“Yeah. Uh, like you’ll get a paper report. I also told the FBI guy to contact Colonel Cortend. I figured she’d be really routing up people’s butts.”
“Thanks. Thanks a lot. Really. I really appreciate it,” said Danny.
“Listen, I got to go — could you pass a message to, uh, Dr. Rubeo?”
“What’d he do, take your head off?” said Danny.
“He was going on about, um — well, you don’t really want to hear it.”
“Accused you of being part of the Inquisition?”
Jed laughed. “That part was a compliment compared to everything else. I, uh, really don’t have time to uh, deal with him, but I need a favor. Not a favor really, but—”
“Tell me what you need, Jed, and I’ll get it.”
Jed explained that he needed yet another update on the ghost clone for a meeting with the President scheduled in a half hour. Danny realized that, besides being angry about Jennifer, Rubeo was probably pissed that he had to keep updating Washington every few hours. But that was tough nuggies.
Besides, the news about Jennifer would put him in a better mood.
“He’ll have to get me via sat phone. But I really need the latest. Really.”
“Jed, I will personally make sure that Dr. Ray calls you. I will hold a gun to his head and make sure. I’m going right there now.”
“Um, uh, that wouldn’t, uh, be, uh—”
“It’s a joke, Jed. He’ll call.”
Ten minutes later, Danny walked through the Megafortress hangar, down the long ramp that led to the elevators. He put his hand flat on the reader and waited for the car. When the door opened, Colonel Cortend and two of her lieutenants nearly flattened him.
“Colonel, just the person I wanted to talk to,” said Danny. “Looks like Ms. Gleason is off the hook for those minor security violations.”
“No security violation is minor,” said Cortend.
Danny explained what had apparently happened, and told her that the FBI agent would be getting in touch with her.
“Good,” said Cortend, in a tone so severe Danny momentarily regretted that he wasn’t wearing body armor. She glanced at her minions, who snapped to and rushed to open the door ahead — even though it was operated by a motion detector.
Downstairs, Danny found Ray Rubeo talking to himself as he pounded the keys on one of his computers.
“Hey, Doc,” said Danny.
“Hmph,” said Rubeo.
“I have good news about Jennifer,” said Danny, summarizing what Jed had told him.
“Did you tell it to the hangman?”
Danny stifled a smirk. “If you’re referring to Colonel Cortend, yes I did.”
“Did she understand it?”
“What’s to understand?”
“Precisely.
“Top secret?”
“It’s a letter to my congressman about idiots and numbskulls,” said Rubeo.
“Present company excepted?”
“I tried to explain the significance of what’s been found about the clone so far,” said Rubeo. “I started with the very basics — completely different aircraft. I didn’t even get to the transmission. Do you know what she told me? Do you know what she told me?”
“Uh, good job?”
“She told me that this was compartmentalized information, and she wasn’t authorized to hear it. Not authorized to hear it! Not authorized to hear it!”
“Hey, uh, Doc, go easy, all right? I don’t know how good my CPR is.”
Rubeo shook his head. Volcanoes appeared calmer before eruptions.
“I believe in security too,” he said. “You know that. You understand that. You’ve been here — you know what kind of operation we run. But. But—”
“Sure,” said Danny.
“This is obscene. This is harassment. I don’t think she’s coming back. She’ll resign.”
“Who? Cortend?”
“Jennifer Gleason.” Rubeo’s entire body shuddered.
“Look, Jennifer is off the hook for those meetings. The paperwork was misplaced. As for the rest of this, well, obviously we have to look very carefully, but—”
“Listen. I’m going to explain what they’re doing. Just nod your head if you don’t understand,” said Rubeo. “Humor me. The reason the code is similar to ours is because it
Before Danny could say anything, Rubeo marched over to a table lined with printouts. His fingers flew over them as he explained what he had found. Danny didn’t quite catch it all — Rubeo made a big deal out of signal erosion curves and then somehow segued from that into how canon law made torture necessary during the Middle Ages because two eyewitnesses were always necessary for a conviction in the absence of a confession. But the bottom line was clear: No one at Dreamland was a traitor.
No one.
“The mirroring process is interesting in and of itself,” continued Rubeo. “It’s a real-time technique that uses a sampling sequence we haven’t seen before. There have been only two papers published on it, and they’re both several years old. Either the person behind the clone read those papers — or he wrote them.”
“Great,” said Danny. “Give me copies.”
Rubeo blinked at him. “You understand what I’m saying?”
“No, but I get the gist. Can you get me those papers?”
“Gladly,” said Rubeo. Somehow, his customary sarcasm seemed to lack the bite it had once had. It seemed almost — friendly. “You do read Chinese, don’t you?”
“Chinese? As in the People’s Republic of China?”
“No. As in Taiwan. The papers were written there by a man named Ai Hira Bai. If his name is any indication, he has both Chinese and Japanese ancestors, but he lived or lives on Taiwan. An adamant enemy of the communists. And a man who hasn’t been heard from since shortly after the last paper was published. There are no academic listings of him anywhere.”
“Interesting.”
“Even more interesting is the fact that his expenses to the conference were paid by a company owned by a man named Chen Lee. A billionaire who hates the communists and who has access to a wide range of technology.”
“How do you know this?”
“Well, if Colonel Cortend isn’t going to investigate anything beyond her nose, don’t you think someone better?”
President Martindale had a state dinner scheduled to honor the ambassador from France, who was retiring and returning to Paris after a decade’s worth of service in America. The President, whose relations with France were as testy as that of any administration since John Adams’s, was only too happy to throw a big party for the departing buffoon.
The dinner also allowed him the opportunity to get off on a good foot with his successor, a Mademoiselle Encoinurge. Encoinurge was an improvement in several respects, not least of all physically, and the President found it necessary to engage in a little personal diplomacy. This made it difficult for him to sneak away as planned, and so Jed Barclay and the others who were supposed to be meeting with him were ushered upstairs to wait. The
