Jim DeFelice - Cyclops One

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 blow over, but he’d get a firsthand look at what the Indians’ capability was.

“You have a problem with that?” asked Blitz.

“All right,” he said. His plans regarding the lieutenant changed abruptly: He’d bag the movie and go straight for the motel, maybe even settle for his quarters. “I’ll grab the first flight in the morning.”

“There’s one already en route. I’m told it’s about ten minutes from landing.”

When he finally reached his quarters, Bonham pulled off his shirt and pants and booted the computer before going to take a quick shower. His suite here was hardly that — two nearly bare rooms and a bathroom with a stand-up shower — and he bumped his elbow hard on the wall as he toweled off. Feeling a little less dusty, he went over to the computer and brought up the Internet interface; two clicks later he had ESPN.com on the screen.

The Red Sox had beaten the Yankees with a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth. Hallelujah.

Spirits buoyed, Bonham clicked over to CNN, making sure, God forbid, that nothing had been reported beyond his early bland release on the accident. It hadn’t; the newspeople were concerned with the augmented-ABM tests, which had just been postponed another day due to technical problems with the monitoring network.

Bonham scrolled around in vain trying to find out what that meant. The reporters hadn’t been told, and it was impossible to divine from the statements they’d been given what was really going on. Delays had a tendency to mushroom, throwing everything off. The tests should have been concluded by now; every sixty minutes’ worth of delay added that many more problems for everyone.

But he had his own things to worry about. Fisher, for one, who had all the symptoms of a class-one trouble-maker. This wasn’t an FBI case — the Bureau had sent only one man, not the dozens or even hundreds it would detail for a blowout job — but Fisher was just the sort of bee buzzing in someone’s bonnet to screw up everything.

Bonham leaned back in his chair. He could find out about the agent easily enough with a few phone calls. But that was a tricky thing: People might interpret it as paranoia, or worse. Better to suffer through the slings and arrows of outrageous behavior. Besides, Fisher was probably more of a problem for Gorman than for him.

Served the stubborn bitch right.

Someone knocked on the door.

“General Bonham?”

“Tom, come on in,” he said, recognizing Colonel Howe’s voice.

“Door’s locked,” said Howe.

“Oh, sorry. Thought I’d be sleeping already,” said Bonham. He killed the computer and got up to open the door. “Checking the Red Sox. Beat the Yankees with a ninth-inning home run.”

Howe nodded. He wasn’t much of a baseball fan.

He also wasn’t much of a late-night visitor.

“Come on in,” said Bonham. “Drink?”

Bonham walked to the small bookcase where he kept a bottle of Scotch.

“No, thanks. I’m flying tomorrow.”

“You’re flying?”