Strike Zone d-5

by Dale Brown

  Was she more upset over this investigation business than he’d thought? Cortend surely was a pain in the ass, but Jennifer ought to understand that the colonel’s presence there was mostly a political thing; it wasn’t directed at her and eventually would go away. Whatever minor violations of the rules she had committed—if she had committed any — would be outweighed by her value to the program. Any baboon would realize that.

  Maybe he should just come out and tell her that.

  Of course, that was the one thing hecouldn’t do as her commanding officer. It would be interfering with Danny, who had to have absolute autonomy, absolute authority to do the real investigation, Cortend be damned.

  Dog checked his course, then looked at his watch. Bin Awg had modified the aircraft to increase the amount of fuel it could carry; in theory, they could have flown directly to the strip at Nanorpathet. But that would leave them with few contingencies, and so he had decided to refuel at Songkhla in the southern extension of Thailand on the Malay Peninsula. At 250 knots and better than eight hundred miles to go, it was going to be a long haul.

  Maybe Mack had been right about taking the Badger.

  Dreamland

  11 September 1997

  1800

  (South China Sea, 12 September, 0900)

  It was so obvious — so painfully obvious — that Rubeo very nearly smacked his head in derision as he realized it.

  Most of the intercepted code was nonsense.

  Not nonsense, exactly — mirrored bits of their own code, randomly sliced and diced, then spit back to camouflage the actual transmissions.

  And that made all the difference.

  Rubeo got up from the computer bank and walked to the counter where Mr. Coffee normally kept at least a half carafe warm. The fact that there was no coffee in the pot reminded him of Jennifer, and that in turn reminded him of his stupidity.

  Not that telling Cortend what he had just now realized would stop the Inquisition. Cortend was the expression of a vast and infinitely stupid machine, the dark enemy of knowledge. It had stripped Oppenheimer of his status and fame. It had pursued Galileo; it had gotten Socrates to drink poison. Cortend herself was a puny ant, a cog in the machine of ignorance.

  A bad cog in a machine that couldn’t even serve a useful function, like making coffee.

  Rubeo measured out some grains and filled Mr. Coffee with water. As the liquid began to hiss downward, he went back to his secure phone and called the Command Center, requesting to be put through to Colonel Bastian. But Bastian wasn’t immediately available, according to the sergeant handling the communications system in the Whiplash trailer, aka Dreamland Mobile Command.

  “I can get a patch through to his sat phone if you want,” said the sergeant.

  “Oh never mind. Tell him to call me when he lands.”

  “Here or there?”

  “Whatever.” The sergeant started to say something but Rubeo didn’t have time for him; he killed the line and dialed Danny in the security office.

  “I want to talk to Captain Freah. This is Rubeo.”

  “Uh, the captain’s on another line and, uh, he’s overdue at the handheld weapons lab to check out the updates to the Smart Helmets and some of the—”

  “Tell him to see me when he’s done playing with his toys,” said the scientist, slamming down the phone.

  * * *

  At the very moment Rubeo was slamming down the phone, Danny was fuming as well. He’d been on hold now for nearly five minutes, waiting for Jed Barclay to come back on the line. The NSC assistant had called Danny — then asked him to wait without saying another word.

  “Sorry about that,” said Jed, finally coming back on the line. “My boss has been sick and they’re running me ragged. This China crap — they’re crazy over there.”

  “What’s up?” said Danny. He tried to be friendly but he knew there was a hard edge in his voice.

  “Um, I wanted to tell you something, but, it’s like, it’s got to be off the record.”

  “Yeah?”

  “The official channels’ll come later.”

  “Let’s go. What?”

  “I talked to an FBI counterintelligence officer in charge of the Far East. Your scientist is off the hook.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Jennifer Gleason did follow procedure but her name was misspelled and reversed in the records. Dr. Rubeo figured it out. And she was a student on the date of the first conference and there wasn’t even a formal requirement for her to register.”

  Danny wanted to reach through the phone and give Jed a high-five. But instead he gave the NSC official his standard security officer: “Are you absolutely sure about all this?”

  “Yeah. Uh, like you’ll get a paper report. I also told the FBI guy to contact Colonel Cortend. I figured she’d be really routing up people’s butts.”

  “Thanks. Thanks a lot. Really. I really appreciate it,” said Danny.

  “Listen, I got to go — could you pass a message to, uh, Dr. Rubeo?”

  “What’d he do, take your head off?” said Danny.

  “He was going on about, um — well, you don’t really want to hear it.”

  “Accused you of being part of the Inquisition?”

  Jed laughed. “That part was a compliment compared to everything else. I, uh, really don’t have time to uh, deal with him, but I need a favor. Not a favor really, but—”

  “Tell me what you need, Jed, and I’ll get it.”

