One had even appeared at a pair of air shows, as its maker — a small company formed by former Boeing and Lockheed engineers — tried to convince the military and Congress to award a contract for its development. Unfortunately, the wheels of government moved very slowly. While everyone agreed the plane was a winner, it couldn’t win funding for production in the tight budget. While Congress promised to consider it the next fiscal year, the debt-ridden company had folded. Its assets were put up for sale to pay creditors.
At that point the Office of Technology had stepped in, purchasing the aircraft, some spare parts, and all of the design work. The Tigershark now belonged to the Office of Technology.
“How the hell do you see in that thing?” asked one of the admirals.
“Screens,” said Garvey. “They provide a better view than your eyes would.”
Breanna pressed the button on her pointer. A close-up of the body appeared, revealing lines for the cockpit access panel. The next slide showed a breakaway of the body, revealing the cockpit itself. The pilot’s seat was pitched as if it were a recliner.
“We needed a high-performance aircraft to help us test Medusa,” explained Breanna. “The Sabres weren’t ready, and of course there are always questions about unmanned airplanes in test regimes. In any event, one of the aircraft had been disassembled for some tests, and adding Medusa to the rebuild was not very difficult. We decided we would use it. The results have been so spectacular that it makes sense to show you what we have. You’re scheduled to view the system tests with us in Dreamland next week — this is just an added bonus.”
“Hmph,” said Chafetz. Although he sounded unconvinced, he also seemed to be calculating the benefits.
“Why not just put the unit in an F–22?” asked Wallace. “If I might play devil’s advocate.”
“That’s doable,” said Breanna. “Though we would have to completely gut and rebuild the plane.” She shrugged. “The Office of Technology doesn’t own any of those, and the subcontractor wasn’t in a position to commandeer one.”
That drew a few laughs.
“This looks like just a backdoor way of getting the Tigershark into the budget,” said Admiral Chafetz.
“It is one argument for it,” admitted Breanna. “No one has ruled out the plane. They just weren’t ready to fund it.”
“I’d like to see it make headway in
“I haven’t spoken to Senator Stockard at all about this,” said Breanna hastily.
“Well you should,” said Admiral Garvey. “Because it’s a hell of an idea. When is the demonstration again?”
6
During his relatively short career with the CIA, Nuri Lupo had worked with a variety of foreign agencies, sometimes officially, sometimes unofficially. He’d had varying degrees of success and cooperation, but by far his worst experiences had come when working with the FBI, which he’d had to do three times.
The Berlin assignment made four. The Bureau could not be bypassed for a number of reasons, all of them political.
Actually the most important wasn’t political at all: Reid had told him to work with the Bureau. Period.
“To the extent possible,” said Reid. “Which means you will, at a minimum, make contact. Before you arrive. If not sooner.”
FBI agents were, in Nuri’s experience, among the most uncooperative species on the planet, at least when it came to dealing with the CIA. The two agencies were natural rivals, partly because of their overlapping missions in national security and espionage. But sibling rivalry wasn’t the only cause of conflict. G-men — and — women — regarded “spy” as an occupation somewhere lower than journalist and politician. From the Bureau’s perspective, the CIA sullied every American by its mere existence.
It was also no doubt galling that Agency field officers had expense accounts several times larger than FBI agents.
Nuri tried to use the expense account to his advantage, but had to use all of his persuasive skills merely to get the FBI agent, a middle-aged woman whose gray pantsuit matched her demeanor, to have breakfast with him as soon as he arrived in the city.
“I’ve already had breakfast,” insisted Elise Gregor as they sat down in the small cafe a short distance from the airport. “And I don’t want any more coffee.”
“Have a decaf,” said Nuri, trying his best to be affable.
“Just tell me what you want.”
“I just need background,” said Nuri. He stopped speaking as the waiter came over, switching to German to order.
“Eggs with toast, American style,” said the waiter in English far superior to Nuri’s German.
“That’s it,” said Nuri.
The putdown was regarded as some sort of triumph by Gregor, who practically beamed as she told the waiter in German that she would have a small orange juice. Nuri considered whether he ought just to leave, but the FBI might be of some use at some point in the investigation, and closing the door now didn’t make sense.
Well, maybe it did. How much help could they possibly be?
“German’s not one of your languages, is it?” Gregor asked as the waiter left.
“I can speak a little.”
“Very little.”
I’d like to see you handle Arabic, thought Nuri. Or Farsi. Or maybe a subdialect of Swahili.
“So what do you want?” said Gregor. “Why are you here?”
“I want to talk to the investigator on the Helmut Dalitz murder case.”
“Dalitz? The banker?”
“Businessman. Do you have any information?”
She made a face. “That’s too local for us to get involved in.”
“You have nothing?” asked Nuri, surprised. The FBI had been briefed, to some degree at least, on the Wolves and the suspected connection to the murder. Was Gregor out of the loop? Or playing coy?
“Why is the Agency interested?” Gregor asked.
“They don’t tell me everything,” said Nuri, deciding he could be just as hard to deal with as Gregor. “They sent me here to see what was going on.”
“They didn’t tell you why?”
“I think it has to do with money laundering,” said Nuri.
“That’s an FBI area of interest.” Gregor’s eyes narrowed. “Nothing like that has come up.”
“So you
“From a distance,” she said. “We’re somewhat interested — not involved.”
The orange juice and coffee arrived. Nuri took a sip of the coffee. It was surprisingly weak.
“I don’t see where he could have been laundering money,” said Gregor. “He was a respected businessman.”
“Yeah, it’s probably a total waste of time. That’s the sort of crap they send me on these days,” said Nuri.
Gregor frowned. “This is because of the connection to the Wolves, right?”
“Well, I—”
“All right. Let’s go,” she said, rising.
“But—”
“I have other things to do today,” she told him. “If you’re coming, come. And you better leave the waiter a
