Strike Zone

I Ghost Clone

It looked like an arrow as she turned to get away from it. Breanna pushed hard on her control stick, but the plane barely responded. Caught with little forward momentum, the Megafortress waddled in the air, finally managing to jerk its nose back to the right just in time to avoid the missile.

A second and third homed in. Breanna Stockard put her hand on the throttle slide, desperate to get more speed from the power plants.

It was too late. She could see one of the missiles coming at her right wing, riding the air like a hawk. Bree had ECMs, flares, tinsel — every defensive measure the experienced Megafortress pilot could muster was in play, and still the hawk came on, talons out.

And then, just as it was about to strike the fuselage in front of the starboard wing root, it changed. The slim body of the Russian-designed Alamo missile thickened. Wings grew from the middle, and the steering fins at the rear changed shape. Breanna was being tracked by an American Flighthawk, not a missile. For a moment, she felt relief.

Then the robot plane slammed into the wing.

Breanna shook herself awake. the pale green light of the hospital room threw ghost shadows across her face; she could hear the machine monitoring her heartbeat stuttering.

“Damn drugs,” she said.

They’d given her a sedative to help her sleep, fearful that her injuries would keep her from resting for yet another night. Breanna had bruised ribs, a concussion, a sprained knee, and a twisted neck; she was also suffering from dehydration and the effects of more than twelve hours exposure to a bitter Pacific storm. But the physical injuries paled beside what really ached inside her — the loss of four members of her crew, including her longtime copilot Chris Ferris and Dreamland’s number two Flighthawk pilot, Kevin Fentress.

Breanna rolled onto her back and shoved her elbows under her to sit up in the bed. She was angry with herself for not flying better, for not avoiding the Chinese missile that had taken her down. The fact that she had sacrificed her plane to rescue others was besides the point. The fact that the Piranha mission had been a stunning success, averting war between China and India, mattered nothing to her, at least not now, not in the room lit only by hospital monitors.

She should’ve saved her people.

Her father would have. Her husband would have.

She ached to have them both here with her. But her father, Colonel Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian, and her husband, Major Jeff “Zen” Stockard, had been called back to Dreamland, to deal with problems brewing there. She was sentenced to sit in this bed until her injuries healed.

“Damn drugs,” she muttered again, reaching for the control at the side of the bed to raise it.

What the hell had that stupid dream been about? She’d been taken down by a missile, not a Flighthawk. The Flighthawks were U.S. weapons, not Chinese.

But as they were going down, before she gave the order to abandon ship, Torbin Dolk had said something about a Flighthawk. What the hell had he said?

“I have a U/MF at long range.”

Those were his words, but they had to be wrong. Their own Flighthawks had been lost, and there were no other Megafortresses with their robot scout fighters nearby.

What the hell did he say? Had she got it wrong?

The confusion and static and storm of the shootdown returned. She closed her eyes, wishing she hadn’t failed.

“Damn drugs,” she said, playing with the bed control in a fruitless effort to make herself more comfortable.

Chen Lee waited until the chime of the antique grandfather clock at the far end of his office ended, then rose slowly from his desk, following a ritual he had started many years before. His movements were weighted by eighty years of exertion, and so it took longer for him to cross the large office than it once had, but the familiarity of the afternoon ritual filled him with pleasure. He had long ago realized that, no matter how much wealth one had — and he had a great deal — the more important things, the things that gave life meaning and value, were less tangible: family affection and respect, dreams and ambitions, ritual.

Chen Lee went to the chest at the right side of his large office and took the bottle from the top, carefully pouring two fingers’ worth of Scotch in the glass tumbler. He had developed a taste for single-malt Scotch as a young man during the last days of the war with the communists when he’d been sent to London as part of a delegation working to persuade the Western allies that Mao must be stopped at all costs. The mission had been a failure; worn out by the World War, the British couldn’t stop their own empire from slipping through their fingers, let alone send an army to help Chiang Kai-shek and the rightful rulers of the great Chinese nation. Not even the Americans were willing to help them until the communist treachery was made obvious in Korea. Even then, the only assistance they would begrudgingly afford was to prevent the invasion of Taiwan by the mongrel bastards who had marched among the peasants, pretending moral superiority when all along practicing opportunism.

The tingle of Scotch as he took his first sip reminded Chen Lee of his bitterness, and he welcomed it wholeheartedly. For it was only by acknowledging the past that he could look toward the future.

Much had changed in the nearly fifty years that had passed since his stay in London. Chen Lee had left the government to become a man of business; he had started humbly, as little more than a junk man. He took discarded items, first from the Japanese, then from Europe and the U.S., and turned them into useful materials. Metals first, then gradually electronics and chemicals and even, eventually, nuclear materials. He had made a fortune, and then lost much of it — a loss he blamed on the treachery of the Japanese he was forced to deal with in the early 1980s. But this loss had tempered him; he would not willingly wish it upon anyone else, but he had managed to overcome it, and applied its lessons well.

His assets now totaled close to a billion dollars U.S.; he owned pieces large and small of businesses throughout the world as well as the Republic of China — Taiwan to the outside world. In fact, his wealth was so extensive he needed two of his three grandsons — his only son had died more than a decade before — to manage it. They were given relatively free hands, as long as they did not break his cardinal rules: no investment in Japan, and no dealings with the communist mongrels under any circumstances.

Others on the island were not so fastidious, and in their eagerness to enrich themselves had prepared the nation for the ultimate treachery — surrender to the communists.

It was coming. Several months before, the provinces had clashed. At first, the Americans had seemed to help them; Mainland bases were bombed in a spectacular campaign referred to by the media as “Fatal Terrain.” Had the war proceeded then, reunification might have been possible. But the Americans had proven themselves interested only in preserving the status quo. Worse, the government on Taiwan — the rightful representatives of all China, in Chen Lee’s view — lost face and gave way to a group of men who could only be called appeasers. In a matter of weeks, the president was due to fly to Beijing for talks with the mongrels who had usurped the homeland.

The meeting would be the first of many.

Chen Lee was determined not to let it take place. He was willing, in fact, to spend his entire fortune to stop it.

He was willing to go further. He would give his own life so that his grandchildren’s children might once more live freely in their homeland.

Was he willing to give their lives as well?

The Scotch burned the sides of his tongue.

He was willing to let them die, yes. Even his favorite grandchild, Chen Lo Fann. Indeed, Fann had volunteered to do so many times already.

Would he give up the lives of his great-grandchildren, the sweet little ones?

As he asked the question, he saw the faces of the little ones, whose ages ranged from two to ten.

No, he would not wish any harm to them, boy or girl. That was why he must act immediately.

The Americans had interfered, preventing what should have been a war between the communists and India — a war he had clandestinely encouraged.

Chen Lee took another sip of his drink. He had to encourage a wider war, one that would involve all of South Asia and the mongrels. Even if the war did not lead to conquest of the stolen provinces, it would at least halt the present slide toward accommodation.

It might yet yield conquest, thanks to the weapons he had developed and secreted away. But he felt he could not share them with the present government, headed as it was by traitors. He would have to follow his own path.

Chen Lee was bitterly disappointed in the Americans, whose ill-considered attempts at imposing peace merely made the world safe for the mongrel usurpers. During the course of his life, Chen Lee had had many dealings with Americans; he admired them in many ways. But ultimately, he found them weak and undisciplined.

He knew too that their aims were not his aims. They protected the Republic of China only when it suited them.

So be it. If the Americans intervened again, their blood would flow.

Jennifer Gleason pushed back a strand of her long hair and leaned forward, her nose nearly against the large flat panel of the computer display, as if close proximity to the line of code might reveal more detail.

The line itself was abstract and seemingly meaningless:

But to the computer expert, the gibberish told an ominous tale. She picked up the pencil she had laid on the desk nearby, twirling it in her finger before copying the line on a yellow pad nearby.

“Pad and pencil — never a good sign,” said an acerbic voice behind her.

“Hi, Ray,” she said before double-checking her copy against the screen.

“Well?” Dreamland’s senior scientist Ray Rubeo stood over her, squinting down at the screen.

“Our compression algorithm.”

“Yes,” said Rubeo.

“It doesn’t prove anything. The algorithm itself could have come from a bunch of places.”

Instead of answering, Rubeo stooped to the workstation next to her, quickly tapping a pair of keys and bringing up a small snippet of video. A gray shadow of an aircraft banked and turned away in the screen.

The image had been built from a fleeting radar contact made several days before in the South China Sea, during a bloody battle between the Chinese and Indian navies. A Dreamland Megafortress called Quicksilver had tried to stop the conflict, and in the process had been shot down. Four of the six crew members aboard had died.

Quicksilver, with the help of other Dreamland air and ground assets known collectively as Whiplash, had forestalled a nuclear confrontation between the two Asian powers and saved millions of lives. Four lives for a million. Most people would think that a worthwhile trade-off.

The equation was difficult when it involved people you knew. Jennifer, one of the top scientists at the facility, knew all of them very well. She was thankful at least that the pilot, Breanna Stockard, had been spared. Bree was her lover’s daughter, and while the two women had never gotten along particularly well themselves, Jennifer could not have borne the hurt Bree’s death would have caused the colonel.

Jennifer watched as the three-dimensional blob reappeared in the right-hand corner of Rubeo’s screen, commanded to reappear by Dreamland’s senior scientist. It twisted and jerked left, then down and over to the opposite corner of the screen. The simulation multiplied real time by a factor of twenty, so that the blob stayed on screen for an entire minute, rather than the three seconds it had appeared on the original radar.

Those three seconds, along with the five seconds’ worth of radio transmission Jennifer was studying on her own terminal, were enough to have cost both her and Rubeo several days’ worth of sleep. For together they meant there had been another unmanned robot plane in the air about seventy-five miles from the Megafortress when it was shot down.

And not just an ordinary “robot,” or unmanned aerial vehicle, commonly known as a UAV. The experts interpreted the poor quality of the radar returns to indicate that the tiny aircraft was faceted much the way first-generation Stealth fighters were; the blanks in the simulation that made the plane jerk across the screen were a function of weak or missing radar returns. The experts had also determined that the craft had been going somewhere around 400 knots and took a turn sharp enough to pull close to ten g’s.

Designing and building a small aircraft — its wingspan appeared to be under ten feet — was certainly difficult, but the real achievement was controlling the robot. To make it fly and maneuver in real time took considerable skill, skill that until now had resided only at Dreamland. While there was a variety of UAVs around, most flew preprogrammed courses or went relatively slowly. Only the U/MF-3 Flighthawks developed at Dreamland were capable of high-speed maneuvers and aerial combat.

Imitation might be the highest form of flattery, but in this case it could also be deadly. Properly handled, the U/MF-3s were almost impervious to American defenses. If the ghost clone — one of the techies had named it that while reviewing the radar and telemetry intercepts — was armed, no part of the country would be safe.

“So whose is it?” asked Rubeo, voicing the question of the hour.

“Could be a Russian project,” offered Jennifer.

“Yes,” murmured Rubeo. “It’s possible.”

“And they stole it two years ago.”

“The intelligence assessments would have shown this,” said Rubeo. Dreamland had been rocked two years earlier when a deeply planted Russian spy was exposed. He had compromised some of the facility’s top projects, and in many ways Dreamland had never been the same. But he had no access to the Flighthawk project, as an extensive investigation had proven.

So if the technology had been stolen, someone else had done it.

Someone still working at the base.

Rubeo stood back from the screen.

“Our code or not?”

“Very close,” said Jennifer. “It uses similar theories and compression schemes.”

“So what does it mean?”

Jennifer pointed to the first few integers. The code was in base sixteen. “It’s detecting the radar, giving a position, tagging the type, and then I think this part confirms a maneuver it’s already started on its own.”

“Still think it’s a coincidence?” Rubeo asked her.

“Mmm,” she said. “It could be.”

“The memorial service is in half an hour,” he told her. Then he walked from the room.

Colonel Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian looked out at the apron in front of Dreamland Hangar Two. A half-dozen temporary bleachers had been erected in front of the building; augmented by a sea of folding chairs, they held a good portion of the men and women he oversaw at the high-tech developmental base in the wastelands near Glass Mountain, Nevada. In front of the bleachers was a podium; off to the side, a short row of folding chairs. In a few minutes, an honor guard would appear from the building for a ceremony commemorating a recently concluded operation in the Pacific. Some of the people back at the Pentagon called the action “the Piranha Incident” because of the undersea surveillance weapon Dreamland had used during it; to Dog, the nickname was appropriate for its bloody connotation — the operation had been a man killer. Five members of Dreamland had lost their lives during it: four when a Megafortress was shot down by an errant Chinese missile; the fifth had stepped on a mine during a support operation.

Ostensibly, the ceremony that was about to kick off would honor the living — the President had issued a special, albeit secret, unit commendation to Dreamland, which would be read by the President’s representative, NSC assistant director for technology, Jed Barclay. But for Dog and most of the people attending, the ceremony was mostly about the men who had lost their lives.

It was something of a cliché to refer to military commands and bases as families. In many cases, it wasn’t a very accurate description — thousands and thousands of men and women might work at a typical base. The majority would have little contact with one another outside of their assignment area. But Dreamland was different. Ostensibly part of Elliott Air Force Base, the home of the High Technology Aerospace Weapons Center, Dog’s command was an ultra-secret and relatively small unit contained at facilities adjacent to the main base. Dreamland didn’t just make the country’s next-generation weapons; they tested them in combat under an ops program known as Whiplash, which answered to the President through the National Security Council. Whiplash was Dog’s brainchild.

