Whiplash

2

At roughly the same time Nuri Lupo was scrambling in the dust of the Coliseum, Colonel Danny Freah was scrambling down the platform at the Alexandria stop of the Washington Metro, heading for the train that had just stopped and opened its doors.

The car was crowded. He slipped in next to a tall woman in a powder-blue pantsuit a few feet from the door, trying to squeeze himself into the tiny space as more passengers crammed in behind him. The doors slapped shut, then opened, then closed. The train started with a jerk, and he just barely kept himself from falling into his neighbors.

The people around him, all on their way to work, barely noticed him. The lone exception was a black woman about half his age, who thought he reminded her a little of her father, albeit a slightly younger version.

Danny, who had no children himself, might have been amused had he been able to eavesdrop on her thoughts. His own, however, were much more practical. It had been a while since he’d been in D.C., let alone since he used the Metro, and he wasn’t sure if he’d gotten on the right train.

“I can get to the Pentagon from here, right?” he said, looking at the woman in the powder-blue suit.

“You would have done better to figure that out before getting on the train, wouldn’t you?” she answered.

“Then I would have missed the train.”

“Wouldn’t you have been better off in the long run?”

“Maybe yes, maybe no. I have a fifty-fifty chance, right? Assuming I found the right line.”

The woman looked him up and down.

“Most colonels are not gamblers,” she said. “They tend to be conservative by nature.”

“There’s a difference between gambling and taking a calculated risk,” said Danny. “This is taking a calculated risk.”

“I suppose.”

Danny laughed. “Is it the right train?”

“I suppose.”

The train arrived in the sculpted concrete station a few minutes later. As the crowd divided itself toward the exits, Danny spotted several people in uniform and followed them toward the restricted entrance to the building. As the crowd narrowed, he found himself behind the woman in the powder-blue suit.

“So I guess this was the right stop,” he told her.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t.”

“You said you ‘supposed.’ Like you had some doubts. But you work here, so you knew.”

“You ‘suppose’ I work at the Pentagon,” she told him.

Danny looked for a smirk or some other sign that she was kidding with him. But she wasn’t.

Mary Clair Bennett did not have much of a sense of humor. She had spent the past twenty-two and a half years working for the Defense Department, and if she’d laughed at a single joke in all that time, the memory of it had been firmly suppressed.

In the days before titles were engineered to replace pay raises, Ms. Bennett would have been called an executive secretary. Her personality fit the words perfectly, combining efficiency with more than a hint of superiority. Ms. Bennett — she was a particular stickler for the title — had always felt that being a little chilly toward others enhanced her position with them. While her two nieces might have argued passionately on her behalf, few people would have called her a particularly warm person. Even her sister, who lived out in Manassas, found she had very little to talk to her about when she came for her biweekly visits.

“Well, thanks for getting me here,” Danny said as they reached the security checkpoint.

Ms. Bennett rolled her eyes. He smiled to himself, amused rather than annoyed, and joined the line for visitors.

The line led to a sophisticated biometric scanning and security system, recently installed not just at the Pentagon, but at most military installations around the country. More than a decade and a half earlier, Danny had presided over the system’s precursor, developed and tested at the nation’s premier weapons test bed and development lab, the Air Force’s Advanced Technology Center, better known as Dreamland. That system had essentially the same capabilities as the one used here. It could detect explosives and their immediate precursors, scan for nuclear material, and find weapons as small as an X-Acto blade.

The system checked a person’s identity by comparing a number of facial and physical features with its stored memory. The early Dreamland version had been somewhat larger, and tended to take its time identifying people; it would have impractical dealing with a workforce even half the size of the Pentagon’s. In the fifteen or sixteen years since then, the engineers managed to make it smaller and considerably faster. The detectors were entirely contained in a pair of slim metallic poles that rose from the marble foyer floor; they connected via a thick wire cable to the security station nearby. Each visitor walked slowly between the poles, pausing under the direction of an Army sergeant, who raised his hand and glanced in the direction of his compatriot at the station. The station display flashed a green or a red indicator — go or no go — along with identifying information on the screen.

One couldn’t simply visit the Pentagon; his or her name had to be on a list. Even a general who didn’t have an office here needed a “sponsor” who made sure his or her name was entered into the system.

“Please wait, sir,” said the sergeant as Danny stepped up to the posts. “We have to recalibrate periodically.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same, thought Danny. Such pauses had been common at Dreamland.

Then, the process could take as long as half a day. Now it took only a few seconds.

“Please step forward,” said the sergeant.

“Good,” said the second sergeant at the console, waving Danny through. Then he caught something on the screen. “Whoa — hold on just a second.”

Startled, Danny turned around.

“Um, uh — you’re, uh, Colonel Freah.” The soldier, embarrassed by his outburst, stepped awkwardly away from the console and snapped off a salute.

It was unnecessary, since they were inside, but Danny returned it.

“This here’s a Medal of Honor winner,” said the sergeant, turning to the other people on line.

Now it was Danny’s turn to be embarrassed. One of the civilians spontaneously began to applaud, and the entire line joined in. Danny put his head down for a moment. He always choked up at moments like this, remembering why he had gotten the medal.

