Jim DeFelice - Cyclops One

“The ones General Bonham suggested.”

Bonham cleared his throat. “I don’t believe I suggested that.”

“My mistake,” said Fisher.

“I may have said something that maybe we should search in that area,” said Bonham, retreating under the agent’s stare. “Obviously I was wrong.”

“Our best theory is that the plane was here,” said Gorman, retaking the initiative with a sharp tone. “And, coupled with the NSA data regarding the Russian spy operation—”

Bonham saw his chance. “What Russian spy operation?”

“We briefed that the other day,” said Gorman.

“Maybe you could go over it again,” he said.

Gorman began talking about transmission intercepts and a high-level Russian operation based in the Far East.

“We want to get a close-up look at that operation as well as other bases they may have in the interior of the country. I’m asking for more people,” she added. “I may set up a new option; I have to talk with my superiors.”

“What kind of option?” Howe asked.

Gorman hemmed a bit. Bonham realized that her original orders had included not merely investigating the incident but recovering the plane. She was thinking about a logical extension: an operation in Russia, if she could find it there.

Logical?

Good God, what a cowboy. What was it about women officers, anyway? Why did they always try to out-macho the men.

Bonham looked at Howe, who was fidgeting in his seat, obviously agitated by the possibility that Megan York and the others aboard Cyclops One were traitors. Poor dumb bastard.

Gorman asked for questions.

“I want to volunteer,” said Howe.

“Volunteer for what?” Gorman asked him.

“I want to make sure I’m involved,” said Howe.

Gorman looked over at Bonham, as if to suggest he say something, but Bonham realized there was little use: Howe wouldn’t listen to logic right now. This was one of those times when a manager did best by doing nothing; Gorman eventually realized it and wrapped up the meeting.

“I’d still like to look at those lakes,” said Fisher as Bonham passed him on his way to the door. “What do you think, General?”

Bonham shrugged. “I guess that’s up to you. Your boss lady seems to think the plane’s not there.”

“Do you?”

Bonham looked at him a second, unsure whether the FBI agent thought he was being sly or suspected Bonham was just psychotic. Unable to decide, he finally shrugged and left the room without saying anything else.

The copilot, Abe Rogers, had been the most problematic choice for the project from the start. He was the only one of the three who was active Air Force, as opposed to an NADT hire, and yet he was by far the most greedy. Megan didn’t mind greed as a motivator: It was powerful and relatively predictable. But the blatant money lust annoyed her, if only because it reminded her that others involved with Jolice, Ferrone, El-Def, and all the related companies were also primarily interested in money, not the ideals that motivated her.

Her uncle would have pointed out that it didn’t matter. Greed and corruption were always there; even some of the people around Washington and the other Founding Fathers were greedy and corrupt. What mattered was the end goal, and your own purity.

“We were supposed to be done,” he said, standing beneath the overhang that led to the hangar facilities.

“I’m not in charge of the test schedule,” she told him.

“What are you in charge of?” Rogers’s tone was close to a taunt; he pushed his chest forward as if he were an ape trying to intimidate her.

Let the bastard try something, she thought to herself. I’d only like the chance to cut him down.

She didn’t need a copilot.

“I want more money,” he demanded.

“I’ll pass the request along.”

“Do that.”

He spun and walked toward the access door. Megan was angry enough to go out from under the artificial rock outcropping and walk up the path toward the shore. Technically she shouldn’t; the satellite would be in range relatively soon.

They’d been cooped up here too long. The last-minute changes in the ABM testing schedule had made everything more difficult. She could only guess what was going on at North Lake.

The complications had begun with the Velociraptors. She knew that Williams had died. The blackout should have lasted only a few seconds — a blip, really — just enough to sever the connections and let Cyclops One get away.

But events always took their own course.

Like Howe. He was an accident.

Worse: confusion. Still, if he’d been the one killed and not Williams, what would she have felt now?

The waves lapped at the rocks below. Megan listened for a while, then, mindful of the approaching satellite, went back below.

Howe couldn’t stand or sit still, could hardly walk instead of run. He couldn’t go anywhere, or couldn’t decide: He had to do something, had to what?

Punch something.

It was bad enough when he thought Megan was dead. He wandered through the underground complex, jogging up the stairs rather than taking the elevator, going to the hangar bunkers and lab areas. He moved quickly, warding off conversation, pausing only for the card checks and retina scans. He wanted to be alone, and yet, he walked nowhere that he could be alone. His mind spun like the turbine in an engine cut loose from its controls. He couldn’t believe she was a traitor; he couldn’t believe she’d used him.

Was this what that look on the runway had meant? Had she been laughing at him all along?

He’d kill her himself.

Maybe it was Rogers, the copilot. Maybe he’d gotten up from his seat, strangled her or poisoned them all somehow, killed them and taken the plane himself.

Gorman was wrong, wrong, wrong.

But that look — what had it meant?

Howe found himself standing in the hallway near Bonham’s office, waiting for Bonham to get off the phone. As soon as he heard him hang up, he walked in, knocking on the doorframe.

“Whatever it takes, I want to help track them down,” he said as he walked in.

Bonham squinted, as if there were words on Howe’s face he couldn’t read.

“We’re all involved,” said Bonham finally. “There’s no question about that.”

“No — I want to be on the front lines. Every asset we have, including the Velociraptors, ought to be involved. I want to be there. I deserve to be.”

Bonham got up abruptly and went to his outer office door, closing it as well as the inside one. When he came back, the expression on his face was even more pained than before. He seemed to have to push the words from his mouth.

“Your concern’s going to be appreciated. It’s understandable. Totally. Completely,” Bonham said. “But…well, I’m not in the chain of command, so what I say…it’s just based on my…my experience and sense of things. Careerwise, your best bet — the thing you should do right now…I’d hang back. Let events take their course. No one’s going to blame you if the plane was…if it turns up somewhere else.”

The lie seemed to embarrass Bonham, and he stopped speaking. If the plane had been stolen, Bonham’s head would be the first chopped off — God knew what would happen to NADT itself — but Howe’s would surely tumble soon afterward. If the accident hadn’t already killed his career, this had.

“I want to be on the front lines,” insisted Howe.

“It’s not my call.”

“I ought to be involved in recovering the aircraft,” said Howe. “It’s my project. I want to stick with it to the end.”

“It’s our project, Tom. Ours. We are involved. Whether we like it or not. But we can’t do every single thing. You know that. Besides, recovering the plane, if there were an operation…it wouldn’t really be our assignment. You know?”