Only a few hundred people worked here, and the majority lived here as well. Not only did civilian experts mix freely with military personnel, service people of all ranks worked together in as close to harmony as the high-pressure, creative atmosphere would allow. The cafeterias, lounges, and rec areas were “all ranks,” open to everyone who worked at Dreamland, from Dog all the way to the kitchen help. Pilots still ruled the roost — it was, after all, an Air Force operation — but, with a few notable exceptions, the zippersuits kept their egos well in check.

Partly, that was a function of whom they worked alongside. Everyone here was the best of the best. The ordies loading missiles to be tested on a plane were likely to have helped design and build the weapon. And partly, it was a reflection of Dog’s own personality, and his desire to run a cutting-edge operation that made a difference, not just for America, but for the world.

Dreamland had done that, as Piranha proved. But it had also paid a terrible price.

The loudspeaker near the side of the bleacher blared with a solemn martial tune. The colonel stiffened, waiting for the honor guard that just now emerged from the building. He glanced at the bleachers, where everyone had suddenly snapped to attention. Despite the solemnity of the occasion, the scene brought a smile to his lips — not only were all of Dreamland’s military personnel wearing freshly starched uniforms, but the civilian scientists, engineers, and other technical experts were wearing their own Sunday best — suits and dresses.

Dresses!

Ties!

These were as rare a sight at the top-secret base as any Dog could imagine.

The colonel fell in, his legs a little rusty as he marched to his place at the front. He was joined by the Reverend Madison Dell, Dreamland’s chaplain, and two other members of his staff: Major Natalie Catsman, who had just been named second in command at the facility, replacing Nancy Cheshire, who had recently been given new responsibilities integrating the Megafortress in the regular Air Force; and Captain Danny Freah, who besides being the head of base security also commanded the Whiplash ops team, the ground force charged with providing security and ground intervention in connection with Dreamland deployments.

After a brief prayer, Dog stepped forward. He’d worked on his speech for several hours the night before, carefully revising and rewriting it over and over again. But now as he walked to the microphone, he decided not to take it from his pocket.

“I don’t have a lot to tell you,” he said simply. “You’ve done a good job, and I know you know that. I also know that, like me, you’re hurting today, because of our friends who aren’t here. Unfortunately, that’s part of our business — it’s part of our lives. I hate it myself… ”

Captain Danny Freah stared into the distance as Dog began to read the President’s commendation. He was thinking of the man he’d lost to a booby trap, Sergeant Perse “Powder” Talcom. Powder was a hell of a team sergeant, a hell of a serviceman, a hell of a hero. The two men had been together since Bosnia, coming under fire several times. Like any good officer, Danny drew a line between command and friendship, duty and camaraderie. And yet, Powder’s loss affected him in ways he couldn’t fully explain. Dog had offered him the chance to talk at the ceremony; Danny had begged off, claiming he wasn’t much of a talker.

The real reason was that he could never have hidden the tremor in his voice, or stopped the tears from falling.

Powder’s death had convinced him that he should take an offer to run for Congress back in New York, where his wife lived. To do that, he’d have to leave the Air Force.

Dog had asked him to stay on for a short while. The ghost clone business had to be investigated by someone the colonel trusted, and the job naturally fell to Danny.

But he would quit when it was done.

Quit? Was he walking away?

No. His time was up; he’d done his duty. He could leave.

Quit.

The reverend stepped forward and gave a reading from Isaiah, his text the famous line about beating swords into plowshares. It was appropriate in a way — Dreamland’s efforts had saved many lives, and given the diplomats a shot at turning China and India from their warlike ways. But Danny couldn’t help thinking that no text about peace would ever be truly appropriate for a warrior, certainly not a member of the Whiplash team. Peace was an unfulfilled promise, a mirage that sucked you in. As soon as you dropped your guard, disaster would strike.

As it had with Powder, stepping on the mine.

My fault, thought Danny. My inattention cost my man his life.

My fault.

A solitary tear slipped from the corner of his eye.

As the minister ended his sermon, recorded music began to play through the speakers. As it grew louder, a slightly discordant bass note could be heard rising over the violins like an extended rap note coming from far away. A Dreamland formation suddenly appeared from the desert floor, seeming to rise from the mountains themselves.

The first plane over was an EB-52—black, huge, and thunderous, a Megafortress similar to the one Dreamland had lost in the South China Sea. Born as a Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, the airframe had pounded communists in Indochina and stood alerts against Soviet bomber strikes, then gone on to serve a long and respected career as a testbed, launching drones and missiles.

Just when it seemed ready to retire, the Dreamland wizards had tapped the thirty-year-old soldier for refurbishment. It had been taken into a large hangar and stripped naked, most of its parts dismantled. New wings made of ultra-strong composite were added; the rear tail and stabilizer assembly was replaced with a V-shaped unit affording more maneuverability and somewhat less radar profile. The eight power plants were replaced with four Dreamland-tuned monsters that could drive the aircraft nearly to the speed of sound in level flight, yet were as easy on gas as a well-tuned Honda.

The wires and circuit boards that had made up its avionics systems were salvaged and recycled for other B-52s; their replacements were fiber optic and gallium-arsenic, silicone, and in several cases custom-grown crystal circuitry. Besides the equipment that helped the pilot fly the aircraft through a hostile-fire zone, this particular EB-52—nicknamed Raven — was stocked with an electronics suite that would have made an NSA officer’s eyes water. It could capture a wide array of electronics signals, everything from encoded radio transmission to missile telemetry and even, as some of the Dreamland wags put it, the odd leak from a microwave oven. Besides monitoring those signals,Raven could use its on-board circuits to confuse and baffle a wide range of radars, providing cover for a fleet of other aircraft.

Raven’s bomb bay had been overhauled so that its rotating dispenser could launch (or drop) a variety of smart weapons — not just bombs and air-to-ground missiles, but AMRAAM-plus antiaircraft missiles. At its tail, the four 12.7 or 50-caliber machine guns had been replaced by a Stinger airmine gun, which could pepper the sky behind the plane with exploding shards of tungsten, just the thing to shred a jet engine and ruin a pursuing fighter pilot’s day. While no match for a frontline American interceptor, the Megafortress could hold her own when attacked by most enemies — as this one had done on several occasions.

Next over the Dreamland apron area was a heavily customized C-17, the product of an intense collaboration between Dreamland and the highly skilled engineers at McDonnell Douglas further enhancing its already impressive heavy-hauling and short-runway abilities. Dubbed the MC-17D/W-2, the black-skinned aircraft sported two belly blisters, which in time would be filled by specially designed howitzers. According to the concept, the aircraft would be able to drop two companies of Marines and then provide fire support à la the AC-130, combining two functions in the same aircraft. The weapons had not yet been fitted to the plane; they were due to be tested in about two weeks. The guns, as awesome as they were, were just a start — a team was hard at work trying to make enough adjustments to the Razor antiaircraft laser so that it could be used in place of the howitzers.

As the big plane came over, she dipped her left wing, a nod to the fallen comrades being honored at the ceremony below. Not far behind the MC-17 came an F-22. Like every aircraft at the high-tech developmental center, the Raptor’s airframe had undergone extensive revamping. Now longer, it sported a delta-shaped airfoil and saber-toothed tiger strakes at the front; the design was being studied for possible use as an F-15E replacement.

Last but not least in the Dreamland formation was a B-1B, the swing-wing, Mach+ attack craft that had once been seen as the B-52’s replacement, though the versatile Stratofortress had refused to be pushed aside. The big wings of the Lancer — sometimes dubbed the “Bone” by her crew, a pun on B-One — were fully extended, allowing the aircraft to parade over the grounds at a low and solemn speed.

This aircraft had been used to test some concepts for the Unmanned Bomber project; its four GE F101 engines had only recently been returned to their place under the wing roots and fuselage, reclaiming their position from hydrogen-powered prototypes that would be the main impetus for the UMB. Immediately after the ceremony, the B-1 would head for Underground Hangar Five, where she would begin a new phase, testing a concept as an advanced penetrator/weasel equipped with antiradar HARM missiles and a multiple mini-bomb launcher.

As the B-1 climbed away, a second group of aircraft, these much smaller, appeared from the right. Four U/MF-3 Flighthawks thundered by in a diamond pattern. Just as they reached the center of the viewing area in front of the stands, one of the aircraft peeled off; the others circled around the field, commemorating the loss of Dreamland’s fallen comrades. Smoke canisters under the fuselages of the remaining aircraft ignited, and the sky turned red, white, and blue. The Dreamland audience rose to their feet as one, saluting their comrades and pledging themselves once more to the cause of keeping America free and the world safe.

Danny stared into the distance, back teeth tightly clenched.

Sometimes it seemed like Dog’s whole life came down to paper. Reams of it sat on Colonel Bastian’s desk — reports, folders, notices. The computer at the corner held even more — emails, various attachments, all marked urgent, more urgent, or impossibly urgent. Dreamland’s command structure was perhaps the most streamlined in the military, yet it still killed more trees than Dog could count.

There was a familiar knock on the door. Fearing that it meant Chief Master Sergeant Terrence “Ax” Gibbs was bringing yet another wagonload of paper for him to process, Dog growled “come” in a voice that would have sent anyone else into retreat.

Ax, however, walked calmly into the room. He had taken the precaution of arming himself with a fresh carafe of coffee.

“Thought you could use a refill,” said the chief.

“Thanks,” said Dog, his mood lifting slightly.

“Jed Barclay’s on line four over there,” he added, pointing to the lit button on the black scrambled phone. “He’s got an off-the-record heads-up for you.”

“Just great,” said Dog, his mood once again diving into the depths.

He took a sip of the coffee, then punched the button. Ax thumbed through some of the paperwork on the desk, retrieving several items he needed, then left.

“Jed? What can I do for you?” asked Dog.

“Colonel. Um, this is, uh, un-unofficial,” said Barclay.

Barclay was the National Security Council assistant director for technology and the right-hand man of the NSC advisor, Philip Freeman. Jed’s responsibilities included acting as the de facto liaison between the White House and Dreamland. Though only in his early twenties, he’d been involved in several Dreamland missions and had proven that, despite his pimples, he could hang in there with the best of them.

It was a very bad sign, however, that he was stuttering. He usually only did that when a situation was red-lining.

“Uh, I’m calling off the r-record,” he said.

“Jed, I know it’s bad news, so don’t sugarcoat it,” Dog told him.

“I wasn’t going to, Colonel. I wouldn’t sugarcoat anything.”

“Don’t bullshit me either.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So?”

“The NSC and the Joint Chiefs, they put their heads together in a way — well, you know how Admiral Balboa is, and what they want is an outsider. We cut them off a bit and got a compromise but—”

“Who’s investigating?” asked Dog, deciding to cut to the quick. Balboa was the head of the Joint Chiefs and a general pain in the butt when it came to anything concerning Dreamland.

“Air Force Office of Special Investigations,” said Jed. “They’re sending a woman out this afternoon. Her name is Cortend, and she’s a bitch with wings. Um, pardon my French.”

“Didn’t sound very French to me, Jed.” Dog sighed and took another sip of his coffee. “Who is she?”

“Full-bird colonel. She’s, uh, she’s going to answer to the chief of the Air Force directly because — uh, do you want all the political interplay, or just the shorthand?”

“Shorthand’s fine.”

“They want to make sure this isn’t a replay of the Russian situation a few years ago,” said Barclay, making an oblique reference to the spy scandal that had preceded Dog’s arrival at the base. “Defense Secretary Chastain got Balboa to sign off on her because she did the, uh, she found the fraud at J&D on the propulsion contract last year, and the Chinese spy at the Alaska contractor. She’s tough. But even so, this is just like a preliminary, unofficial, I mean, she has full powers, but it’s—”

“Thanks, Jed. I get the picture,” said Dog. Basically, they were sending someone there with the power to turn the base upside down, but because she was only coming on an informal or unofficial basis, she wouldn’t have to play by any of the rules meant to keep things fair.

So be it.

“There’s a couple of people who want your scalp,” added the NSC official. “Uh, I know you don’t care for the politics but, uh—”

“I don’t.”

“They may, uh — you have to watch the way you handle it,” said Barclay. “Because they have their knives out.”

“I appreciate the warning, Jed. Really. It’s all right. I can take care of myself. So can the rest of the people here.”

“There was something else,” added Jed.

“Fire away.”

“The President wants to talk to you personally. He’s concerned about China. You probably ought to expect his call around midnight our time. You know how he burns the midnight oil.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“Yes, sir.”

Dog hung up the phone. The President had personally ordered Dreamland to intervene between China and India. The unit’s stock — and Dog’s — were extremely high with the White House. But if a spy had delivered Flighthawk technology to the Russians or Chinese or anyone else, that would change quicker than the stock market had on Black Tuesday.

If a spy had penetrated the U/MF project, he or she was undoubtedly still at Dreamland. Dog didn’t think it possible.

Then again, General Brad Elliott, the last commander of Dreamland, probably didn’t think any of his people had been spies either. And he’d been proven wrong.

