“He’s looking for a liaison and has asked Major Smith if he might stay on.”
“I have a mission here,” said Dog, starting back into motion. “Mack can deal with him.”
“I have a mission here as well,” said Kelly, who had trouble keeping up in her heels. “I will call Washington.”
“I’ll give you a quarter.”
The coffee at the Dreamland Command trailer had been made hours before, and to compare the burned-out dregs to crankcase sludge would have been to defame engine oil everywhere. Boston volunteered to make a fresh pot; Dog made a mental note to add a personal commendation to the sergeant’s file at the earliest convenience.
He was on his second cup of coffee when Ray Rubeo’s face snapped onto the screen from Dream Command. Rubeo’s familiar frown was back, and even before the scientist stepped aside to reveal the others in the control room, Dog knew Jennifer was back.
But what in God’s name had she done to her beautiful long hair?
“Good to see you back where you belong, Ms. Gleason,” he said.
She didn’t answer; it wasn’t clear that she had even heard.
“We’re sifting through a forest of radio transmissions,” said Rubeo, giving the latest update. “We’re still a distance from figuring it out.”
“Anything new on the bomb factory?”
“The video cameras that were placed show nothing unusual,” said Rubeo. “They’ve continued their standard security sweeps.”
“We have to assume they know something’s up,” said Stoner, who was in Taipei. “But we do have people watching both on land and out in the harbor, and there’s nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Even if the assessment is right and they do have a bomb, we haven’t found the delivery system yet,” said Dog.
“Sure we have,” said Jennifer. “The UAVs.”
“They’re not big enough,” said Zen, who was on the circuit from
“You’re looking at their UAV as if it were a Flighthawk,” Jennifer said. “It isn’t. From the analysis that I’ve seen — and admittedly I’ve been out of the loop for a few days… ”
She paused. Dog could see her frown.
“From what I’ve seen,” she continued, “the ghost clone should be able to go further with a heavier payload. It’s been used up until now for reconnaissance, but reengineering it for a different role is child’s play. If I were building a long-range nuclear cruise missile, I’d start with an airframe like the ghost clone’s. It’s not quite as stealthy as a B-2, but it’s damn close. And it’s small to begin with.”
“Then why not use a cruise missile?” asked Zen.
“It is a cruise missile,” said Jennifer. “With longer range and a heavier payload. The thing is, if my technology isn’t good enough to build a very small nuke, this may be easier.”
“We are speculating,” said Rubeo.
“Sometimes speculation isn’t wrong,” said Jennifer staring into the video camera.
After a long day of meetings, Jed Barclay’s eyes felt as if they’d screwed themselves deep into his skull. The NSC had scheduled a meeting for ten P.M., but he and his boss had been summoned by the President to the White House for a private briefing ahead of the session. While not unprecedented, the move underlined how serious the situation was. The meeting in Beijing was now less than twenty-four hours away. The vice president had just arrived in the capital.
Jed and Philip Freeman were ushered up to the private quarters, where the President was changing after returning from an appearance in Bethesda. No matter how many times he came here, Jed still felt a feeling of awe. He was walking where Lincoln had walked, taking the same stairs Madison had used to look for his wife when the British were marching up the hill. They were shown to the East Sitting Hall near the Queen’s Bedroom, one of Martindale’s favorite conferencing spots. Jed pulled over the ornate wood chair so that it was catty-corner to the couch and opposite his boss’s seat, anticipating that the President would sit on the couch. The drapes had been drawn across the large fan window that dominated the room; lamps on both sides of the couch cast a yellowish light around, reflecting in the chandelier above.
Jed closed his eyes for a moment, wondering what it would have been like a hundred and fifty years before. Lincoln strode through, looking for his clerk, calling him: “Nicolay! Nicolay!”
Mrs. Lincoln wandered behind him, fretting over her sick son Willie, not yet dead…
“Sleeping on us, Jed?” boomed the President, coming in.
“No way,” said Jed, springing upright.
The President patted him gently on the back, pulling over his own seat rather than taking the sofa. His chief of staff and several other aides, along with members of the Secret Service, had trailed him to the end of the hall, standing back to give them a modicum of privacy.
“They have a bomb, or they may have a bomb?” asked the President, immediately cutting to the heart of the issue.
“We’re not sure,” said Freeman.
The folder in Jed’s hands contained the latest estimate — it was really more like a guess — of what had happened, fingering Iran rather than Korea as the likely source. Small amounts of material — enough for one or two bombs — were possibly unaccounted for.
The estimate, courtesy of the CIA, was three sentences long. The argument that had led to those three sentences was continuing over at Langley.
“How can we be sure what they have?” asked Martindale.
“We have to go in and find out,” said Freeman.
“Jed?”
“I would agree, sir. Dreamland — Colonel Bastian is preparing a plan to cover that contingency, if you order it.”
Martindale nodded.
“I would note,” said the national security advisor, “that at the moment there’s no concrete evidence supporting the construction of a bomb. We have circumstantial findings only.”
“Two weeks ago there was no evidence there was an advanced UAV,” said the President. “Will Colonel Bastian have his plan ready for presentation at the NSC meeting?”
“I believe he will,” said Jed.
“Good.” Martindale got up. “Ties are getting better, Jed.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The briefing with the NSC went about as well as Dog had expected, meaning that it didn’t go particularly well at all. A mission to inspect the site further was authorized, but most of the members of the NSC were skeptical that the weapon even existed. Dog couldn’t really blame them; all he really had to go on was the fact that his scientists thought it was there, and while that was good enough for him, it wasn’t particularly surprising that it wasn’t good enough for Washington.
Dog’s plan called for securing the site if a weapon was found. That, of course, would create real complications — Taiwan was an ally, but the operation, at least at present, was to be conducted without the country’s government or military knowing about it. It had to be that way, since it wasn’t yet clear what if any connections Chen might have that would tip him off.
Assuming that he did in fact have a weapon.
“Have you located their robot plane?” asked Admiral Balboa after Dog finished his briefing.
