The tall man smiled. “You could not be more wrong.”
“Then what dangerous secrets does he still know?”
“Riordan knows things-or will-that he does not yet know he knows.”
“What?” said the assistant.
But the tall man with the sunglasses had rediscovered the olives and evidently, forgotten about the presence-and possibly the existence-of his assistant.
MENTOR
Downing emerged from his debriefing and motioned for Caine and Trevor to follow him into a nearby conference room. Upon entering, he flipped on the white-noise generators and ran his RF detector around the room’s perimeter.
“Clean?” asked Trevor, setting down the box he had brought on board the Dornaani ship.
Downing nodded, motioned them to seats.
“Induct me?” Riordan’s smile was bemused rather than sardonic. “I wasn’t aware there was a draft in effect.”
“There isn’t.”
“Meaning that you don’t actually have compulsory powers in this matter.”
“Caine, don’t make me-”
“Richard, I’m going to save us all the embarrassment of letting you finish that sentence. My answer is this: ‘I serve at the pleasure of the President of the United States of America.’ Now, where do I sign?”
“Richard, our relationship-such as it is-has no bearing on this moment. The threats to our world-to our species-are no longer hypothetical, but real. And when my country-in the person of the President, no less-asks me to serve, I say ‘yes.’ Without delay. Now, where are the papers?”
“I’ll give them to you later. For now, let’s go through what’s going to happen once you sign them. Firstly, you will immediately commence twenty-nine days of combined Advanced Basic and OCS training.”
Trevor smiled. “Are we making ‘four-week wonders’ now, Uncle Richard?”
“I’m not joking, Trev. He will complete the course in twenty-nine days-”
“Uncle Richard, I’m sorry, but not even you have that kind of clout. Basic qualification and commission cannot run concurrently, and are, by order of the Joint Chiefs, confirmed at a minimum of-”
“Commander.” Richard hated doing it, but addressing Trevor by his rank rather than his first name stopped his godson in mid-word. “In time, or under immediate threat, of war, the concurrency limitation can be waived. Particularly when an Executive Order is involved. Furthermore, Mr. Riordan has already spent some time in the military-”
Caine raised an eyebrow. “I have?”
Downing consulted his notes. “You spent two weeks going through the first phases of BT with army recruits back in 2098; it was research for your series in
“President Liu has accepted the recommendation of the Joint Chiefs that these earlier participations in service-related training be recognized as counting towards both your basic and officer training. Hence, the wartime minimum of six weeks of training has been reduced to four. Questions?”
“Yes: why?”
“Why what, Caine?”
“Why induct me?”
“I trust you are not rethinking your commitment to serve?”
Caine shook his head. “That’s not even an option, given the current situation. And since the Executive herself has signed off on everything, I’m as good as wearing blue already. I just want to know why.”
“Fair enough. You are being inducted so that you have enough official clout to take command of conventional forces if you are in an intelligence-critical situation.”
“Okay, but why the rush? And why do it here at the Pearl?”
“Firstly, I didn’t want you arriving back on Earth with the rest of the delegation. The press would climb all over you: that spotlight would kill any future you might have as an intelligence asset for IRIS.”
“Not sure I’d mind that outcome.” Downing noted that Caine’s tone was rueful rather than resentful. “But I see your point. Go on.”
“Since your training will be swift and your promotion unorthodox, it will be easier to get it done on the sly out here.”
“Just how is my promotion going to be unorthodox?”
“When you finish OCS, you will immediately be breveted up to commander, in recognition of your prior ‘official service.’ Five minutes later, you will be retired into the Reserves.”
“I-?”
“He-?”
“Gentlemen, please. Let me finish. Trevor, you’re going to be bumped up again, as well. For the same reason: the higher the rank you have, the more people to whom you can issue bigger orders-particularly in a crisis. Hopefully, you’ll never need to play that rank card, but if you do, you’ll have it up your sleeve. And in your case, Caine, it’s best we keep that potential buried.”
Caine smiled. “So I get retired into the reserves here at Pearl even before my commission papers begin their glacial movement through the system and into the endless reams of Earth-bound housekeeping dispatches. Which no reporter has ready access to or any interest in.”
“Exactly. The rest of the delegation faces the paparazzi by returning first. You and Trevor slink back in after the furor has died down, with you wearing civvies. No fuss, no bother, no press. And I’m sorry to say that, from this point forward, keeping things from the press is going to be a routine necessity. For instance, only because you’re both restricted to base until the end of Caine’s training can I even reveal that I have just activated the final phase of an IRIS operation code-named Case Leo Gap, which initiates from Barnard’s Star.”
Caine leaned forward. “I heard you and Nolan mention Case Leo Gap once. What is it?”
Downing shook his head. “You don’t need those details, yet; you only need to be familiar with the code name.”
Trevor leaned back, frowning. “A damn odd name, too. ‘Leo Gap’? What’s it about, a lion’s hole?”
“No, the pass that Leonidas defended against Xerxes: Thermopylae. Had that battle gone the other way, the Hellenic world would have ended-and ours would never have arisen.”
“Thanks, Uncle Richard, I get the resonances with our current situation: I just forgot the name of the Greek commander. Who had a hell of a fight on his hands, as I recall. How many of the Greeks actually survived?”
Downing hesitated. Into that silence, Caine inserted a recitation:
Tell them in Lacedaemon, passerby,
That here, obedient to their word, we lie.
Trevor looked at him. “That many, huh?”
Downing stood. “I’ve got about thirty minutes left before my clipper leaves. Any unfinished business?”
Trevor nodded. “Yes. Well, I mean, I think so.” He picked up the box from the seat beside him. “As I was hustling to join you two on Alnduul’s ship, Elena ran me down and gave me this. She says my father entrusted it to her about a year ago, and told her, ‘Give it to Uncle Richard at the right time.’”
“‘The right time’? What does that mean?”
“Elena asked Dad the same thing. He told her that the box would become very important if we were ever on the brink of ‘fighting a war like no other.’ She thought that the recent events probably satisfy that condition. I tend to agree with her.”
“As do I.” Downing received the box from Trevor: it was cumbersome, with something weighty thumping to