General Elliott. God rest his soul. He had given his life to stop China from taking over Taiwan and engulfing the U.S. in a major war. A true American hero.

Dog took another sip of the strong black coffee. He gave himself thirty seconds to enjoy it, and then went back on the offensive, tackling the paper before him.

Danny Freah nodded at the twelve men dressed in full combat gear, then began his short speech.

“It’s live fire. I don’t want anyone hurt. Sergeant Liu will go over the objectives. You’ve all been through the Army Special Forces Q Course, so I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with this.”

Freah glanced at Liu, who was suppressing a smirk. The exercise had been designed with the help of two Army SF veterans with the express intention of making it much more difficult than the SF qualifying exercise, no picnic in itself. It wasn’t really a matter of physical exertion. The men would be slogging nearly thirty miles in the next twenty-four hours with full rucks, addressing a number of objectives that ranged from taking out a machine-gun post to helping a little girl find her doll. (This was a particularly perverse exercise: The girl was in the middle of a simulated minefield. Once rescued, the doll contained a radio-activated bomb that had to be disarmed. Throwing it away was not an acceptable solution, since it would set off all the mines.)

The difficult aspect of the exercise was the fact that it was impossible to succeed. Everyone in the exercise — everyone — would wash out at some point. That was when the true test began.

The men here were in excellent physical shape. Most had worked as PJs, members of the illustrious “pararescuer” community that had saved countless Air Force and civilian lives. Several had jumped behind enemy lines in Iraq during the Gulf War to direct close combat support. All were volunteers, and in fact Danny had chosen them all as part of the elite security force that kept Dreamland safe. The final cut — a trooper to replace Sergeant Powder on the Whiplash action team — would be made by the present members of the deployment squad themselves.

The recruits were divided into four three-man teams, each matched with a Whiplash trooper, who would rotate to a new group after six hours. Liu, as team sergeant, would move between the teams.

“All right. You have your orders,” said Danny. “Sergeant Liu.”

Liu stepped forward. At five-six and maybe 140 pounds, he hardly seemed the typical hard-assed special operations soldier. Indeed, most of the men in front of him outweighed him by a hundred pounds. But he could have taken any of them with one hand tied behind his back, even the three men who, like Liu, had black belts in Tae Kwon Do.

“Team One up,” said Liu.

As he did, he pressed a button on the remote control in his pocket. An M/V-22 Osprey gunship revved from the other end of the range, bullets spilling from the pair of Avenger Gatling guns in its belly.

As bullets began splashing twenty yards away, the first team joined up with Sergeant Kevin Bison and began running toward a helicopter that had been set up to simulate a hostage rescue situation. Danny was pleased to see that none of the men flinched as the massive shells from the guns landed.

That would no doubt change by the end of the day, but it was good to see that they were starting well.

Colonel Victoria Margaret Cortend folded her arms impatiently as the Dolphin transport helicopter strode in toward its landing dock at the top-secret base, a series of automated landing and auxiliary lights popping on. Nearby, an I-HAWK or Improved HAWK surface-to-air missile battery swung around, keeping the approaching aircraft well in its sights; Cortend suspected that the missile had been situated primarily to impress visitors, as any intruder would have been blasted out of the sky by the more sophisticated laser defenses at the base perimeter.

Bozos. Just the sort of arrogant waste of resources she detested. It was typical in the special commands. Weeding out the problems here would be a pleasure.

Cortend waited until the chopper settled down on the cement, then with a brisk snap undid her restraint and climbed out of the helicopter. A staff sergeant grabbed at the door. She stared at him until he finally stood back and snapped into a salute. Returning it, she walked toward the pair of Air Force security personnel posted nearby. The men had the good sense to challenge her, and after a very proper exchange she was cleared to proceed to the Jimmy with its flashing blue light a short distance away.

The same sergeant who had held the door earlier ran to grab her bag; Cortend dismissed him with a glare and proceeded to the SUV. She had long ago learned that it was a serious mistake to allow anyone—anyone—to touch her things. She did not ask for assistance, nor did she accept it. While being a colonel brought with it certain prerogatives of rank, having a slouch-man — her term — was one she could do without.

If all colonels, and generals, followed her example, the military would be a much leaner and meaner organization. As it should be.

“Colonel Cortend,” said the driver, stepping from the car. His salute was sloppy, but recognizable.

“Is that a question, Sergeant?”

“Oh, no, ma’am. I just, uh — I’m here to take you to your quarters.”

“I’m not going to my quarters. Take me to the commander’s office.”

“The Taj?”

“Young man, if you don’t know where the commander’s office is, why were you assigned as my driver?”

“Um, I do know, ma’am. I mean, uh—”

He tried to open the door for her but she was too annoyed to allow it.

Dreamland had a certain reputation back East. Obviously it was overinflated.

The airman got into the truck and began driving away from the Dolphin portal.

“The Taj? As in the Taj Mahal?” said Cortend, suddenly understanding what the airman had said.

“Well, uh, yes, ma’am. Officially, it’s Administrative Building Two, but uh, everyone just kinda calls it the Taj.”

“Everyone except me. Take me there,” said Cortend.

“Come,” said Dog, hearing the knock on his door. Thinking it was Ax or maybe one of the scientists, he continued scribbling the last thread of his thoughts about the project he’d just reviewed. It involved further testing of a space-based laser weapon; while Dog was all for the weapon, the tests would cost several hundred million dollars at least, money that he frankly thought would be better spent on next-generation UAVs. But that wasn’t his call; he said the tests were a reasonable step if money could be found.

“Lieutenant Colonel Bastian.”

Dog put down the pen. Colonel Cortend was standing in the doorway; the sergeant assigned as her escort shifted nervously behind her.

“Colonel Cortend,” Dog said, rising. “Welcome to Dreamland.”

Cortend stood in the doorway, frowning. The frown deepened as he extended his hand; she looked at it as if it contained a dead fish, then extended her own. She grabbed about halfway and squeezed — an old Pentagon trick, Dog knew, to make a firm grasp seem life-threatening.

Frankly, Cortend didn’t look as if she needed any tricks. She had shoulders that would cow an NFL linebacker.

“Are your quarters satisfactory?” said Dog, trying to break the ice as Cortend surveyed the boat of a desk and the matching cherry bookcases that graced his office. He’d inherited the furniture from General Elliott, who had paid for it himself.

“I expect they will be,” said Cortend.

The frost in her voice removed any last doubt Dog might have had about how pleasant the colonel’s stay might be. He put on his Pentagon face and told her that she was welcome to go where she wanted, and that everyone at the base would fully cooperate in any way possible.

Cortend’s scowl deepened. “I’ll see the computer labs and the Flighthawk hangar first. Then I want an office. My staff will be arriving at 0800.”

It was rather late for a tour, but Dog didn’t bother arguing with her. “Security detail will take you around. Chief Gibbs has already set everything up and will personally make sure that you’re squared away in the morning. We’ve allocated a pair of rooms on the first level of the building. There’s a conference room as well. The chief has a handle on the badges, phones, computers, everything you need. Ax is really incredible. You’ll be impressed.”

“Ax?”

“That would be Chief Gibbs. One of the best, believe me.”

Dog ignored her scowl and rose, intending that as her cue to clear out. She didn’t take it.

“I’m afraid I’ve been away,” said Dog. “And I have a few things to attend to before turning in.”

“I see.” Cortend frowned, but didn’t move as Dog sat back down.

“Colonel?” he asked.

“Are you going to get this Chief Ax, or should I locate him myself?”

“Uh, it’s a little late in the day—”

“You, Lieutenant Colonel, are working. Why is your staff not?”

Dog stifled his instinctive response, trying to turn it into a joke. “I don’t like paying overtime,” he told her.

“Hmph,” said Cortend.

“Would you like some advice?” Dog asked. He ignored her frown and continued anyway. “You have to remember, Colonel, Dreamland is not like most other military commands. There are a lot of civilians here. A lot of scientist types. And we don’t have the sort of bureaucratic infrastructure that a lot of the military has. I’m not critcizing other commands at all; I’d love the personnel slots, believe me. But we’re a bit different. And because of that, the atmosphere takes a little getting used to.”

“You seem to have adjusted.”

“You mean that as a compliment or a criticism?”

Dog had controlled his temper for a remarkably long time, but the implied slur on the people who worked for him was simply too much.

“Take it as you wish,” said Colonel Cortend, not giving an inch. “Now let me give you some advice,Lieutenant Colonel. I’m here informally, but if anyone interferes with my work — you especially—”

Dog’s anger had built to such a level that even he would have been unable to stifle an outburst had the phone not rung.

“I’m afraid I have to take this behind closed doors. The security detail will see to your needs,” he told Cortend, struggling to keep his voice neutral. “The sergeant will give you access to your quarters and to your office; the phone lines, computers, they’re all ready to go. Believe me, when Chief Gibbs sets something up, it works. And that goes for everyone here. Now you’ll have to excuse me.”

Cortend frowned, but stepped into the outer office, closing the door behind her.

“Bastian,” said Dog, picking up the encrypted phone.

“Colonel, it’s Jed Barclay. Stand by for the President.”

President Kevin Martindale’s voice practically jumped through the phone when the connection finally went through.

“Tecumseh, I’m sorry I couldn’t come out there myself for your ceremony.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You did a fine job in the Pacific. A very good job. The Navy’s jealous. You should see Admiral Balboa. Just about apoplectic.” The President laughed, but his tone changed quickly. “We’ve spent a bit of time reviewing the situation in South Asia. The consensus seems to be that the Chinese will leave the Indians alone for a while.”

“I hope so.”

“Makes two of us, Tecumseh. Now tell me about the Flighthawk you discovered. Whose is it?”

“Sir, we’re not sure it’s a Flighthawk. We have only a few seconds’ worth of intercepts and a minuscule amount of radar on it. But it’s highly capable, probably as advanced as our own aircraft.”

“I understand there’s some sort of computer coding that is the same?”

Dog gave the President a brief overview of the latest analysis. “Very similar,” he concluded. There was no sense being anything less than candid.

The President said nothing for a few moments. “I’m also told that there’s a chance that your gear was mistaken. The information came from the aircraft that was shot down.”

“Yes, sir. But we believe the data was very good.”

“How is your daughter?” asked the President, changing the subject.

“She’s doing very well. Should be out of the hospital any day now.”

“If she’s anything like her father, she’ll be back on active duty in a week,” said the President.

Dog smiled. In fact, he had talked to Breanna earlier in the day, and she insisted she would be back home next week.

Home being Dreamland, of course.

“I want you to get to the bottom of the situation right away,” the President said. “I want you to find out who has the other aircraft. Given the volatility of Asia right now, a weapon such as the Flighthawk would greatly complicate the chances for peace.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I realize there’s a possibility the design was stolen,” said Martindale. “That has to be explored as well.”

Dog nodded silently to himself. The President was being tactful, but nonetheless making it clear that he was on top of the situation. Dog admired that — even though the implications might not be pleasant.

“We will, sir.”

“You’ve done well, Tecumseh. We’ve spent much of the evening reviewing your work in the South China Sea. Another home run. No matter what the Navy says. I won’t forget. But let’s get this other matter straightened out.”

“Thank you, sir,” Dog told the President, but Martindale had already hung up.

Major Jeff “Zen” Stockard rolled his wheelchair next to the free console in the small auditorium, trying not to spill his coffee. He was surprised and relieved that he wasn’t late. While he didn’t have to worry about getting a place — the station was specially designed for a wheelchair, and he was the only one on the base in one — he hated having everyone stare as he wheeled himself in.

“Hey, Zen,” said Major Alou, one of the Megafortress pilots. “How’s Bree?”

“Claims she’ll be home next week,” said Zen.

“Yeah, what’s she doing? Soaking sun on the beach.”

“That and taking hula lessons,” said Zen.

Alou laughed and sat down.

Breanna had told Zen last night that she was ready to come home but the doctors wouldn’t release her. Doctors meaning her mother, who by some bad fortune happened to be a muckety-muck on the hospital surgical staff. Worse — much worse — said mother was taking a position at Medici Hospital just outside Las Vegas, which would put her within interference range of her favorite — and only — daughter.

It wasn’t that Zen had a bad relationship with his mother-in-law. He had no relationship, and would have preferred it that way. It was bad enough that Breanna’s father ran Dreamland. Now he was going to have her mother looking over his other shoulder.

Not that the Dog was a bad commander, or that he interfered with their personal lives. It was just — claustrophobic.

Ray Rubeo and Jennifer Gleason entered the room wearing deep frowns. Rubeo scowled habitually; the muscles in his face refused to unclench even when he ate. Jennifer, though, could be counted on for a cheery smile even after working for sixty straight hours. The appearance of the “ghost clone”—and the implications that someone had sold Flighthawk secrets to a foreign government — obviously had her deeply troubled. The scientists took seats at the consoles a row down from him, Jennifer forcing a smile as she sat.

Colonel Bastian entered, trailed by Danny Freah and Mark Stoner, a CIA officer who had worked with Dreamland during the Piranha deployment.

Zen didn’t particularly like Stoner. He had to fight to prevent a frown from clouding his face as the spook looked at him and nodded. He managed to nod back, then took another sip of coffee, hoping the caffeine would chase off his bad mood.

“And you must be Major Stockard.”