More specifically, remembering the men he couldn’t save, rather than those he did.

“It was…a while ago,” he mumbled before forcing a smile. “Thank you, though. Thank you.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” said the sergeant nearest him.

“You all have a good day,” said Danny, turning and starting down the hallway.

It had happened a very long time ago, more than a decade, during his last assignment with Whiplash — his last assignment at Dreamland, in fact. Colonel Tecumseh “Dog” Bastian had just turned the base over to a three-star general, officially completing his mission and restoring the base to its former glory after an infamous scandal had threatened its closing. Danny, who’d come on board with the colonel, was due to be reassigned when the mission came up.

Just one more job before you go, son. Can you do it?

The irony for Danny Freah was that if he had to list all of the action that he’d seen under fire, the mission that led to his medal would only have ranked about midway to the top. Five minutes of sheer hell wrapped inside days of boredom — the usual lot of a soldier, even a member of Whiplash — at the time, the ultraelite Spec Warfare arm of Air Force Special Operations, assigned to provide security and work as Dreamland’s “action” team. They had deployed all around the world under the direct orders of the President. Colonel Bastian had worked for the President himself, outside the normal chain of command. They’d accomplished an enormous amount — and burned bridges by the country mile as he went.

Those days were long gone. Danny was a full bird colonel now, his life as boring as that of a life insurance actuary as he tried to get in line for a general’s slot.

In a perfect world the coveted star would have been presented to him on a velvet pillow, thanks to his service record. But the world was far from perfect. The enmity that Dog had earned throughout the military bureaucracy also extended to those closely associated with him, including Danny Freah. Dog’s successor — who liked and helped Danny, though he wasn’t a particular fan of Colonel Bastian — hadn’t exactly won a lot of friends either. And then there was Danny’s record itself. Jealousy played a much more important role in the military hierarchy than anyone, including Danny, liked to admit. The fact that he was neither a pilot — a “zippersuit”—or a graduate of the Academy also hurt him subtly, denying him access to networks that traditionally helped officers advance. His closest friends and associates tended to be the enlisted people he’d worked with, and as loyal as they might have been, they had zero juice when it came to the promotion boards.

Still, professional back-biting, petty rivalries, and old boys (and girls) clubs wouldn’t have amounted to much of a block to Danny’s career during ordinary times. Even two or three years before, he would have made the general’s list without too much trouble. But the world’s economic troubles had made the times anything but ordinary.

The new administration had come into office the previous year by promising to both balance the budget and hold the line on taxes. Other administrations had made similar promises. The difference was that this President, Christine Mary Todd, actually meant to keep her word. Every area of the budget had been cut, including and especially the military. The Air Force was looking to cut the number of generals on its rolls in half.

The man Danny was coming to visit had been a victim of those cuts, though in his case he hadn’t done too poorly. Harold Magnus was the deputy secretary of defense, a position he’d stepped into just a few months before after retiring from the Air Force, accepting the fact that earning a fourth star was highly unlikely.

General Magnus had briefly served as Colonel Bastian’s commanding officer; though technically responsible for Dreamland, the general’s responsibilities were mostly on paper. A reshuffling had soon taken him out of the chain of command, and he’d had almost no contact with Dreamland or its personnel since.

“Actually, I was looking forward to getting some serious fishing in, and maybe improving my golf,” Magnus told Danny as he ushered him into his office. “But I got suckered into this. Primarily because I’ve known the Secretary of Defense for thirty years.”

Magnus winked. Though in his late sixties, he still had the look of an elf about him. Or maybe Santa Claus — the years had added several pounds to his frame, which had never been svelte to begin with. Known as a firebrand during his early days in the Air Force, Magnus had gradually softened his approach. He now came off more like a grandfather than a whip-cracker. He was, in fact, a grandfather, and a rather proud one, too, as an entire table’s worth of photos near his desk attested.

“Coffee?” Magnus asked Danny.

“No thank you, sir.”

“I’m going to have some, if you don’t mind.”

Magnus pressed the button on his phone console. His secretary knew him well enough that she didn’t have to ask what he wanted, appearing with a tray inside a minute.

“So how’s your wife?” Magnus asked Danny.

“I’m afraid we divorced a number of years ago.”

It was five, to be exact. The marriage had floundered long before then.

“I see. I’m sorry to hear that.”

Magnus stirred his coffee. Married to the same woman for nearly forty years, he was a little baffled by marital discord. He never knew exactly what to say when confronted with it. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d had a disagreement with his wife in all that time. But he knew it existed, and realized it wasn’t a character flaw. His usual strategy when the issue was raised inside his family — one of his daughters and son-in-law had been having troubles for over a year — was to stay silent for a moment, offering the other party a chance to speak if they wanted. If nothing was forthcoming, he always changed the subject.

“See the old Dreamland crew much these days?” Magnus asked when his internal time limit had passed.

“No, not really,” confessed Danny. “I still see some of my men occasionally. Ben Rockland’s a chief now, out at Edwards.”

