“Did you want to add anything?” he asked the CIA officer.
“Just that Colonel Freah isn’t kidding when he says don’t pursue,” said Nuri.
Hera felt the slightest twinge of jealousy as she caught the CIA officer Melissa Ilse glancing at Danny. There was something about the way she looked at him that bothered her. She felt almost protective of the colonel.
“What look are you talking about?” Nuri asked her as they trotted toward the Marine Osprey to head back to the platoon staging area. Since MY-PID wasn’t available to the Marines, Nuri and Hera would stay with them during the assault.
“Just a look,” said Hera.
“Danny would never ever hook up with her,” said Nuri flatly. “Ilse is bad news. No way.”
Men, thought Hera. Always clueless.
Chapter 2
Breanna took one last look at her daughter sleeping in the bed, then gently closed the door and slipped down the hallway.
It was just past 5:00 A.M.; even her early rising husband wouldn’t be out of bed for another twenty minutes or so.
She grabbed the coffeepot and filled her steel insulated commuting cup. Then she went out to her car in the garage as quietly as possible, opened the door and headed for work.
If everything went well in Africa, the controversy would more or less blow over. Edmund could go before the Intelligence Committee and explain that Raven had crashed and had then been recovered.
He’d be out of a job shortly thereafter, but that wasn’t her concern.
The question was, what would happen to Raven?
As Breanna saw it, there were two possibilities: it could be abandoned, or it could be handed over to the Office of Special Technology.
Surely it wouldn’t be abandoned.
She cleared security at the main gate of the CIA headquarters complex, then drove to a lot about two hundred years from the Room 4 building. The building itself had no parking, even though there was ample room around it; it was one more way of confusing the ever more invasive satellite eyes and other data gatherers employed.
Downstairs, Breanna was surprised by the smell of strong coffee. Only one person made the coffee so strong that it could be smelled outside the electrostatic walls: Ray Rubeo.
Sure enough, she found the scientist himself sitting at the table in their main conference room with Jonathon Reid.
“Ray, what a surprise,” she said.
Rubeo accepted a peck on the cheek with his customary stiffness. “I thought I might be useful,” he said.
“Ray has been examining the Raven software,” said Reid. “Which our colleagues so reluctantly made available. I didn’t think you would mind.”
“No, it’s all right.”
“It is an extremely powerful core, with a great number of flaws,” said Rubeo. “One of which is the fact that they’re using a temporary interface.”
Rubeo waved his hand over the table and tapped down with his right thumb. This opened a panel on the wall at the far side of the room, changing the wall surface into a projection screen.
“Coding display one,” Rubeo told the computer.
A slide appeared. It was a “dump” of computer code.
“It was written in C++,” said Rubeo. “Inexplicably.”
“The point being that anyone can interpret it,” said Reid.
“Yes,” said Rubeo, drawing out the word.
Not anyone, thought Breanna — she certainly couldn’t. But the point was, anyone with a reasonable knowledge of programming could.
“I would guess that they did this for two reasons,” said Rubeo. “The first being that they didn’t want to risk the actual program. This is somewhat isolated from the core modules that make up the actual Raven program. The second is that they did it for expediency; this part of the program was developed very quickly. I would guess within a matter of weeks. Perhaps even less.”
“Why so fast?” Breanna asked.
Rubeo touched his earlobe, where he had a gold post earring. It was an old habit, usually signaling he wanted to make some difficult pronouncement.
“Politics,” suggested Reid before Rubeo could speak. “The timing suggests that Reginald Harker was interested in becoming head of the DIA. If he had successfully taken out a high priority target like Li Han, he would have had an excellent leg up.”
“Harker broke the law and risked a top secret development program so he could get a better job?” said Breanna.
Reid didn’t answer.
“Using this command module may have been seen as a safeguard,” said Rubeo. “It certainly isn’t as robust and manageable as I would imagine a mature interface is. Still, the core program must be recovered. If the Russian operative is able to make it from the camp—”
“He won’t,” said Breanna.
Chapter 3
Zen woke even grumpier than usual, surprised and yet not surprised that Breanna had already slipped out to work.
At least the coffee was still warm. He bustled about, getting Teri breakfast, then shaving and dressing himself. He left Caroline sleeping in the guest room and headed out, Teri riding shotgun in the backseat. After dropping her off at school, he swung over and picked up his aide, Jay, then went to the hospital, where Stoner was already in physical therapy when he arrived.
“Did you sleep at all?” Zen asked, wheeling himself into the exercise room.
“I’m good.”
Stoner pushed a set of free weights over his chest. He was lifting five hundred pounds, by Zen’s reckoning, and didn’t seem to be straining.
“Are we going to the game tonight?” asked Stoner. His tone was genuinely enthusiastic — the first time Zen remembered him sounding that way since he’d been rescued.
“Yeah, if you want.”
“I do.”
Zen watched Stoner pump the weights. He reached twenty, then put the weights down easily on the stands.
“I wish I could do it that easy,” said Zen.
“Then you’d have to take the whole package. Headaches, not really knowing who you are. Not trusting your body.”
“I know a little bit about that.”
Stoner nodded.