Zen spun his head around and found a tall, thick-shouldered woman eyeing him. She wore a visitor’s badge on her uniform and stood so straight he could almost see the broomstick extruding from her behind — obviously the colonel from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations.

“People call me Zen,” he told her.

“Yes,” said Colonel Cortend, her tone implying that there were a large number of insane idiots in the world that couldn’t be accounted for. “I’d like to speak to you after this conference a little later. My inquiries are informal, though cooperation is advised. Strongly advised.”

“Not a problem.”

“I understand you’re the project officer on the Flighthawks?”

“That’s correct,” answered Zen, meeting her icy tone with one of his own.

“I’ve been reviewing the personnel attached to the project,” she told him. “Quite a collection.”

It was clear she didn’t mean it as a compliment.

“You bet your ass it is,” said Zen. He turned his attention to the front of the room.

“The simulation you’ve just seen represents our best guess as to the capabilities and configuration of the ghost clone,” said Dog. “As you can see, it’s very, very similar to a first-generation Flighthawk. As such, it could be used for a variety of purposes. Air-launched from a bomber, or even a civilian transport, it could attack an urban area with a variety of weapons. It would be difficult to see on radar.”

Dog hit the remote control to restore the lighting.

“We have two tasks. We have to find the clone, figure out who’s operating it and what its actual capabilities are. And number two, we have to determine if our own security has been breached. We’ll have help,” said Dog, brushing past the implication that a traitor was among them. “Most of you are familiar with Mr. Stoner, who is an expert on Asian technology and high-tech deployment. He was responsible for identifying the Indian sub-launched weapons.”

Dog turned toward Colonel Cortend, who was beaming laser animosity from both eyes.

“And Colonel Cortend has joined us from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. For those of you who haven’t dealt with OSI before, they’re a thorough, professional group,” said Dog.

The flattery, of course, only deepened her glare.

“I expect everyone will cooperate to the fullest of their ability,” added Dog, looking toward Rubeo. The scientist had already lodged a complaint about the investigator, who apparently had arrived unannounced at his quarters at 0700 for an interview.

“Questions?” said the colonel, knowing his tone would ward any off. He gave them three seconds, then dismissed them.

“So you alone are responsible for the coding?”

Jennifer flicked the hair back behind her ear. “Of course not,” she told Cortend. The colonel had two bleary-eyed technical experts and a pair of bright-faced lieutenants standing behind her, but none of them had uttered a peep.

“I work with a team of people,” said Jennifer. “Depending on which project and what we’re talking about, the team could have a dozen or more people. Six people handled the compression routines for C³.”

“C³ is?”

“The computer system that helps fly the Flighthawks. The communication sequences have to—”

“And any of these six people could have given the secrets away.”

“No one gave the secrets away,” said Jennifer.

“Someone did, my dear. Someone.”

“Let me explain how the compression works. See, the algorithms themselves aren’t necessarily secret—”

“Everything you work on is secret,” said Cortend. She rose. “I think we have enough for now. We’ll be back.”

“Peachy,” muttered Jennifer beneath her breath.

Major Mack “The Knife” Smith adjusted his swagger as a quintet of officers came out of the computer lab. Mack had recently returned to Dreamland after a series of temporary assignments had failed to get him the squadron command he so ardently desired — and, in his unprejudiced opinion, deeply deserved. He accepted a position as temporary test officer for a project dubbed Micro-Mite, a twenty-first century fleet of interceptors no larger than cruise missiles that would use energy beam weapons to bring down their opponents.

Or maybe lasers, or railguns, or some as-yet unperfected Flash Gordon zap weapon. That was the beauty of the assignment — four weeks of blue-sky imagining with a bunch of pizza-eating eggheads, who would spit out sci-fi concepts for him to consider as they worked feverishly over their laptops on simulations. They were all recent grads of MIT, RPI, and Berkeley — or was it Cal Tech? In any event, the pimple-faced pizza eaters looked to him as the voice of reality and experience. With his combat experience and superior flying and fighting skills, he was their god, and they bowed down before him.

Figuratively, of course. Which was the way he wanted it. For alas, while there were six females among the chosen, the eggheads’ bodies were no match for their brains. Even mixing and matching their best attributes would still leave the composite far short of Jennifer Gleason, Dreamland’s resident brain babe. He was in fact on his way to see her now, hoping she might be available to give his acolytes a few pointers about the value of working with the military. They really didn’t need to hear another pep talk — he had that under control himself — but it would give Mack an excuse to admire her assets — er, abilities — for a good twenty minutes or more.

Mack had tried several times to steer her into his quarters for an up-close examination of her charms. Of late, though, he’d had to settle for watching from afar. Jennifer was seeing the base commander, and even Mack knew better than to cross the boss, especially when he required Dog’s connections and good word to help steer him toward the command he deserved. With any luck, Dog would come through and deliver him a tasty squadron post in the next week or so. The colonel’s star was rising in Washington, and surely he owed Mack a bit of largesse.

“Halt,” said a tall, rather striking if formal woman at the rear of a three-man formation that had buzzed into the hallway.

She had been speaking to the drones behind her, but Mack momentarily thought the command was meant for him. Taken by surprise, he stopped and gazed at the woman, realizing with his connoisseur’s eye that, if properly undressed, this frame and face might be fittingly attractive. It was tall for a woman, with shoulders that were admittedly manly. But the starched trousers sheathed long, undoubtedly athletic legs, and there was no hiding the voluptuous breasts standing guard above the slim waist.

“Can we help you?” barked the breasts’ owner.

“You must be from OSI,” said Mack. He extended his hand. “Mack Smith.”

“Major.”

The drones hovered, unsure whether their master was being greeted or attacked.

Mack gave them nods — lieutenants, mere children — then turned toward their leader.

“I’m available for background,” Mack told her. “I’ve been here awhile. I know where the bodies are buried.”

“I see.”

She looked him over. Mack pushed his shoulders back.

“Perhaps we’ll arrange something,” said the officer, turning to go.

“What was your name?” he asked.

“It’s Colonel Cortend,” whispered one of the underlings.

“First name?” said Mack.

Cortend whirled around. “Why would you need to know my first name?”

“For future reference,” said Mack.

The colonel frowned in his direction, then turned and set off so quickly that her minions had difficulty keeping up.

Mack felt his face flush. By the time he started moving again, his palms were so sweaty that he had to wipe them on his pants, and he was so obsessed with Cortend that he forgot what he’d come to see Jennifer about.

“No way this is a Chinese Project,” Stoner told Zen as the briefing session broke up. “No way.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’d know about it.”

Zen, Rubeo, and several of the other civilian experts involved in the Flighthawk project had just finished giving Stoner a comprehensive briefing on the technologies involved in the U/MF-3. They had emphasized three areas — materials, propulsion, and communications — which until the discovery of the clone had appeared to be Dreamland monopolies.

“I’ve dealt with the Chinese,” said Zen. “They’re pretty damn competent. I wouldn’t underestimate them.”

“I’m not underestimating them. I just don’t think they did this. Consider their aircraft technology. Their most advanced aircraft is the Shenyang F-8IIM. It’s basically a very large MiG-21. If they were able to construct lightweight carbon fiber wings, for example, they’d be building something closer to the F-22.”

“So who? The Russians?”

“They’re much more capable than anyone gives them credit for,” said Stoner. “I wouldn’t rule out the Indians either. You saw their sub-launched cruise missile. That was a pretty serious weapon.”

“The technology here is more advanced,” said Zen.

“In some ways, certainly.” Stoner folded his arms. “What about the Japanese?”

“The Japanese?”

“Forget the technology a minute,” said Stoner. “Look at the way the craft was used. It wasn’t taking part in the battle. It was watching what was going on. It was a spy plane. It stayed far away from the action.”

“That doesn’t rule China out,” said Zen.

“Sure it does. If the Chinese had this weapon, wouldn’t they have been using it to scout the Indian forces?”

“Maybe they did and we didn’t see it. The Flighthawks are very difficult to pick up on radar,” said Zen.

“You think this thing flew over the Navy task force without being detected?”

Zen shrugged. He didn’t, but he didn’t feel like admitting it to Stoner.

“My guess is it’s a third-party player,” said Stoner. “Japan, Russia — someone interested, but not directly involved.”

“My money’s still on China,” said Zen. “I don’t trust them.”

“And they don’t trust us,” said Stoner. “But that’s good.”

“Why?”

“Makes them predictable.”

For an egghead nerd, Rubeo set a good clip, and Stoner had trouble catching up with him as he cleared through the underground maze back toward his laboratories.

“Doc, can I talk to you?”

“You seem to be making an effort to do so,” said Rubeo, not pausing.

“Who really could develop this?”

Rubeo stopped at a locked door and put in his card. The door clicked and buzzed, but didn’t open.

“Your ID,” said Rubeo. “In the slot.”

Stoner complied. The door opened. Rubeo stepped through and resumed his pace.

“We can. The Japanese maybe. The Chinese. Not the Russians.”

“That’s it?”

The scientist stopped outside one of the lab doors. Despite his high clearance, Stoner was not allowed into the room, which contained the terminals used for work on the Flighthawk control computers, as well as a myriad of other projects. Rubeo frowned at him, then touched his earring. He seemed to be trying to figure out exactly what to tell him. Stoner wasn’t sure whether he was trying to translate complicated scientific data into layman’s terms — or if he just didn’t trust him.

“Plenty of countries have unmanned vehicles, don’t they?” prompted Stoner.

“Forget the mechanical aspects,” said Rubeo. He glanced down the hallway, making sure they were alone. “It’s the computers that are important. Yes, anyone can build a UMV — we could go to Radio Shack and buy a radio-controlled model that’s about ninety percent as advanced as Predator.”

“Ninety percent?”

“Well, eighty-five.” Rubeo smirked. “Building the aircraft is not the difficult part. The problem is to transfer data quickly enough to control the plane in aggressive flight. This craft seems to have done that. And if it’s used as a spy plane — well, then you have an enormous data flow, don’t you? Bandwidth — you understand what I’m talking about.”

Stoner nodded. The scientists had emphasized earlier that massive amounts of data flowed back and forth very quickly between the Flighthawks and their mother ships. To be honest, Stoner didn’t completely get it — what was the big deal about some video and flying instructions? But it was enough to know that they said it was significant.

“All of that is going to take custom-designed chips, both for the communications and for the onboard computer. Because it will have to have an onboard computer,” said Rubeo. “That’s what you have to look for. That’s the defining characteristic.”

“Okay, so who could do that?” said Stoner.

Rubeo shook his head. “Weren’t you paying attention? We can. The Japanese. The Chinese. Not the Russians.”

“No one else?”

Rubeo fingered his earring again. “Maybe India. Some of the Europeans, possibly. There are good fab plants in Germany. They’ve done memory work there as well. The processor, though.”

Rubeo seemed to be having a conversation with himself that Stoner couldn’t hear. He segued into contract factories or fabs that fabricated chips for custom applications. A small number of concerns could manufacture specially designed chips. They needed special clean rooms and elaborate tools, but if there was enough money, existing machinery could be adapted.

“What if I look for those?” Stoner asked Rubeo.

“You don’t really suppose they’re going to tell you what they’re doing, do you?”

“I’m in the business of gathering information,” said Stoner.

Rubeo made a noise that sounded a bit like the snort of a horse. “There are several facilities in America that could do the work. More than two dozen that I can think of off the top of my head. Any of them would be willing to design the proper chips for a foreign government if the price were right.”

“I’ll check them first,” said Stoner. “Unless they’re already doing work for us.”

“Why would that be a limiting factor?” said Rubeo, the cynical tone in his voice implying that greed would motivate any number of people to sell out their country.

Sergeant Ben “Boston” Rockland got to his feet slowly. The rest of his team lay around him, officially “dead.” Their objective — carrying a small amount of radioactive soil back from enemy lines for testing — had not been met.

Boston — as the nickname suggested, the sergeant was a Beantown native — picked up the ruck containing the soil. The desert before him was dotted with small rubber balls with nails sticking out from them — simulated cluster bomblets, representing air-dropped antipersonnel mines with proximity fuses. The little suckers worked too — as soon as you got within five feet, an ear-piercing siren sounded, and the range monitor proclaimed you were dead.

Not dead, actually. Just maimed. The range monitor seemed to take a perverse joy in announcing which particular body part it was that had been blown off.

There seemed to be no way across the minefield. Yet to get to the objective — a small orange cone about a quarter mile away — he had to cross it.

As Boston stared, he heard the roar of the returning Osprey gunship. Sergeant Liu had explained earlier that the aircraft was programmed to orbit the test range randomly. He’d also warned that the massive Gatlings were firing live ammunition.

The Osprey swung forward in a wide arc, hunting for a target. Boston had seen from the exercises earlier that it would home in on small reflectors that the people running the exercise had planted around the field. It wasn’t clear to him whether the red disks had some circuitry inside, or if the weapons directors on the M/V-22 could actually home in on the glints of light. Whichever it was, flinging the little disks drove the gear batty, as one of the Whiplash team members had proven yesterday when morale had started to sag.

Maybe he hadn’t flung the disk as a joke, thought Boston. Maybe he was hinting at the solution.

Boston threw himself back down as the Osprey approached. The computers controlling the guns were programmed to avoid hitting anyone, but they didn’t miss by much. As the guns began to fire, the tilt-rotor aircraft seemed to jump upward in the sky.