“Rockland — I think he may have been after my time.”

Danny nodded. The general was being polite. He’d had no dealings with the enlisted members of Whiplash, and thus had no reason to know Rockland — whose nickname was Boston — let alone any of the other team members.

“What about the scientists?” asked Magnus, sipping his coffee.

“The scientists, not really,” said Danny. “Ray Rubeo invited me to his birthday party two years ago. It was an interesting affair.”

“Some estate, huh?”

“You can tell he doesn’t work for the government anymore.”

Rubeo had been the chief scientist at Dreamland for several years. He left after falling out of favor with Dog’s successor. He was now the owner of a portfolio of companies in the alternative energy field; his biggest had recently won a contract from the government to build an orbiting solar power station. Rubeo’s birthday party, his fiftieth, had lasted two weeks and featured a Venice night, a Cairo night, and a Taj Mahal night, all in the actual places. Danny had caught the Taj Mahal celebration.

“You don’t see Jeff Stockard anymore?” asked Magnus.

“Zen? Oh yeah, I see him every so often. Couple of times a year. A little more if I’m around. We’ll go to a ball game or something.”

“Really? I’ve been spending a fair amount of time with Senator Stockard myself. He likes to take my money.”

“You don’t play poker with him, do you?”

“I’m afraid I do. Though it’s more like work.”

“You can say that again.” Danny shook his head. “I’d never play cards with Zen. Much easier just to give him my wallet.”

“Some people think he might run for President next time out,” Magnus said.

“Oh?” Danny hadn’t heard that.

“Some people think he’d be perfect. He wonders if the voters could deal with a guy in a wheelchair. Roosevelt was in a wheelchair, but no one knew it.”

“I think if anybody could convince them, Zen could.”

“I agree with you there, Colonel.”

Magnus glanced at the clock on his desk. It was early in the morning, but he was already running a little late. “I suppose you must be wondering why I asked you here,” he said, putting down his coffee. “Actually, it has to do with Breanna Stockard.”

“Bree?”

“You know she’s working for the Office of Technology, right?”

“Uh, yeah, she might have mentioned something like that.”

Breanna had left the regular Air Force to help Zen when he ran for Congress twelve years before. After that, she’d stayed at home for a few years to raise their daughter, Teri. But even a rambunctious preschooler wasn’t enough challenge for the former Megafortress pilot, and Breanna had begun examining her options soon after Teri learned how to count.

Her husband’s job as congressman complicated things. Zen was borderline fanatic about avoiding even the appearance of a conflict of interest, which ruled out working at any company that did business with the government — a surprisingly large range of firms, especially in the Virginia area where they lived. Though Breanna was still in the Reserve and flew C-5s and C-17s part-time a few months a year, returning to the Air Force full-time was out of the question because of Teri. So she’d gone back to school for a law degree.

That wasn’t without its potentials for conflict, either, considering how many law firms had dealings with the government. She’d held several posts, including civilian jobs with the Air Force, and had last worked for the U.S. Satellite Agency, a quasigovernmental concern responsible for putting and maintaining satellites in orbit. The Office of Technology was a Defense Department entity that had largely taken the place of DARPA — the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency — the military’s central research organization, during the last administration.

“We’re putting together a special project out of that office,” Magnus said. “And we’d like you to be part of the team.”

“I see.”

“Breanna suggested you for the position. I immediately agreed.”

“It’s a civilian job?”

“Not exactly. You’d still be a member of the Air Force,” said Magnus. He was hedging, because he couldn’t tell Danny too much about the job unless and until he actually agreed to take it. “Your responsibilities — let’s say they would be multidisciplinary. And in keeping with some of your past experience.”

“I see.”

Danny leaned back in the chair. He had suspected there would be some sort of job offer, of course, but he had been hoping the assignment would be something more traditional — a base command would be ideal. He’d already done two stints at the Pentagon and hadn’t particularly liked either. From everything he had heard, a staff position was unlikely to help him get promoted, unless he worked directly for the Joint of Chiefs of Staff.

“You’re worried about your career,” said Magnus, deciding to be blunt.

“Well, a little.”

“You should be in line for a promotion, but with the freeze on, you know the odds of getting a star on your shoulder are pretty slim.”

“I’ve heard slim and none.”

“None may be an exaggeration,” said Magnus. “But I think you’re right as far as the immediate future goes. I don’t see any additions being made to the list of generals this year, or next. It’s tough. They’re encouraging people to retire.”

“I know.”

“This team would be outside the normal route to promotion,” admitted Magnus. “In fact, it might make it harder for you to get to general — at least in the traditional way.”

“Is there another way?”

“There’s always another way,” said Magnus. “This job could lead to other things. But it won’t help you become a general, not by itself. I’d be lying if I told you that.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll understand that I can’t go into too many details,” said Magnus. “But it’s very similar to the job you had at Dreamland. Part of that job, anyway.”

“Part.”

Magnus decided he had to give Danny more information if he was going to win him over.

“We want to resurrect Whiplash,” he said. “Only this time, it’ll be even better.”