Cyclops One

Kowalski shrugged. “I had this A-10A case once. It flew for something like two hours before it pancaked in. Incredible.”

“Yeah, but our plane missed some serious mountains.”

“Talk to the experts,” said the DIA agent. “Don’t talk to me.”

“So what I’m thinking, then, is if the Velociraptor could go that far, then the 767 could go even further, because it has a clearer path and it’s higher. Right?”

“Presumably.”

Fisher took another sip of coffee. He must’ve hit a good spot in the cup before: It was back to being hideously undrinkable. “So, who’s the prime suspect if the planes were stolen? York?”

“No way,” said the DIA agent. “All the crew people are clean. This could be an NSA operation, with all the background checks they put these people through. They didn’t trust the DSS backgrounds. Special checks were done by an FBI unit after the DSS’s came back clean.”

“Oh, that fills me with a lot of confidence,” said Fisher.

The DSS was the Defense Security Service, whose checks included not only searches of data records but visits to former neighborhoods. The FBI checks would have been similar but in theory more in-depth.

The FBI agent walked over to the two long tables at the center of the room where Kowalski and the people helping him had set up several computers. Two had hardware keys — actually, special circuits that acted as encryption devices — enabling them to directly access a government top-secret intelligence network known as Intelink. The network worked like a highly secure Internet; hypertext links connected to several sources on different subjects. There were limits: Intelink information did not extend to Sensitive Compartmented Information, ultrasecret data available on a very restricted basis. Cyclops, for example, would not be found in a query there. Nor could the computers access SpyNet, which was another top-level network used more for strategic security information.

Special authorization was needed to get into the personnel files Kowalski was using, and Fisher had to go through the biometrics ID routine twice, squinting into what looked like a set of stationary binoculars.

“Who are you interested in?” Kowalski asked.

“York.”

“Why?”

“ ’Cause she’s not here. I only talk about people behind their backs.”

“Weren’t you saying a couple of hours ago that Williams was the prime suspect?”

“Sounded like me.”

Kowalski snorted.

“See, that’s why it’s got to be York,” said Fisher. “What do you figure the odds are of me being wrong twice in a row?”

“Astronomical,” said Kowalski.

Chapter 7

McIntyre took some pleasure in seeing Clayton T. “I’m More Connected and Twenty Times More Powerful Than You’ll Ever Be” Bonham squirm as he tried to explain why the Cyclops aircraft had not yet been located.

Some pleasure. He was, after all, in Montana, not Hawaii.

“Colonel Gorman is in charge of the investigation and the search assets,” said Bonham, gesturing toward the large grid map at the front of the Test Situation Room, which had been commandeered to coordinate the search operation. “The Air Force took over the search a few hours after the accident.”

“What’d you do in the meantime?” said McIntyre.

Bonham glared at him, but said nothing. Calling NADT its own empire was an understatement; the ex- general had more power than Napoleon and was answer-able only to a board of directors that met once every millennium. The board members were, for the most part, low-key, old-line big shots with massive stakes in various defense companies. On the other hand, even McIntyre had to admit that NADT had an excellent track record making things work; even with the accident, Cyclops and the Velociraptor were impressive war machines.

Gorman was conferring with one of the search coordinators in the front of the room, which looked a great deal like the mission control facility that tracked Shuttle missions. Three long banks of workstations arranged stadium-style in a backward semicircle out from the front wall, where a large multiuse projection panel was framed by a number of small displays, each of which could be slaved to different input systems.

McIntyre took a few steps toward the center of the room, looking at the main map as he oriented himself. The F/A-22V had been found well north in Canada. They now expected that the 767 would be found there as well.

Gorman came over and McIntyre, who’d never met her before, introduced himself. She was a bit abrupt, clearly not happy that someone from the NSC had been sent to look over her shoulder.

Not that he blamed her.

As Gorman explained why the earlier parameters had been wrong — the complicated explanation actually made it seem as if they were right and the plane simply got up and walked northward — McIntyre’s eyes strayed toward one of the young officers in the front row. She was Air Force, a lieutenant with short, dirty-blond hair and military breasts. Feigning interest in the map, McIntyre began walking toward her, nodding as Gorman continued. The young officer looked up and smiled at him as he approached.

Dinner, a movie, a motel. Something with a hot tub — a little class for the woman in uniform, or out of uniform, as the case may be.

McIntyre was about three stations away when one of his cell phones rang. Unfortunately, it was the only one he absolutely had to answer.

“I have to take this,” he said, looking first at the lieutenant and then back at Bonham. “Someplace secure?”

* * *

Bonham’s office was austere, its furniture made of metal and the seats covered with what looked and felt like indoor-outdoor carpet. It was a sharp contrast to NADT’s Washington-area office, and in fact quite a bit plainer than really necessary; no one would have begrudged the former general leather upholstery and cherry accents.

Obviously intended to impress visiting congressmen.

McIntyre clicked on his phone as soon as the door was closed.

“Hold for the professor,” said Mozelle, Blitz’s assistant.

Using Professor was a subtle warning: The national security advisor was not in a good mood. McIntyre had just enough time to take a breath before he came on the line.

“Mac. I need you in Asia.”

“Asia?”

“India, to be exact.”

“But—” Hawaii then Montana, then New Delhi. Antarctica would be next.

“I want you to assess the readiness situation at as many frontline bases as you can imagine.”

“That’s a military function,” said McIntyre, though he knew it was hopeless. “Parsons would be—”

“Check the C option and report back.”

C option was shorthand for the possibility that India would launch a preemptive attack on the Pakistani military. While American spy satellites covered the area, their flight paths were well known and there was ample opportunity to work around them. McIntyre was being told to confer with embassy officials — in most cases undercover CIA agents — and work off a checklist of indicators, some subtle, some not, to supplement the satellite snaps and intercepts. While the CIA would prepare its own report, Blitz liked the idea of having a person in country he could rely on.

Such as it was.

“Sniff around,” continued the NSC head. “See if you can get to any of the Kashmir bases.”

“Oh God, Kashmir. All the way up there?”

McIntyre turned around in the seat. He could guess at what Blitz was thinking: Probably the conflict would all