The burst lasted no more than three-quarters of a second. When it stopped, the Osprey settled back down and flew in a semicircle close to the ground.

Eight feet off the surface.

That wasn’t all that high.

Boston watched as the Osprey flew toward the hangar area, still skimming low over the terrain.

That was the solution. It had to be.

As soon as the tilt-rotor craft had gone, he began grabbing the disks.

Captain Danny Freah watched in amazement as the Osprey whirled around, hoodwinked by the flashing reflectors. It fired, then settled back down into a hover just at the edge of the minefield.

“I think he figured out how to control it,” said Liu, who was next to Danny.

“Or at least confuse it,” answered Danny.

“If he uses the Osprey to blast a path through the minefield, the computer simulators won’t understand,” said Liu. “He’ll still be blown up by the proximity fuses. But you’d have to give him points for figuring it out.”

“Sure, but that’s not what he’s doing,” said Danny as Boston began running toward the rear of the Osprey.

“Holy shit,” said Liu.

Boston leaped into the air and caught the rear tail of the variable-rotor aircraft. His legs pitched forward and his ruck hung off his back, but the sergeant managed to hang on.

Even though the massive rotors were locked above the aircraft, they still kicked up a hurricane around the aircraft. Boston shook like the last leaf on a maple tree in a nor’easter blizzard as the aircraft pushed ahead toward the apron area beyond the minefield.

The trooper felt his fingers numbing as the MV-22 moved ahead. They were cold, frozen even — his right pinkie began to slip, then his ring finger, then his thumb.

He leaned his head down, trying to see exactly where he was.

Not even halfway across.

Hang on, he told himself.

The aircraft bucked upward. Boston realized he’d miscalculated about how close to the ground it flew once it cleared the minefield — from where he’d stood, it didn’t seem as if it rose at all, but now he realized it must go up at least a few feet, and a few feet were going to make a very big difference when he jumped.

He could get it to dip again by tossing one of the reflectors. But to toss one — he had two more in his pocket — he’d have to hold on with one hand.

Could he?

No.

Besides, the shock of the guns would easily throw him off.

The Osprey began turning to the left. The shift in momentum was simply too much, and Boston lost his grip. He tried to relax his legs so he could roll when he landed, but it happened too fast; his heels hit the ground and he fell back hard. His backpack took a little of the sting out of the fall, probably just enough to prevent a concussion as it slipped upward on his back. He rolled and flipped over, then hunkered against the hard surface of the ancient lakebed, anticipating the screech and growl of the simulated mine.

But he heard nothing. Boston raised his head. Shit, he thought, I blew my eardrums out.

Then he heard the Osprey thumping in the distance. He saw one of the spiked balls lying about fifteen feet away — just far enough not to go off.

Slowly, Boston pushed up to his knees. He rubbed some of the grit from his eyes, then stood, trying to get his bearings.

The cone was ten feet away. He took a breath, and walked slowly toward it.

I could use some water, he thought as he put the ruck containing the soil sample next to the cone.

By the time Sergeant Liu appeared, Boston had stretched out on the ground, his body hovering just this side of consciousness.

“Yo,” said Liu. He turned and started walking away.

Boston rose and fell in behind, his limbs sore not just from the fall but from the last twenty-four hours. He managed to lean forward and break into a rough trot, catching up.

“What’s next?” he asked.

“Nothing for you,” said Liu.

“Shit,” said Boston, but he couldn’t figure out where he had screwed up.

The Osprey? But how else was he supposed to get across the minefield? He’d have had to leave the range, and even then, the entire cone was surrounded.

Liu didn’t explain. A GMC Jimmy, blue light flashing, appeared in the distance, kicking up dust as it sped across the open landscape. It whipped to a stop a few feet from him. Liu pulled open the front passenger door, waiting for Boston to get in.

There was no driver. Boston was only slightly surprised to see that — as the Whiplash veterans were fond of saying,This is Dreamland. Nor was he particularly surprised when Liu didn’t climb in after him.

As soon as the door was shut, the vehicle started up again, slowly at first, then gradually picking up speed. It drove to a small building just beyond the old bone yard — a storage area for old planes at the eastern end of the base. Boston got out; when the door was shut, the vehicle backed up and drove away.

Captain Danny Freah was waiting inside. Like Boston, Freah was of African descent, though it was clear from his demeanor that any appeal to ethnic roots was not going to cut it.

Maybe, Boston thought, he could appeal to his mother’s side of the family. She was Sicilian. He could hint at a mafia connection.

Probably wouldn’t cut it either.

“Who told you you could climb on the aircraft?” demanded Captain Freah.

“Sir.” Boston snapped out the word, but he was too worn down at this point to play rogue warrior. “Uh, no one. I just did it.”

“You know how much that aircraft costs?”

Visions of living on bread and water well into his retirement suddenly filled Boston’s head. He had heard stories about the military taking the cost of high-tech gear out of soldier’s pay, but had never believed they were true. Now he suddenly realized that they might be.

“Um, I didn’t think I’d do any harm to it.”

“You didn’t think?” barked Freah.

Boston winced; he had given the classic—classic! — bad answer.

“I thought incorrectly, sir,” said the sergeant. “I was focused on the objective, to the exclusion of other factors.”

He could practically feel the heat coming off Freah’s face. From the corner of his eye, he saw another member of the Whiplash team joining them in the building — Sergeant Liu. Behind him came the other Whiplash veterans.

Great, thought Boston, they’re all here for the hanging.

“You only thought of the objective?” said the captain.

“Yes, sir, I’m afraid I did. I’m sorry.”

One of the Whiplash troopers — Bison — started to laugh.

“Hang him by his toes,” said Egg Reagan.

Boston felt the blood rushing to his face.

“Are you blushing, Sergeant?” asked the captain.

“I, uh… ”

“Jeez, if I’d known he was a blusher, I woulda never voted for him,” said Bison.

“Me neither,” said Egg.

“We need a blusher,” said Liu.

It was only then that Boston realized he was in.

Zen knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep, and so didn’t even bother going home. He and Breanna had a small apartment — more like a dorm room with a kitchenette — on the base where he could crash when he ran out of energy. But that figured to be a long way off.

He sat in one of the simulation blocks, playing a loop the programmers had designed to mimic the engagement in which his wife and her plane had been shot down. The simulation was a subset of their normal tactical simulations, used not only to train pilots but to help refine the combat library that was an integral part of the Flighthawks’ control computer, C³. By jiggling the parameters a bit, the techies had given Zen a Flighthawk clone that could fly to within seventy-five miles of the Megafortress before being detected.

Actually, depending on the altitude, atmospheric conditions, and the orientation of the planes, it could make it to within fifty miles.

But that was as close as it could get. That meant that the ghost clone couldn’t target the Megafortress. That also meant it couldn’t possibly get much more information about the Megafortress than a standard aircraft would; in fact, almost certainly less.

Which meant that Quicksilver hadn’t been the target. Nor, from the configurations of the battle forces, were the Indians.

That left the Chinese.

So maybe the Indians were using it to spy on the Chinese.

Or attack them?

Zen played the simulation again. This time, he took control of the ghost clone and flew directly over the Chinese fleet. Antiair missiles flashed on, but he was able to drive his attack home. He rolled his wing at twenty thousand feet, slapping his nose down on a direct line for the flight deck on one of the two pocket Chinese carriers.

The mach indicator clicked upward; he nudged the stick and got the bridge in his pipper, fat in the gun sights.

Blam. No more bridge, no more radar, no more flight operations. The clone skipped away unharmed, tucking right as a simulated Chinese MiG launched a pair of heat-seekers in a belated and desperate attempt to extract revenge.

Zen stopped the program. If the clone was an Indian aircraft, then surely it wasn’t outfitted with a weapon. Even simply crashing it into the bridge would have dramatically altered the battle.

So the clone couldn’t have been an Indian plane.

Maybe it was Russian.

“Or maybe the Chinese spying on themselves,” he said aloud in derision, frustrated that he couldn’t figure out what was going on.

“Possible, actually, though unlikely.”

Zen jerked away from the controls. Stoner walked down the long ramp at the far end toward him.

Zen wheeled his chair around. “What’s up?”

“Want to get a beer or something?”

“No.”

The CIA officer pulled out the chair from the main programmer’s station and sat on it, rolling it forward as Zen approached.

“You don’t like me, Major,” said Stoner.

“Is that relevant?”

“Probably not.”

Stoner and Breanna had lashed themselves together after bailing out, and it was probably because of that that they survived the fierce storm that had swallowed most of the rest of the crew. Zen didn’t begrudge Stoner that.

If anything, he should be grateful.

And yet.

And yet.

He just didn’t like him.

“I don’t think it’s Chinese,” said Stoner. “Is that the flight where we got shot down?”

“More or less.”

“Can I see it?”

“You’re not in the picture,” said Zen, but he rolled back anyway.

The simulation area duplicated a Flighthawk control deck aboard an EB-52, with a double set of configurable displays and dedicated systems readouts. It wasn’t a perfect match — some of the equipment on the side racks was omitted, the floor was cement rather than metal mesh, and most importantly, the station never reacted to turbulence. The simulator that did, located down the hall, required at least one techie to run.

“We didn’t go in like that,” said Stoner, watching the screen that showed Quicksilver. “Breanna — your wife — held us up and got us away from danger before telling us to bail. There was some other stuff, self-destruct routines.”

“We skip that. We’re not really interested in the accident, just the ghost clone.”

“Where is it?”

Zen slapped at the keyboard. The sitrep showed it at seventy-five miles, to the northeast of the Chinese fleet.

“It’s got to be spying on the Chinese,” said Stoner. “But it doesn’t really make sense that the Indians would send it that far around, does it?”

“No,” said Zen.

“It could be another Chinese unit,” Stoner said. “The admiral in charge of this fleet, Xiam, is not well-liked. But I still don’t think they have the technology.”

“They spy on themselves?”

“Sometimes.”

“I know how we can settle it,” said Zen. “We go back, buzz their coast, see if it comes out.”

Stoner shrugged. “Maybe.”

Zen had thought of the idea earlier and been ready to reject it because it didn’t seem as if the clone could be Chinese. But if what Stoner was saying was true — that one unit might spy on another — then the clone’s location made perfect sense.

“We fly over their coast, try to get them to come out. If it’s Chinese, eventually they’ll come and take a look. In the meantime, we can adjust our Elint gear to look for their transmissions,” added Zen. “Now that we know what we’re looking for, our range will be wider. They won’t know it.”

“I guess.”

“You have a better idea?” Zen asked.

“Actually, I came down to suggest it myself.”

Jennifer Gleason took the last turn and broke into a sprint as she headed up the hill back toward the low-slung building that housed her small apartment. As she ran, she glanced in the direction of Dog’s small bungalow, hoping he might appear. The fact that he didn’t probably meant he was already over at his office. She channeled her disappointment into her legs, pushing out long strides as she finished her daily run.

One brief warm-down and shower later, she grabbed breakfast from her tiny refrigerator — strawberry-banana yogurt — then headed over to the computer labs located below the main Megafortress hangars. Jennifer liked the feel of the empty lab around her early in the morning; she generally had the large underground complex to herself for at least a few hours and could walk around talking to herself as she figured out problems. That would be especially important today; she had an idea on how they might be able to break into the ghost clone’s coding and take it over, assuming they could get close to it again.

Jennifer got off the elevator and punched her card into the reader next to the door, fingers slipping to the side to hit the number combination to clear the lock while she stared down the retina scan. Inside, she got a pot of coffee going, then went back to kick her computers on so they’d be ready when the coffee was.

Except nothing came up.

Jennifer stared at the blank screens, then reached down to the keyboards and gave her access codes again, directing the terminals to boot into the main system housed in a shielded bunker two floors below. The coffee hissed at her from the bench at the side of the room. She hit Enter and went back for a cup, expecting the screens to be blinking their hellos when she returned. But they were still blank.

Kneeling at her station, she keyed her passwords one letter and number at a time. The system allowed only three tries, so she had to get it right.

She did.

But there was still nothing.

The computers were operating — there was a cursor on the fifteen-inch network screen, and the two larger CRTs had their indicator lights on.

The bungled attempts at signing on locked her out as a user, but not as system administrator. She went to the network bench, where the operating system — which she had helped tweak — was controlled. The monitor flashed to life, reported that the system was in perfect shape — and then refused her password.

“You get up early,” said Ray Rubeo, coming into the lab.

“Something’s wrong with the system,” said Jennifer.

“Hardly. Miss Spanish Inquisition has temporarily locked us out of the system.”

“What?”

Rubeo went to the coffeemaker and poured himself a cup. He drank the whole cup, black and steaming, in two gulps, then poured himself another one.

“We’re under suspicion of being spies,” said Rubeo.

“No, that’s not true,” said Danny Freah, entering the room. Cortend was right behind him.

“Danny, did you lock me out of the system?”

“I did it,” said Rubeo. “We’re all out.”

“We’re just following standard procedure,” said Freah. “Just until we can go through some more interviews.”

“I thought this was an informal inquiry,” said Jennifer.

Danny didn’t answer.

“When is this lockout going to end?” asked Jennifer.

“When you pass a lie detector test,” said Cortend.

“What?”

“Are you refusing?” said Cortend.

Jennifer had taken several lie detector tests before, but the implication of it — that she was suspected of being a traitor — floored her. She felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach.

