Bin Awg turned to him. “Well done. Well, well done.”
“Uh, thanks,” was all Mack could manage to get out of his mouth.
Dog checked the SITREP. They had Chinese J-11s to the south of them, J-11s to the west, a big ol’ Russian Coot, and even a U.S. Navy P-3—but no ghost clone, at least not that they could see. He hoped
“They’re getting to be at bingo now, sir,” said the copilot, whom Dog had asked to keep track of the Flighthawk status. “Bingo” in the Flighthawk referred to the point at which they had to refuel.
“
“Getting edgy,” replied Starship.
“What’s edgy?”
“Uh, we’re getting there.”
Dog shook his head. The nugget was like a kid who’d been swimming in a pool all afternoon and didn’t want to get out even though his lips were chattering and his body was blue. As long as he didn’t admit being cold, he wouldn’t be.
Didn’t work that way with jet fuel, though.
“
“Um, excuse me, Colonel?”
“Time for you to refuel, no?”
“Yes, sir. I’m ready.”
“All right, let’s radio the fleet that we’re breaking off and going home,” Dog told the entire crew.
Starship slid back in his seat as the computer took the Flighthawk in and began the refuel.
He was tired and more than a bit frustrated. All that flying and no sight of the ghost clone.
Not to mention the fact that the Chinese fighters had stayed well clear of him.
“Tired?” Kick asked.
“Nah,” said Starship.
“Zen’s probably tracking him right now.”
“Yeah.”
“You hear what happened with the Brunei Badger?”
“Something happened?” Starship had been too intent on his own mission to bother with anything that didn’t concern him.
“Couple of J-11s buzzed them just about an hour ago. Mack Smith sent them packing with a burst of cannon fire across their bow.”
“Live gunfire?”
“No shit,” said Kick.
“Wow. He allowed to do that?” Starship’s ROEs strictly forbade him from firing except in the most dire of circumstances, and if he had tried that Zen would have found a way to kick his butt back to Dreamland.
“Got away with it. Nobody’s complaining.”
“Those the planes we saw earlier?”
“Yup.”
“They were probably just out of fuel,” said Starship. “They were operating at the edge of their range.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not the way the Brunei prince sees it. They’re sending airplanes out to escort them back to a hero’s welcome. I’m not making this up.”
“Man, I wish I had Mack Smith’s life,” said Starship as the computer buzzed him. The refuel complete, he took over from the electronic brain, ducking down and then zooming ahead of the
Danny Freah got up from his desk in the security office, his eyes so blurry that he couldn’t read any of the papers on his desk. He’d been staring at computer reports along with summaries of regulations, laws, and previous investigations for over four hours.
For all that, he probably knew less now than when he’d started. As head of security at Dreamland, Danny had extraordinary powers to investigate possible espionage; he didn’t even have to rely on Colonel Bas-tian’s authority in most cases. Everyone who worked at the base had to sign long, complicated agreements that essentially stripped him of privacy and made Danny Freah Big Brother. If events warranted, he could tap their phones, read their mail, even enter their homes.
But what he needed in this sort of case was the ability to read people’s minds. Because it just wasn’t clear to him that anyone — Jennifer Gleason especially — had betrayed his country, knowingly or unknowingly.
Occasionally during the Cold War, technology theft was straight-out obvious — the Soviet Union produced a four-engine bomber based on a B-29 a few months after the plane landed in the country’s Far East, for example. But much more often, the theft was considerably more subtle and nuanced.
The Soviet Tu-95 bomber, for example, had probably been influenced by American designs — yet it did not directly correspond to anything in the American inventory. Were similarities between American jets and advanced MiGs and Sukhois due to similar design requirements and constraints, or espionage? When was a copycat simply that — and when was it an act of treachery?
Danny needed more extensive data about the ghost clone before he could even decide whether there might be a case here. Even then, he’d need really, really hard evidence to take to Colonel Bastian — or to Bastian’s superiors, if Danny decided the colonel couldn’t be unbiased.
Cortend, on the other hand, worked on the premise that espionage had occurred, and therefore she would find it. She didn’t really care what effect she had on the base, much less on the people she was grilling. And because she wasn’t conducting an official investigation — not yet, anyway — she could ignore a lot of the standard rules and procedures designed to prevent abuses. She bullied people into cooperating “voluntarily” and then screwed them, or tried to.
Danny wasn’t like that. He didn’t nail people without damn good reason to do so.
Should he?
Maybe Jennifer did know something, or had done something really wrong. She was pretty antagonistic, and hadn’t been acting particularly, well, innocent.
She’d answered all the questions, though. She claimed she didn’t remember the conferences or the paperwork.
Probably that was true. He couldn’t remember back a few years himself. And as for paperwork…
It was bullshit. The files were full of contact reports that no one ever looked at. Truth of it was, Jennifer Gleason rarely left the base, not even to go home, not even for a vacation. She was about as far away from being a spy as you could get. Knowledge, yes, but little opportunity, and dedication probably unmatched even at Dreamland.
Were his emotions getting in the way of his judgment? He liked Jennifer, and even more importantly, he liked Dog; if Jennifer were guilty, it would kill the colonel.
To his credit, Dog wasn’t interfering. Clearly he didn’t think Jen was guilty, but he wasn’t interfering.
Danny glanced at his watch and decided he’d go catch some Z’s. Maybe tomorrow one of the scientists here would come up with some new gizmo that would let him read minds.
UNABLE TO SLEEP,Jennifer pushed herself out of bed. Her legs and neck felt numb. She folded her elbows against the sides of her chest, then bent at the waist, stretching her muscles. The numbness stayed with her.
She walked from the small bedroom to the slightly larger living room, which had a kitchenette at the side. She sat on the couch, staring at the TV on the wall near the door but not bothering to turn it on. Jennifer pulled her feet up onto the couch, looking at her toes.
The numbness affected even them.
