Jim DeFelice - Cyclops One

Fisher, the FBI agent.

“You look like a Pepsi guy,” said Fisher, handing him the can.

“Thanks. Hey.”

“Hey yourself. Got a minute?”

“Sure.”

“You want to finish the game first?”

Firenze killed the game without saving it. “Just helps me think, you know?”

“Cigarettes are less frustrating,” said the agent.

“More expensive, though.” Firenze laughed.

“You know what happened to the Velociraptor yet?”

“I’ve been working on it. What happened was impossible. It was like snapping off a power switch. Except that it came back on.”

“Maybe there was a loose wire somewhere and Howe just hit it hard enough to get it to reconnect,” said Fisher. He pulled over a chair and sat on the back, his feet balancing it on the floor. “Used to have a TV like that. You had to slam the top a couple of times to get the colors right.”

Firenze laughed again, though they’d actually checked into a more sophisticated version of the agent’s theory.

“You think Howe faked it?”

“Faked it?”

“Like he didn’t really have a malfunction.”

Firenze shook his head.

“You didn’t think of that, did you?” The FBI agent took a long sip from his coffee.

“No, I didn’t. But Colonel Howe would never be involved in something like this. Never.”

Fisher nodded slowly. “What about Megan York?”

“I don’t think she would, either.”

“Other people on the plane?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Tractor beam,” said Fisher suddenly.

“Tractor beam?”

“Sure. That Russian spy plane — has a giant tractor beam. Flashes through the air, tows Cyclops One back to base.” Fisher smiled. “I talked this thing over with one of my guys back at the Bureau. Hope you don’t mind. He knows a lot about computers and stuff. Not too good at Free Cell, though.”

“Why would I mind?”

“He thought it had to be one of two things,” said the agent. “One, it didn’t really happen to Howe. Or two, there’s a command in your computer that erased itself.”

“The code couldn’t have erased itself. We can see all the commands,” explained Firenze.

“You can see the commands you’re set up to see.”

“Well, yeah. That’s everything.”

Fisher looked at him for a minute, then shrugged and stood.

The environmental system, thought Firenze: the circuit that controlled the heater and the air conditioner.

No way.

But they hadn’t checked it.

Fisher dug into one of his pockets. “This cell phone — you can get me anywhere, anytime. Works all over the place. Unless you call from my boss’s phone. That’s blocked out.” He unfolded a bent business card from his other pocket and gave it to Firenze. “You get something, give me a call, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Really okay?”

“Really okay,” said Firenze.

“I think you’re right about Howe,” Fisher said. “For what it’s worth.”

Bonham considered not picking up the phone, since he’d already told his assistant that he was leaving, but then habit got the better of him. He picked up the handset and then practically barked into the mouthpiece, intent on scaring off anyone who wanted to waste his time.

“Bonham.”

“General, this is Dr. Blitz. I have a request. I realize it’s unconventional, and I want you to speak candidly and without prejudice in response.”

Bonham sat down in the chair and listened as Blitz briefly outlined the situation in India and Pakistan. The bastards were really going to kill themselves, Bonham thought.

“Could Cyclops Two be positioned to strike the helicopters before they attacked?” asked the national security advisor.

“Of course.” The words slipped out of Bonham’s mouth automatically, without any consideration whatsoever. Blitz obviously realized that and asked the question again.

This time Bonham thought about the problem more carefully. It wasn’t simply a matter of sending the airplane halfway around the world. Its entire support team had to go as well.

But it could do it. One of the early simulations as well as a war game exercise had outlined almost exactly the same mission.

For a brief moment Bonham returned to the Air Force careerist he’d once been, aware not only of the importance of the mission but the difficulties involved in getting the job done. Above everything else was a strong desire to succeed, to accomplish the job; logic came after the emotion, a plan to succeed.

And then came something darker and deeper — something that had been part of his makeup as an officer but suppressed.

Bonham saw that he had an opportunity that could not be thrown away. He didn’t have a plan yet — he was far from a plan — but he sensed there would be one.

“We can do it.”

“Actually,” said Blitz, “it will be an Air Force operation, not NADT’s. That’s why I’m asking for your assessment.”

“War Game Bosnia 2,” said Bonham, naming the exercise. “We took out a SpecOps helicopter team. You’d want the Velociraptors as backups, just in case, but it’s doable. Very, very doable.”

The war game had taken place during the previous administration, but Blitz was no doubt aware of the outcome. He murmured vaguely.

“We can have Cyclops Two ready. It is ready. And the Velociraptors,” said Bonham. “We’ve been scrambling the team for Colonel Gorman; this just involves shifting priorities.”

“It’s not going to be your operation,” said Blitz again.

“I understand that.”

“I’d like to speak to Colonel Howe.”

“Of course. It will take some time to locate him,” said Bonham.

“Our discussions — this doesn’t represent a final decision,” said Blitz.

“Of course not,” said Bonham, his mind seeking ways to make sure it was.

Howe watched from the sidelines as Gorman and her people refined their plans to find Cyclops One. It was impressive, a veritable air and sea armada that could cover several thousand square miles of the Russian Far East. If her plan had been approved, fully half of the available assets — and a good portion of the unavailable ones — in the northern Pacific, Hawaii, and on the West Coast would have been thrown into the project.

Twice, the people at the Pentagon sent her back to the drawing boards. Through it all, Cyclops Two and the three F/A-22Vs remained out of the mission plan, apparently because of objections from the top. Only the Cyclops test monitor aircraft, an RC-135 whose test equipment could presumably be modified to help detect the laser plane, was in the mix.

Howe would accept that. He could fly aboard the plane as an advisor to the task group. It wasn’t what he wanted — he wanted to be in the Velociraptor, he wanted to nail Meagan himself — but he could accept it.

The memories that had haunted him over the past few days had retreated now behind the flames of a burning house. He saw his anger at being betrayed as a physical thing, something consuming the past and leaving it in ashes. He would get her; he would bring her back.

And yet, for all his rage and hatred, part of him didn’t believe it could be true. Part of him thought she would never ever do this — never give up her country. Rogers, maybe, or even one of the weapons people, but not Megan. Part of him thought they must have killed her to do this.

Megan was rich enough to do anything she wanted, but she had become a pilot and gone to NADT because she believed she could contribute something. She wanted to make the world safer; she saw Cyclops as exactly that kind of program, something with far-reaching implications.