"Could it damage the aircraft?"
"If I hadn't found it?"
Jake paused.
"Eventually."
"How eventually?"
"Maybe three flights. Maybe ten."
Victoria felt cold despite the morning sun.
"Could someone have done it intentionally?"
Jake didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
Victoria looked toward the secured compartment where the prototype was stored.
"Can you inspect the rest of the aircraft?"
"I already did."
"All of it?"
"All of it."
"And?"
Jake hesitated.
"There are signs someone accessed the electronics bay."
Victoria's heart skipped.
"Recently?"
"Very."
"How recent?"
"Last night."
Victoria immediately called Daniel.
"Lock down the aircraft."
Jake watched her.
Then his eyes shifted toward the hangar entrance.
Someone was standing there.
A tall man in a dark jacket.
He disappeared the moment Jake looked at him.
Jake's posture changed.
"Who's that?"
Victoria turned.
"Who?"
Jake pointed.
"Never mind."
He walked toward the hangar.
Victoria followed.
They found nothing.
No person.
No vehicle.
Nothing.
But on the concrete floor beside the aircraft was a small black object.
Jake picked it up.
A wireless transmitter.
Victoria stared at it.
"What's that?"
Jake's face hardened.
"Something that shouldn't be here."
That afternoon, Victoria canceled her Denver meeting.
She also canceled the flight.
The prototype remained locked inside the hangar.
By 5:00 p.m., federal security personnel had arrived.
Victoria stood behind the perimeter line while technicians examined the aircraft.
Jake was nowhere to be seen.
She found him later behind Hangar Five, sitting on an overturned bucket.
He was drinking from the same thermos.
"You knew," Victoria said.
Jake looked up.
"Knew what?"
"That someone was watching us."
"I suspected."
"Why?"
"Because they were watching you."
Victoria stepped closer.
"Why would anyone watch me?"
Jake's eyes narrowed.
"That's what you need to find out."
Victoria sat opposite him.
For the first time that day, neither of them spoke like employer and mechanic.
"You saved that pilot this morning."
"Yes."
"You've done it before."
Jake stared into his coffee.
"Yes."
"How many times?"
He didn't answer.
Victoria waited.
"Enough."
"Military?"
Jake finally looked at her.
"I told you."
"I don't believe you."
"I know."
Then he stood.
"That's your problem."
He walked away.
Victoria watched him disappear into the hangar.
She had spent years becoming one of the most powerful women in American aerospace.
She could buy companies.
Fire executives.
Move markets.
Influence politicians.
Yet she couldn't answer one simple question.
Who was Jake Miller?
The Ghost in the Hangar
Two days later, the airfield was under security lockdown.
Federal investigators had discovered that the transmitter found near Victoria's aircraft had been active for several hours.
Someone had been monitoring the hangar.
But no cameras had captured the person responsible.
That was impossible.
Every entrance was covered.
Except one.
A maintenance tunnel beneath the oldest hangar.
Victoria learned about it from Jake.
"There's a blind spot," he said.
She looked at the security map.
"Here?"
"Yes."
"Why wasn't this reported?"
"It was."
"To whom?"
Jake shrugged.
"Years ago."
Victoria studied him.
"You know this place well."
"I've been here eleven years."
"How?"
"Same way everyone else works here."
"That's not what I mean."
Jake gave her a tired smile.
"I know."
Before Victoria could respond, a federal investigator approached.
"Ms. Harper?"
Victoria turned.
"I'm Agent Michael Reynolds."
She recognized the badge.
"What did you find?"
Reynolds lowered his voice.
"The transmitter wasn't commercial."
"What does that mean?"
"It was military-grade."
Victoria glanced toward Jake.
Reynolds noticed.
"Who's he?"
"Mechanic."
Jake walked away.
Reynolds watched him.
"Your mechanic has an interesting file."
Victoria's attention sharpened.
"You found something?"
"Not exactly."
"Then what?"
"His fingerprints appear in a classified federal database."
Victoria's heart stopped.
"Under what name?"
Reynolds hesitated.
"That's the problem."
"What?"
"The prints are classified."
"How can fingerprints be classified?"
"When the person attached to them is."
Victoria looked toward Jake.
He was standing beside an aircraft.
Still.
Silent.
Watching them.
Reynolds lowered his voice.
"Don't confront him."
"Why?"
"Because whoever he used to be, someone spent a lot of money making sure nobody could find him."
That night, Victoria couldn't sleep.
At 1:14 a.m., she received an encrypted message.
It came from an unknown number.
STOP LOOKING FOR JAKE MILLER.
Victoria stared at the screen.
Another message appeared.
YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE INVOLVING YOURSELF IN.
Then:
THE PROTOTYPE IS NOT YOUR BIGGEST PROBLEM.
Victoria sat upright.
A final message appeared.
ASK HIM ABOUT BLACK HORIZON.
She froze.
Black Horizon.
She knew the name.
It was an experimental aviation program rumored to have been canceled more than a decade ago.
Officially, it had never existed.
Unofficially, it had involved aircraft capable of surviving extreme systems failures.