Page 45 of Gryphon

A Stinger’s targeting system was designed to scan for infrared to locate its quarry by its engine’s heat. The purpose of pre-calibrating the weapon toward the empty sky was to register radiant ultraviolet light. By comparing that reading to the amount of UV light blocked by the aircraft’s physical size, the onboard computer would attempt to distinguish the actual aircraft from hotter but smaller magnesium heat flares released by the jet’s defensive system.

Finding no jet—Hugo’s Gripen was returning from the north while the missile was racing to the southeast—the Stinger continued its flight.

Near the limit of its range, seven-point-nine kilometers downrange, the armed FIM-92E Stinger’s computer continued to seek a target.

It identified a significant infrared signature, far lower grade than a burning flare, but perhaps a well-masked engine exhaust. It remained the brightest target available.

The UV light that had been initially registered against the sky was brightly reflected off the snow and ice on the ground. The missile’s software determined that the targeted object’s size blocked sufficient UV light that it wouldn’t be mistaken for a mere countermeasure flare.

With a final adjustment in its flightpath, while traveling at seven hundred and forty meters per second, the Stinger missile struck.

It hit Josef—within twenty centimeters of dead center. A true testament to technological innovation.

By the time it penetrated half a meter into its target, the fuse triggered the warhead’s high-explosive charge.

Josef the bull—a Rödkulla, Swedish Red Polled breed—stood in his outdoor pen pulling hay from a feeder as the ground was covered with snow and ice.

He’d won first prize at the summer Västerbotten County Fair. His owner anticipated earning a nice income from breeding him during the next season. Not unreasonable, as the locals were working to save the breed from dying out and judges had compared Josef favorably to the four bulls of the Norse Goddess Gefjon, who oversaw foreknowledge, virginity, and ploughing as part of her realm—though none of those three attributes were embodied in the massive bull.

Afterward, not enough remained of Josef’s scale-topping seven hundred and thirteen kilos to make even one decent steak.

35

“Mike.”

The call that he’d both hoped for and feared.

“Mike! Slow down or I’ll hog-tie you like a water buffalo.”

He kept moving toward the thin warmth of the low sun. “Can you hog-tie a water buffalo?” he called over his shoulder.

“You can try if you’re having yourself an almighty death wish.”

Not having one, or being a water buffalo, he stopped walking.

Holly stumbled up through the calf-deep snow to stand beside him.

He hadn’t been aware of moving fast but saw they stood well away from the plane, the admin building, and out past the end of Runway 26. He hoped he hadn’t strolled across an active runway. No, if he had, they’d already have come racing out to arrest him.

Then he had to cover his ears as a pair of Gripens punched into the sky along Runway 03. The sound took a long time to fade as if declaring how annoyed the Swedes were at losing a plane. Just wait until they found out it was sabotage.

It was Holly and Jeremy who were always the ones in the big rush, hurrying everywhere. Miranda didn’t move particularly fast, but she did it with such absolute determination that it appeared she did, with Andi typically close by her side—until recently. And Taz had always looked like a streak of lightning as she shot by with her long dark hair curling in the wind she left behind.

“Looks like I finally won the hundred-meter mosey.” Something Holly’d always accused him of losing because he was such a sluggard. Slower than a camel on holiday. Whatever that implied. He’d still never been to Australia except to change planes for Antarctica. They had the world’s largest herd of feral camels wandering through the Outback but he’d never seen one outside a zoo.

“Looks like.” He saw the huffs of steam flurry out in front of her. Out of breath or out of patience? “We never finished—”

“I’m done, Holly.”

“Try that again, mate. Think I got someone in my ear barking up the wrong tree.”

“I’m done. That’s my last Send Mike to talk to the weeping witness interview. Tad’s at the beginning of this, I’m at the end.” But was he done with her?

In answer, she punched his arm so hard and unexpectedly that even flailing his arms didn’t keep him out of the powdery snow that exploded into the air when he fell.

She braced her fists on her hips and glared down at him. The sun made her hair shine the way it always did. His beautiful warrior. What had he called her? A daily royal pain in the ass. At least he’d gotten it mostly right.

“Well,” he sat up and rubbed his injured arm, though the parka had absorbed the worst of the impact. “I guess that answers that.”

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