“You don’t have to take the test if you don’t want, Jen,” said Danny.

“Oh, please,” said Rubeo. “If we don’t take the test, we won’t be restored to the system. And you’ll consider pulling our clearance permanently.”

“Not necessarily,” said Danny.

Cortend said nothing. Jennifer thought she saw the faintest outline of a grin at the sides of the colonel’s lips.

Where was Dog in all this?

No wonder he hadn’t run with her this morning. Danny wouldn’t have gone ahead with all this unless he’d cleared it with the colonel first.

What, did he think she was a traitor too?

How could he?

She clamped her mouth shut, stifling a string of curses. But her anger had to come out somehow — she batted her coffee cup to the floor, sending the hot liquid streaming onto the industrial carpeting.

“Jen, where are you going?” asked Danny as she brushed past.

“I’m going to go get some breakfast. Then I’ll take your fucking lie detector test. What a bunch of bullshit.”

Stoner could feel his eyes drooping as he stepped off the elevator and headed for the commander’s suite. He’d pulled an all-nighter, working out a plan with Zen to provoke whoever was flying the ghost clone into appearing again. The Air Force officer clearly didn’t like him, but Stoner admired him even so. Zen had lost the use of his legs in a flying accident; rather than dropping out he’d fought his way back into the Air Force and actually onto the front lines.

Stoner would have liked to think that he’d have done the same thing — but he was smart enough to realize he would more likely have succumbed to the inherent bitterness of the situation. While Zen did seem to approach the world with a chip on his shoulder, he didn’t let the chip keep him from getting things done.

That alone made him worth watching.

Chief Master Sergeant Terrence “Ax” Gibbs popped up from a desk near the side of the room as Stoner entered.

“Stoner, right?” asked the chief.

“Yes, sir.”

“Jackie, go get Mr. Stoner some coffee. He likes it on the weak side. Grab some sticky buns too. The cinnamon ones.” The chief master sergeant turned to him and grinned. “It’s okay, Mr. Stoner, one or two buns isn’t going to hurt your girlish figure.”

Stoner had never met him, much less told him what he liked to eat or drink, but somehow the chief had nailed it.

“Thanks, Chief Gibbs,” he said.

“We take care of people here. Zen’s inside already, along with the colonel. You call me Ax,” added the chief. “You need something around here, you get ahold of me. You got that?”

Ax reached back to his desk and hit an intercom buzzer, then stepped up to the door.

“We all know what you did to save Captain Stockard,” said Ax. “We appreciate it.”

“She saved me as much as I saved her,” said Stoner.

The chief smiled and pointed at him, then opened the door.

Dog nodded as the CIA officer entered his office, listening to Zen as he continued laying out the game plan — two Megafortresses, one to act as agent provocateur and the other hanging back to gather information. When the clone showed itself, Flighthawks from the second EB-52 would come forward. Operating at the far end of their range, they would gather information on the clone without its being able to detect them.

“We could even turn them loose,” said Zen. “We could program them to home in on their own, gather whatever information they can get, then return.”

“No — too risky,” said Dog. “I don’t want to chance losing one. But otherwise, this makes sense.”

“We need a remote base,” said Stoner. “I’d recommend the FOA in the Philippines we used last month.”

“It’s a good distance from the area you two have mapped out,” said Dog.

“We’re not quite sure where exactly the clone is flying from,” said Stoner. “If it’s China, this is far. But if it’s Thailand, say, or even off a ship—”

“The Philippines also limits our exposure,” said Zen. “We’ve been there already. And in terms of the operating radius, it’s the same.”

“Still a stretch,” said Dog.

“Better than locating in a country that has the clone,” said Stoner.

“As unlikely as that may be,” said Zen.

“Start working on a detailed deployment plan,” said Dog, ignoring the bite in Zen’s voice. “I’ll talk to Jed and get the wheels in motion. It may take a while to get approval.”

“This may not work,” said Stoner.

“Don’t be a pessimist,” said Zen. He wheeled himself backward and spun toward the door at the right side of Dog’s office, which had been widened so his wheelchair could easily fit through.

“I’m just being realistic,” said Stoner, standing.

He went to open the door for Zen, but the major had already gotten it himself.

“Play nice, boys,” said Dog as they disappeared.

“Name.”

“Minnie Mouse.”

The technician handling the lie detector suppressed a grin.

“Name,” repeated Colonel Cortend.

“Jennifer Gleason.”

“Age?”

“What’s yours?”

“Age?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Um—” said the technician, raising his finger.

“I’ll be twenty-five next month.”

“The needle was okay, but I saw the, I mean I knew the answer was wrong,” said the technician.

Cortend folded her arms. “Continue.”

“This needn’t be an adversary procedure,” said Danny, standing near Cortend.

“Thank you for your advice, Captain. Miss Gleason—”

“Ms. Gleason.”

“Miss Gleason, how long have you been at Dreamland?”

“You could at least call her by her proper name,” hissed Rubeo. “She’s a doctor. Her Ph.D. was a brilliant piece of work. Classified need-to-know, I might add.”

Rubeo had passed his own lie detector test earlier, which obviously had put Cortend in a bad mood. The colonel ignored him.

“Miss Gleason,” insisted Cortend, “how long have you been at Dreamland?”

Jennifer realized that Cortend was trying to rattle her. She also knew the best thing to do was simply answer the questions and get on with her life. But something inside wouldn’t let her do that. She was just so put out, so angry with it all, that she had to fight back somehow.

“I’ve been here too long, obviously,” she said. Then she answered the question, remembering the day in 1993 when as a freshly minted computer Ph.D. — she would go on to get another degree in applied micro circuitry, her weaker discipline — she had come off the Dolphin transport. General Brad Elliott had taken time from his schedule to show her around some of the base, and it was his tour that had cinched her decision to come here.

Poor General Elliott. A brave man, a true hero.

He’d been persecuted by people like Cortend. He was honored in the end, but it was too late for him by then — the brass had kicked him out.

The brass and people like Cortend.

“I asked, what is your specialty?” said Cortend.

“Long or short version?”

“Short.”

“Just the unclassified portions, Jen,” said Danny, clearly trying to play nice guy. “Just sum it up.”

“Computers. Mostly software, but on occasion I do hardware. I could have gotten around the lockout easily. If I were a scumbag traitor.”

“Just answer the questions, Miss Gleason.”

“I’m trying.”

Cortend asked a short series of questions regarding Jennifer’s education background and her contributions to the Flighthawk program. The questions skipped around, but none was particularly difficult, and in fact Jennifer had answered all or almost all the day before for one of the technical people assigned to Cortend’s team. But yesterday they had seemed informational; now even the simplest question felt like an accusation.

“June 7, 1993,” said Cortend.

“Excuse me?” asked Jennifer.

“June 7, 1993. What does that date mean to you?”

Jennifer shook her head. “Should it mean something?”

“Where were you that day?”

“Here?” said Jennifer.

“Let me refresh your memory,” said Cortend. She walked over to the side of the room and returned with a folder. “You were in Hong Kong.”

“A conference?” Jennifer stared at Cortend.

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“I honestly can’t remember where I was.”

“Your memory seems very convenient.”

“It’s not.”

Cortend made a snorting sound, a kind of animal chuckle that seemed to signify some sort of personal victory. “You don’t remember attending a conference in Hong Kong in June 1993?”

“I’ve attended many conferences.”

“How about September 1994?”

Jennifer turned to Danny. He had a worried look on his face.

“Another conference?” asked Jennifer.

“Did you obtain permission to attend those conferences?” asked Cortend.

“She doesn’tneed permission,” snapped Rubeo.

“Did you register with the Department of Defense and your superiors here that you were attending those conferences?”

Jennifer saw Rubeo muttering under his breath.

“This interview is completely voluntary,” said Danny.

“I don’t really remember,” said Jennifer.

“So you didn’t,” said Cortend. “You’re best off being honest with me, Miss Gleason.”

“Ms.”

“Oh, yes. Mizz Gleason. Excuse me. Let’s be precise. Where were you that day? And what did you do?”

“I don’t remember. I know that sounds lame,” Jennifer added, realizing immediately that saying that only made her sound even lamer.

Cortend seemed to grin ever so slightly before continuing.

Jed Barclay took his place in the Oval Office nervously, sitting between Arthur Chastain, the secretary of defense, and Jeffrey Hartman, the secretary of state. Jed had been here dozens of times, but today felt different. Not because of the subject matter; the appearance of the UAV Dreamland had dubbed the ghost clone had enormous implications, true, but Jed thought the plan for drawing it out that Colonel Bastian had outlined to him made a lot of sense. He also felt that it was unlikely another spy was at the base, though admittedly the fact that he knew most of the important players there might be blinding him.

What was bothering him was the fact that he was at the meeting in place of his boss, Philip Freeman, the national security director, who had been hospitalized with pneumonia.

Jed would have been at the meeting even if Freeman was well; Dreamland was his portfolio. He might even be sitting in this chair. But somehow, being here officially as Freeman’s replacement — temporary as it was — unnerved him.

He stuttered as he said hello to the President. Martindale smiled and started talking about a football game the week before that Yale, Jed’s alma mater, had lost.

Jed smiled and tried to say something along the lines of “can’t win them all.” But what came out was “k-k-k-k.”

The President laughed, maybe thinking he was joking, and moved on to start the meeting. Jed reached into his briefcase and passed out the executive summary of the Dreamland plan, then fired up his laptop for a PowerPoint presentation, which he planned to present on the twenty-one-inch flat screen he’d brought with him. But the President stopped him.

“No slides, Jed,” said Martindale, who put more stock in honest opinions than zippy pie charts. “Tell us why this is important.”

“Well, um—” started Jed.

“If the Chinese have robot aircraft as capable as the Flighthawks,” said Admiral George Balboa, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “they could conceivably use them to achieve first-strike capability in a war against Taiwan and even us. The UAVs are very difficult to detect unless you’re looking for them, and even then they can be close enough to initiate an attack before the defenses are alerted.”

Ordinarily, Jed might have bristled at Balboa’s taking over his presentation. But now he was grateful. In any event, the admiral was merely stating one of Jed’s own arguments.

“Yes,” said Jed. He didn’t stutter, a major victory.

Maybe he’d get through this after all. Why was he so unnerved? His boss would be back in a few days.

“The problem with this plan,” said Balboa, “is that it doesn’t go far enough. We need the Navy involved — if there is a UAV we have to take it out. Right away.”

“That m-m-might be premature,” said Jed.

“Nonsense.”

“Provoking the Chinese at this point is risky business,” said the secretary of state. “The meeting with the Taiwanese is set for two weeks from now. The rapprochement should take priority.”

“Why?” said Balboa bluntly. “Why is it in our interests?”

Hartman’s face turned beet red. “Peace is always in our interest.”

“It depends on what the terms are,” said Chastain.

If Freeman were here, Jed thought, he would be mediating between the blustery Balboa and the more reticent Hartman. He’d also be pointing out that finding the UAV and dealing with it need not interfere with the summit between the two Chinas.

So why didn’t he say that?

He should.

Jed opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“What do you think, Jed?” asked the President.

“I, well — if the operation is run exactly the way Colonel Bastian outlined it, sir, it won’t provoke the Chinese any more than any routine mission would.” Jed took a breath and then pressed his fingers together, one of the tricks he had learned in high school when the stutter first became an issue. If he didn’t think about it, it wouldn’t be a problem.

The trick was not to think about it.

“I don’t think that, um, that the secretary of state is proposing that we stop gathering intelligence on the Chinese, or that we leave Asia,” said Jed.

“Of course not,” said the secretary of state.

“So this — if it were, say, wrapped up in routine maneuvers, in an exercise that they would be interested in, or that anyone who might have the ghost clone was interested in, I would think that would work.”

Jed glanced up and saw that Martindale was looking directly at him. He floundered, turning his eyes back down to the floor before continuing.

“The, uh, the ASEAN, the ASEAN exercises are set to begin in two days. My thinking was that the Dr-Dreamland plan might fold into that, or we could use the maneuvers as a cover somehow.”

“The Navy was ordered to take a low profile. We’ve only allocated a frigate.” Balboa cleared his throat, obviously warming to the idea. While as the head of the JCS, Balboa was technically in charge of all the services, rare was the operation he didn’t believe should be spearheaded by the Navy. “We could get some assets there, a carrier, have some patrol craft. Yes. A P-3 in an Elint role, and we have two Vikings that have just been overhauled precisely for this sort of mission.”

“Why don’t we just send the fleet?” said Chastain.

“We could do that,” said Balboa, somehow missing the sarcasm in the defense secretary’s voice.

“Jed?” prompted the President.

“I did some checking and, um, there was originally a request for B-52s in the exercises,” Jed told them. “So we could grant it and, uh, the Megafortresses could go in their place.”

“There is a bit of an issue with the Dreamland people,” said Balboa. “Some folks feel Colonel Bastian and his people are cowboys who need to be reined in.”

“That’s not fair,” snapped Jed.

Balboa turned and stared at him. Jed realized that his dislike of Dreamland, born from a general prejudice against anything connected with the Air Force, had been fanned into a virulent hatred because of the Piranha affair. While the Navy had played an important role in preventing war, the Dreamland people were the ones actually taking the bullets, and for some reason that bugged him.

