These things happen.
    “Maybe we can get that fixed at Ramstein,” Parson said.
    “If they have the parts,” Dunne said.
    The flight engineer had a point. Last time Parson and crew had broken down at Ramstein, they’d had to wait several days for a fuel control. One night during the layover, Parson came back from the officers’ club to find Dunne in the lobby at billeting, strumming a weird all-metal guitar. Dunne played it with a slide, and he called it a National Steel. Not your typical hobby for a flight engineer, Parson thought, and the guy turned out to be a pretty darn good musician.
    Now Parson cracked the throttles back from the takeoff setting to normal climb thrust. He hoped Colman and Dunne didn’t see that his hand was still shaking. Then he moved his hand down to the center console and pressed VERT NAV, engaged the autopilot.
    When the airplane leveled at thirty-four thousand feet, Parson felt better. Germany was just seven hours away. And today would be a short day by C-5 standards. With only one hop to fly, the gear handle was the hotel switch.
    “Tell the sergeant major she can come up here and look around,” Parson said over the interphone. Unlike with civilian passenger planes, the C-5 had no secure cockpit door. Most people with any business on a military transport would have a security clearance or some other form of background check. Letting friends and VIPs ride in the cockpit remained a frequent courtesy.
    Gold came forward and sat at what used to be the navigator’s seat. C-5 navigators had been replaced by inertial navigation units, three black boxes in the avionics bay, so now there was an unused seat on the flight deck. Dunne handed her a spare headset, and when she put it on she said, “Nice view.”
    Parson turned to look at her. Four years had made little difference. She was still fit, still looked like she’d be attractive in civilian clothes. No gray yet in the blond hair. Lines around her eyes a little deeper, though. She didn’t seem especially awed by the cockpit.
    “Feel free to take pictures,” Parson said. He couldn’t wait to get a chance for a real chat with her. If he got a day or two off at Ramstein, maybe he could rent a car, pick her up at Landstuhl, and do some touring. That wouldn’t be fraternization, he figured—just giving her a break if she got stuck at the hospital without wheels.
    Before Parson could continue the conversation, Dunne said, “We have a satcom message.” Dunne tapped on a Toughbook bolted to the flight engineer’s table, accessing what amounted to an e-mail transmitted through space. “Now, that’s damned strange,” he said. He printed the message, tore off the strip of thermal paper, and handed it to Parson.
    The message read MAINTAIN ALTITUDE. DO NOT CLIMB OR DESCEND UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

2
     
    P arson had seen some strange messages and requests from the Tanker Airlift Control Center at Scott Air Force Base, but nothing like this. Something screwed up with routings and clearances, maybe. Who left the fuckup switch in the autofuck position? Nothing for it but to call and ask.
    “Your airplane,” Parson told Colman. “I got the radios.” Then he spun a frequency into the HF, pressed his TALK switch, and said, “Hilda Contingency Cell, Air Evac Eight-Four.” It was a long way from the skies of Central Asia to a windowless room in Illinois. Parson hoped he’d make contact. He looked back at Gold and said over the interphone, “Sorry. I’ll talk to you once I figure this out.”
    Then he got his callback: “Air Evac Eight-Four, Hilda.”
    “Received your message on L band,” Parson said. “What’s going on?”
    “Eight-Four,” the flight manager said, “there’s no good way to tell you this.