“I didn’t say it was fair, young man. I’m just saying it’s the view.” Balboa shifted in his seat, turning back toward the President. “We still haven’t reached a decision on where the command should be located. Technically, Colonel Bastian doesn’t answer to anyone at the moment. Except, of course, to the commander-in-chief.”

“I haven’t reached a decision,” said the President.

He smiled, as if apologizing for telling a fib. Jed knew that the ambiguous situation served Martindale very well and was therefore likely to continue indefinitely. Under the present arrangement, Dreamland’s Whiplash special operations team, its cutting-edge aircraft, and all its whiz-bang weapons answered directly to the President, with only one NSC staffer in between — Jed. All military personnel ultimately answered to the President as commander-in-chief, of course, but the chain of command could be torturous. As things presently stood, Martindale could use the Dreamland people as his own attack squadron, sending them to hot spots around the globe with a direct phone call.

“This plan calls for them to be based in the Philippines again,” said Hartman, changing the subject. “The government there is still upset over the handling of the guerrillas we encountered. We need an alternative base.”

“The, uh, uh—” Jed wanted to protest about the alleged guerrillas, who had turned out to be simply displaced villagers, but his tongue tripped and he couldn’t get it out. The Dreamland people had insisted on protecting them until their identities could be proven; they were catching grief for doing the right thing.

“All right,” said the President. “Where else? Taiwan?”

“Not Taiwan,” said Hartman. “Far too provocative. What about Brunei?”

“Brunei?” asked Chastain.

“The sultan is looking for signs of friendship and pushing for access to more weapons,” said the secretary of state. “This might be a good gesture.”

Jed started to object. “It’s f-far from—”

“It is far from China,” said the President. “But according to the CIA, China may not be the country operating the clone at all. Besides, I’d like to show our friend the sultan that we value his alliance.”

The President’s tone suggested that the meeting had come to an end. He glanced around the room, then looked back at Jed.

“Jed, set this up. I want Dreamland deployed as part of the ASEAN exercises — give it a cloak of respectability.”

“Yes, sir,” said Barclay

“We’ll supply a liaison,” said the secretary of state. “There are important protocols. The sultan has to be handled with a certain amount of—”

The secretary stopped, glancing at Balboa. Jed realized that he was going to say “tact,” then realized that might imply that Colonel Bastian had none.

Obviously, he didn’t want to give Balboa the satisfaction.

“Protocol,” he said instead.

“Fine,” said the President, rising to end the meeting.

Dog decided to swing around to Jennifer’s apartment on his way back to Taj. He hadn’t seen much of her since getting back from Hawaii, and felt guilty about it; while he’d been in Honolulu he’d learned that his ex-wife was planning on moving to Las Vegas. He knew he had to tell Jennifer about it, let her know that however awkward it might be, it was only that — awkward. Dog didn’t hate his ex-wife. The truth was he had never really hated her, even when she asked for a divorce. Whether he’d ever loved her or not — well, that was a question best contemplated over a very long set of drinks.

He did love Jennifer. He was sure of that.

Dog jogged down the short set of steps to the hallway leading to the apartments, which spread out right and left. As he started down the hallway, he saw two members of his Whiplash team standing guard in front of Jennifer’s door, Sergeant Liu and Sergeant Bison.

“What’s the story here?” the colonel asked.

“We’re under orders not to let anyone in or out,” said Liu.

“Whose orders?” asked Dog.

“Colonel Cortend,” said Liu.

“Since when do you take orders from Cortend?” Dog asked him.

“Sir, Captain Freah told us to stand guard here. The colonel — Colonel Cortend is sending over a detail to inspect the quarters, and it’s to be secured until then.”

“What?” said Dog. “What the hell is going on here, Sergeant?”

“Sir, Captain Freah didn’t explain.”

The sergeant wasn’t being disrespectful, but it was clear from his demeanor that he wasn’t going to yield.

“Is Ms. Gleason inside?” Dog asked.

“No, sir.”

Dog controlled his anger — though just barely. “Do you know where she is?”

“No, sir.”

“Carry on, Sergeant,” he said, turning on his heel. He walked back to the entrance of the building, resisting the temptation — again just barely — to grab a radio from one of the security detail and radio Freah. He walked outside and started toward Taj when he saw two black SUVs approaching with their blue lights flashing. Danny was in the lead truck — sitting behind Cortend.

“Captain Freah,” said Dog as the door to the truck opened. “A word.”

Dog took two steps away from the walk and turned.

“Why are Jennifer’s quarters under guard?” asked Dog.

“She, uh, the investigation turned up some questions.” Danny spoke as if he’d just been to the dentist to have a pair of wisdom teeth pulled — and needed to go back the next day to have the other set removed. “Apparently, there were some conferences arranged by the Department of Energy that Jennifer neglected to fill out the proper forms on.”

“What?”

“I looked through the records myself.”

“That’s what this inquisition is about? Paperwork?”

“Technically, it’s a violation. At least. I have to check into it—”

“Do so,” snapped Dog, turning angrily toward the building.

Danny grabbed his arm.

“What the hell, Captain?”

“Colonel, we go back a bit, and I have a lot of respect for you. Tremendous respect, sir.”

Dog looked down at Danny’s hand, which was still grasped around his shirt.

“You can’t interfere,” said Danny. “You can’t — you can’t do anything that will look like favoritism.”

Dog continued to stare at his captain’s hand.

“You can’t interfere, Colonel. I’m talking to you man to man. Right now — if there’s a security break.”

“There wasn’t.”

“That’s really not for you to say at this point. Don’t you see?” Danny finally let go. “You can’t interfere, especially where Jennifer is concerned. You’re only going to make it seem as if there’s something to hide. It’ll be worse for her.”

“Worse than what?”

“Just worse.”

“Where is she?”

“Being interviewed.”

Part of him knew Danny was right. He couldn’t interfere — and hell, he didn’t want to. There was no need to. Contact violations — well, they couldn’t be ignored, certainly not. But undoubtedly there would be a good explanation. Jennifer was not a traitor.

No way.

“You asked me to investigate,” said Danny. “I am.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about, it’s Cortend,” said Dog.

“Colonel, with respect, sir — a remark like that really could be misinterpreted, especially by someone who was looking to misinterpret it.”

“I hate that tone of voice, Captain. I hate it.”

Danny stared at him. Dog couldn’t think of anything else to say. Danny was right; he had to consider how things looked — not because it might be bad for him, but because it might be bad for Dreamland. The last scandal here had nearly closed the place down.

And what would have happened to America if that had happened?

“All right, Danny. I wasn’t going to interfere with the investigation,” said Dog finally.

“I know you weren’t.”

A black Jimmy with a blue flashing light charged across the base, kicking up twin tornadoes of dust behind it. Dog and Danny turned and watched it approach.

“Got to be Ax,” said Danny.

“Yeah,” said Dog, folding his arms. Sure enough, Chief Master Sergeant Gibbs rolled down the window as the SUV slammed to a stop a few feet away.

“Colonel, Jed Barclay on the scrambled phone for ya,” said the chief, hanging out the window. “Real important.”

Jennifer leaned back against the chair, waiting while the captain questioning her sorted through his notes.

Her head felt as if it had begun to tilt sideways. She hadn’t eaten dinner, and lunch had been half of a chicken sandwich. Except for two trips to the restroom — escorted, though at least the security people had the decency to stay outside — she’d been in the room for nearly six hours. At least she wasn’t hooked up to the lie detector anymore.

She felt as if she’d fallen down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland. Cortend was the Queen, yelling, “Off with her head, off with her head.”

Jennifer rubbed her arms, trying to get some circulation going. She needed to stretch — she needed to run, just get the hell out of this rabbit hole, where everything she said was turned upside down.

“You could make things easier,” said the captain.

“Excuse me?”

“Cooperate.”

“I am cooperating,” Jennifer told him.

“Why would you help the Chinese?”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Don’t get mad. I’m trying to help you.”

“You’re not.” Jennifer sat up straight in her seat. “You think I’m a traitor, don’t you?”

The captain didn’t answer at first. “I think you might need help,” he said finally.

“Oh, so you’re going to be my friend, right?”

He made a show of sighing, as if she were the one being unreasonable.

“I’m not a traitor,” she said.

The word sounded so odd, so foreign, that Jennifer had to say it again.

“I am not a traitor.”

Until that point, tired and hungry, she’d been sustained mostly by anger. But now that foundation too slipped away. Jennifer Gleason had proven herself several times under fire, but this was something more fierce, more deadly. She’d never felt brave before — she’d just done what she had to do. It was easy almost, because she knew she could do it. She knew who she was — Jennifer Gleason, Dreamland scientist. And everyone at the base, everyone knew who she was. They trusted her, they liked her, and, in one case at least, loved her.

But the look in this man’s eyes told her that trust was gone. She felt her whole idenity slipping through a crack in her ribs.

Jennifer Gleason: traitor.

She wasn’t. She knew she wasn’t. But she worried that no matter what she did, she’d never convince anyone else of that again.

Not her friends. Not even Dog.

“So, when you were in college,” said the captain, putting his papers down. “Tell me about your friends.”

“My friends?”

“You had friends?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

The captain pursed his lips.

“I don’t remember who my friends were,” she said honestly. “At this point, I don’t know if I have any friends at all.”

“There’s a joint exercise between ASEAN assets planned in the South China Sea, covering about a thousand square miles. More a goodwill exercise than actual combat training,” Jed explained. “B-52s were requested. You’ll go instead.”

“All right,” said Dog, listening as Jed filled him in on the arrangements for Brunei. A State Department rep was already en route to help smooth over any protocol matters. It had been suggested than an officer on his staff be appointed to liaison with the government.

“Brunei is not ideal,” Dog told him. “It’s a long way to operate it.”

“Yeah,” said Jed, who obviously agreed. “The President wanted you to locate there. It kind of interfaced with some State Department initiatives.”

“What would those be? Making nice to Brunei?”

Jed gave him an embarrassed laugh.

“All right. If we have to go there, we will,” said Dog.

“Listen, by the way, the Navy’s still kind of pissed at you. There’s a joke going around that an admiral has offered a reward for anyone who accidentally shoots down a Dreamland aircraft. At least I think it’s a joke.”

“Look, Jed, I have a lot going on over here.”

“I’m sorry. The, uh, the President authorized this ASAP, so he wants you there, uh, right away. The exercises actually start tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Well, the time difference, it’s like fifteen hours and that makes tomorrow today here—”

“We’ll get there,” said Dog, hanging up.

The phone no sooner hit the cradle than Rubeo walked in.

“The entire situation is piffle,” said the scientist between his teeth.

“Which piffle?”

“The Colonel Cortend show. Piffle. It’s a witch hunt. They hate scientists,” continued Rubeo. “I’ve seen this before. They railroaded Oppenheimer on trumped-up charges that he was a communist.” Rubeo snorted. “The man wins the war for them and they cashier him.”

Dog didn’t know the particulars about the Oppenheimer case, and he certainly wasn’t going to ask about them now.

“No one’s getting railroaded,” he said.

Rubeo shook his head, flustered by his anger. The scientist’s emotion had a strangely calming effect on Dog, as if Rubeo had somehow taken charge of being mad.

“You know they’re questioning Jennifer Gleason,” said Rubeo. “Questioning her. Her.”

“I’d heard some scuttlebutt,” said Dog.

“You’re supposed to register when you attend a scientific conference where outside government agents may be. They’ve lost the paperwork, and they’re hanging her for it.”

“They lost the paperwork, or it wasn’t done?”

“What does it matter?”

“It’ll make a difference,” said Dog.

“Then it was lost. Probably on purpose.”

Dog leaned back in his seat. Rubeo showed exactly how right Danny had been — going off half-cocked made the scientist look like a crazoid, and did nothing for Jennifer.

“They questioned her for hours, and took away her clearance,” said Rubeo.

Dog sighed. “I’m sure Captain Freah is just following procedure.”

“Oh please.”

“Did Jennifer answer their questions?”

“Of course.”

“Tell me about the conferences.”

Rubeo waved his hand in the air as if brushing away a fly. Then he sighed and began explaining in some detail the two scientific exchanges. One was on artificial intelligence and was rather broad; the other had to do with compression systems used in communications. The latter would have inevitably had applications for encryption and been subject to special scrutiny, though Rubeo thought it was more the fact that Jennifer might have come into contact with Chinese agents or spies that Cortend was focusing on.

“Chinese?” asked Dog.

“She asked specifically about Chinese. There were five hundred people at one of the conferences — it’d be news if the Chinese weren’t there. It’s all piffle, Colonel. It’s a witch hunt.”

Mack Smith was headed toward his base quarters after a game of tennis when he spotted Colonel Cortend heading toward her SUV, trailed by her flock of lackeys. He’d had a good session, demolishing a maintenance officer in straight sets. While Mack had played masterfully, his victory had taken a few minutes too long — he’d just missed inviting the women on the court next to him to dinner.

Their loss, obviously.

Cortend turned in his direction as he approached. Ordinarily he liked his women a little shorter, but she was definitely worth the climb.

“Hello, Colonel,” he said. “How goes the hunt?”

Cortend stopped. Her brown eyes focused on him with all the intensity of a Sidewinder homing in on a hot tailpipe.

“You are?”

“Smith — Mack. Remember? Hey, my friends call me Knife.”

She’d do for dinner.

“You like Vegas?” he asked.

“Las Vegas?”

“City of sin. Listen, I’m just on my way to hit a shower, then I’m going to split for dinner in the capital of sin. Come on with me and I’ll show you around. I know some clubs that’ll blow you away. The food is fantastic. You like to gamble?”

“Mack Smith,” said Cortend. She pronounced each consonant in his name.

“That’s me. Call me Knife. Kind of a nickname.”

She turned to one of her captains. “Is he on the list?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“In the truck, Smith. We have some questions for you.”

Mack laughed. Cortend didn’t.

“Yeah, well, maybe another time,” he said, shaking his head. But as he took a step toward the building, he found two of the lackeys blocking his way. At the same time, two of the security men got out of one of the SUVs.

“What’s the story here, sugar?” Mack said.

Cortend walked over to Mack. They were about the same height — but suddenly Cortend seemed to tower over him.

“The story, sugar, is that I have some questions for you to answer, and you will answer them now. Got it?”

“But I’m kind of busy.”

“You’re refusing to cooperate on a purely voluntary basis?”

The way she said the words made it clear to Mack that talking with her was about as voluntary as income tax. Still, he wasn’t going to let some good-looking but hard-ass colonel screw up his night off.

“I wanted to take a shower,” he said.

“I doubt it will make you smell any better,” said Cortend, heading back toward her vehicle.

Chen Lo Fann waited on the bench in the antechamber, soothing his troubled mind by staring at his surroundings. He had spent considerable time here as a boy, racing through his grandfather Chen Lee’s house; under ordinary circumstances, those memories would soothe him.

They failed to now. In fact, the more he stared, the further those days became, faded pages from a discarded book.

Chen Lo Fann had failed in his mission to provoke a war between China and India. The weight of that failure sat heavily on him, blocks of iron pressing him from every direction. Fann might believe in the endless surging of the universe, but it offered little consolation, for he must now face the one man he loved and feared above all others, and admit his failure.

Time passed; he did not note it.

One of Chen Lee’s secretaries stood before him. Without saying anything, Chen Lo Fann rose and followed the man through the hallway to the office where Chen Lee waited.

The old man stood gazing out the window. Taipei sat in the distance, a dirty gem in the rough land the old man had helped make prosperous. The old clock in the corner of the office ticked, slowly counting to itself as Chen Lo Fann waited for his grandfather to speak.

“Your mission failed,” said Chen Lee finally.

“Yes, Grandfather,” said Fann.

“History is a terrible force,” said the older man, still looking through the window. “It cares for no individual. It is like the ocean wave in that way. And yet it can be turned.”

Chen Lo Fann gazed at the back of his grandfather’s white head. The old man had given him many lessons here, allowed him to watch and listen. Fann’s education in America was nothing compared to those lessons.

“I have a second plan,” said Chen Lo Fann. “The ASEAN exercises can be disrupted.”

Chen Lee had clearly thought of this already, because he answered without his usual pause to consider.

“Simply disrupting them will not be enough. An attack must be provoked.”

“If the Americans participate,” said Chen Lo Fann, “I will succeed.”

The old man said nothing. Chen Lo Fann realized he had made the same promise in the matter of war between the communists and India.

“If the meeting is not canceled, we shall have to take graver action,” said Chen Lee. “Be prepared.”

He turned back to the window.

“Yes, Grandfather,” said Chen Lo Fann. He bowed, then left the room.

Zen rolled himself inside the office, surprised to find that everyone else was already there. Stoner had started the brief on the mission without him.

Zen banged against an empty chair getting in; no one seemed to notice.

“Major Stockard can give you the hard details,” said Stoner, nodding toward him. “Basically, we get their attention by flying near their territory, and then make like we’re testing a new weapon. The weapon is just a Hellfire missile with an ELF transmitter, but it’s different enough to attract attention. So if the clone is a spy plane, it’ll be worth checking out. You want to take over, Zen?”

“You’re doing fine.”

Stoner ticked off a list of areas to probe, starting with China and then moving to Vietnam — it was possible the Russians were using that country as a base. The ASEAN exercises were taking place about two hundred miles to the east of northern Vietnam.

“We’re going to locate in Brunei,” interrupted Colonel Bastian. “I realize it’ll be a haul, but the facilities are first-rate. There’s no doubt about that,” said the colonel.

Dog added by way of explanation that Dreamland would be fulfilling a secondary diplomatic mission by being located in Brunei. It was clear to Zen that Dog didn’t particularly like that part of the assignment, but he soldiered on with it, noting that the kingdom was constructing a new military air base near the international airport in the capital. The facilities would be made available to Dreamland, carte blanche. The sultan was rolling out the red carpet, a gracious host.

“The State Department is sending a babysitter,” added the colonel. “There’s some protocol crap we have to deal with. It won’t get in your way, I promise.”

The colonel ran down a tentative schedule on deployment — first thing tomorrow morning.

Really first thing: 0400.

Everyone in the room was used to dealing with rapid deployments, but 0400 was going to be tight, and Zen watched the concern rise on Major Alou’s face. Alou, who would be in charge of the Megafortresses, had to round up full crews for two aircraft, get support people in place, move supplies, fuel.

“Major Alou, problem?” asked Dog.

“What the hell language do they speak in Brunei, anyway?”

Everyone laughed.

“Malay and English,” said Stoner. “You’ll be able to get by very well with English.”

“Zen, problem?” asked Dog, turning to him. “I know you were looking for a deployment next week.”

Zen shrugged. He’d already told two of his best Flighthawk trainee pilots to stand by. Rounding up the maintainers and other technical people would be a pain — but not particularly out of the ordinary. Most of the key people wore pagers when they were off campus, for just such a contingency.

“We can do it,” said Zen. “We just have to hustle.”

“I know it’s impossibly short notice, but those are our orders,” said Dog. “I’m going on the mission myself, and will serve as one of the Megafortress pilots. Major Catsman will stay here and take care of the farm. Questions?”

The colonel paused for his usual quarter of a second before slapping his hand on the desk and rising.

“Let’s do it, then.”

“Colonel, what’s the story with Jennifer Gleason?” asked Major Alou. “Is she under arrest or something?”

“Jennifer?” said Zen, taken by surprise.

Dog turned to Danny Freah.

“Jen is being questioned about possible security violations,” said Danny.

“What violations?” asked Zen.

“I can’t get into details,” said Danny. “Look, my advice for everyone is to simply cooperate and answer whatever questions that come up. It’s just an informal inquiry, not an investigation.”

“That’s bullshit,” said Zen. He turned to Dog. “Jennifer? A spy? Shit.”

Dog started to say something, but Danny interrupted. “Colonel Bastian can’t comment on anything in any way that would be considered prejudicial.”

“That’s bullshit,” said Zen.

Dog put up his hand. “All right. Obviously, because of what we do we’re under special scrutiny. All of us, not just Jennifer.”

“I wanted her along to handle the computers and whatnot,” said Zen. Technical staff often accompanied the Dreamland team on missions, even those in combat zones.

“You better find someone else,” said Danny. “At least for a couple of days.”

“Colonel?”

“Is she essential for the deployment?” asked Dog.

“Not essential. But—”

“At this point, I think Danny’s right. Once Colonel Cortend is finished talking to her I’m sure she’ll be fine to come back.”

TWO HOURS LATER,dog finally finished squaring away everything that needed to be squared away before he left with the rest of the team for Brunei. He needed to get sleep — if takeoff time didn’t slip, he’d be briefing his flight in a couple of hours. But more important than sleep, he wanted to talk to Jennifer.

He wanted to call her. In theory, there was no reason not to.

It might not look good, however, not if there had been a real violation of security protocols. As unit commander, he would eventually have to deal with the matter.

He could recuse himself, of course. Probably he had to.

Or just put an end to the whole thing.

No doubt if he did that, Dreamland’s enemies would seize on it as ammunition for something — what exactly, he wasn’t sure.

He reached for the phone. No harm in calling her, for cryin’ out loud.

He dialed the lab but then remembered that she had no computer access; Danny had had to cut it off as soon as he learned about the possible security breach, as minor as it was. He paused, trying to remember her apartment number without going to the directory.

When he dialed it, her voice mail answered.

Maybe she was taking this harder than he thought.

Or maybe she was out partying.

Before Dog could leave a message, there was a knock on the door. He looked up and saw Colonel Cortend spreading her frown across the threshhold, trailed by a Dreamland security team and several of her aides. He put down the phone and waved her inside.

“Captain Freah said you’d be here,” said Cortend, sitting in the chair nearest his desk.

“I often am,” said Dog. “I understand you’ve been questioning my people.”

“I’ve questioned several of your people, yes. On an informal basis. They’ve all volunteered to cooperate.”

Dog let that particular fiction pass.

“Let’s get to the marrow on this,” said Cortend. “There’s no need for fencing.”

“I’m a right-to-the-marrow guy myself,” said Dog. He slid back in his seat, knowing that Cortend had come to ask about Jennifer.

And perhaps exactly because that thought occurred to him, he glanced toward the door and saw her standing behind Cortend’s aides, frozen, as if she’d taken a step inside before spotting them.

Was she really there? Or was it some strange trick of his imagination.

“Lieutenant Colonel Bastian,” snapped Cortend.

“Excuse me a second,” said Dog, rising. He turned his attention to Cortend for just a moment as he got up, and by the time he looked back at the door she was gone.

Gone?

Dog walked out into the outer office, past the reception area and then into the hall.

It was empty. The elevator was open.

Hallucination?

No, she’d definitely been here. Somewhere.

Jen would have taken the stairs. She’d seen Cortend’s people or the back of her head, and split.

Wise move, really. Too bad he couldn’t do that.

Dog walked back to his office. This time he pulled the door closed behind him.

“Sorry about that. Where were we?”

“You are seeing Ms. Gleason, are you not?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“Colonel, let me remind you—”

“I’m not denying that I see her. But for the record, my personal life is my personal life.”

“Ms. Gleason is a civilian employee under your supervision,” said Cortend. “As a matter of law and regulation, it would be possible for her to charge you with sexual harassment.”

“Has she?” said Dog.

“She has not.”

“You don’t really think she’s a spy, do you?” he said, tiring of her games. His voice was considerably more level than he felt.

“I try not to form judgments before I finish my job,” said Cortend. “I understand the situation might be difficult for you.”

“And?”

“I have a number of technical questions that I’d like answered,” said Cortend, completely changing the subject.

Capitulation?

Or another one of her tactics?

“They have to do with compartmented areas, and I need to know what can be broached and what can’t be,” Cortend continued. “If you wish, it can wait until morning.”

She didn’t get up, and it was clear she wouldn’t until he answered the questions.

“I have orders from the President. We’re deploying at 0400.”

If Cortend was impressed, she gave no hint.

“We’ll discuss it informally first,” she told him. “Then I can bring my people in. I want to be careful to delineate the areas, as my report will be read by—”

A knock at the door interrupted her.

“Come,” said Dog.

Mack Smith opened the door. The major looked a little tired, walking rather than bounding as he normally did. When he saw Cortend he blanched.

“You wanted to see me, Colonel?”

“Yes, come in, Mack. Colonel, this will only take a minute.”

“Of course,” said Cortend, getting up. As she left, she gave Mack the look one might use to dismiss a whipped dog.

“Watch her, Colonel,” said Mack as the door was closed. “She’s evil.”

“I’m sure she’s just doing her job,” Dog said.

“No.”

Mack didn’t offer any other explanation. Dog decided it wasn’t worth pursuing — it was pretty clear that Cortend got off on intimidating people. Smith ordinarily wasn’t easy to intimidate; maybe he’d ask her for some pointers when she came back in.

That would be the day.

“I need a political officer,” Dog told Mack. “A liaison, actually.”

“How’s that?” asked Mack.

“We’re deploying to Brunei, first thing in the morning,” Dog told him. “I’ll go into details if you’re in. Otherwise, good night.”

“Colonel, is she coming?”

“Colonel Cortend? No. Her investigation’s here.”

“Sign me up,” said Mack, so relieved he looked as if he’d won the lottery.

“We have to leave at 0400.”

“Whatever. I’ll scrub toilets if you need it. Just take me with you.”

By the time she got back to her apartment, Jennifer’s hands were shaking so badly that she had trouble with the lock. Inside, she dropped her glass as she filled it with water from the faucet in the kitchenette; fortunately, it was plastic and didn’t break, rebounding instead across the room.

The expression on his face when he saw her — anger and surprise…

Hate?

No, he couldn’t hate her. He couldn’t.

Did he think she was a traitor? How could he think that?

What had Dog been doing with that she-bitch Cortend? Had he put her up to this?

Dog?

It couldn’t possibly be. There was no way. No way.

But Cortend was in his office.

Of course she was. Dog was the base commander; there were a million reasons for her to be there.

Dog, everyone, thought she was a traitor.

She was just tired, overwrought.

The bitch Cortend was playing with her mind.

Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

She wasn’t a traitor. She wasn’t.

That had to be what they were thinking. Even Dog?

Even him.

The phone rang. Jennifer took a step toward it, then stopped.

What if it was Cortend, asking for more questions?

God no, she told herself. No more. Not tonight.

She let the phone ring until it stopped. As she stared at it, she realized her hand and shirt were wet, and so was the floor, but she couldn’t remember why.