  Jed explained that he needed yet another update on the ghost clone for a meeting with the President scheduled in a half hour. Danny realized that, besides being angry about Jennifer, Rubeo was probably pissed that he had to keep updating Washington every few hours. But that was tough nuggies.

  Besides, the news about Jennifer would put him in a better mood.

  “He’ll have to get me via sat phone. But I really need the latest. Really.”

  “Jed, I will personally make sure that Dr. Ray calls you. I will hold a gun to his head and make sure. I’m going right there now.”

  “Um, uh, that wouldn’t, uh, be, uh—”

  “It’s a joke, Jed. He’ll call.”

  Ten minutes later, Danny walked through the Megafortress hangar, down the long ramp that led to the elevators. He put his hand flat on the reader and waited for the car. When the door opened, Colonel Cortend and two of her lieutenants nearly flattened him.

  “Colonel, just the person I wanted to talk to,” said Danny. “Looks like Ms. Gleason is off the hook for those minor security violations.”

  “No security violation is minor,” said Cortend.

  Danny explained what had apparently happened, and told her that the FBI agent would be getting in touch with her.

  “Good,” said Cortend, in a tone so severe Danny momentarily regretted that he wasn’t wearing body armor. She glanced at her minions, who snapped to and rushed to open the door ahead — even though it was operated by a motion detector.

  Downstairs, Danny found Ray Rubeo talking to himself as he pounded the keys on one of his computers.

  “Hey, Doc,” said Danny.

  “Hmph,” said Rubeo.

  “I have good news about Jennifer,” said Danny, summarizing what Jed had told him.

  “Did you tell it to the hangman?”

  Danny stifled a smirk. “If you’re referring to Colonel Cortend, yes I did.”

  “Did she understand it?”

  “What’s to understand?”

  “Precisely.Precisely.” Rubeo slashed at the computer keys, then hit a combination at the top to save his work. “You don’t want to read this,” he said, getting up.

  “Top secret?”

  “It’s a letter to my congressman about idiots and numbskulls,” said Rubeo.

  “Present company excepted?”

  “I tried to explain the significance of what’s been found about the clone so far,” said Rubeo. “I started with the very basics — completely different aircraft. I didn’t even get to t
he transmission. Do you know what she told me? Do you know what she told me?”

  “Uh, good job?”

  “She told me that this was compartmentalized information, and she wasn’t authorized to hear it. Not authorized to hear it! Not authorized to hear it!”

  “Hey, uh, Doc, go easy, all right? I don’t know how good my CPR is.”

  Rubeo shook his head. Volcanoes appeared calmer before eruptions.

  “I believe in security too,” he said. “You know that. You understand that. You’ve been here — you know what kind of operation we run. But. But—”

  “Sure,” said Danny.

  “This is obscene. This is harassment. I don’t think she’s coming back. She’ll resign.”

  “Who? Cortend?”

  “Jennifer Gleason.” Rubeo’s entire body shuddered.

  “Look, Jennifer is off the hook for those meetings. The paperwork was misplaced. As for the rest of this, well, obviously we have to look very carefully, but—”

  “Listen. I’m going to explain what they’re doing. Just nod your head if you don’t understand,” said Rubeo. “Humor me. The reason the code is similar to ours is because it is ours — we’re receiving a mirrored stream of data. Not all our data, just little bits. Their actual code uses an encryption that’s twenty years old. They were using it when most of the scientists here were in diapers.”

  Before Danny could say anything, Rubeo marched over to a table lined with printouts. His fingers flew over them as he explained what he had found. Danny didn’t quite catch it all — Rubeo made a big deal out of signal erosion curves and then somehow segued from that into how canon law made torture necessary during the Middle Ages because two eyewitnesses were always necessary for a conviction in the absence of a confession. But the bottom line was clear: No one at Dreamland was a traitor.

  No one.

  “The mirroring process is interesting in and of itself,” continued Rubeo. “It’s a real-time technique that uses a sampling sequence we haven’t seen before. There have been only two papers published on it, and they’re both several years old. Either the person behind the clone read those papers — or he wrote them.”

  “Great,” said Danny. “Give me copies.”

  Rubeo blinked at him. “You understand what I’m saying?”

  “No, but I get the gist. Can you get me those papers?”

  “Gladly,” said Rubeo. Somehow, his customary sarcasm seemed to lack the bite it had once had. It seemed almost — friendly. “You do read Chinese, don’t you?”

  “Chinese? As in the People’s Republic of China?”

  “No. As in Taiwan. The papers were written there by a man named Ai Hira Bai. If his name is any indication, he has both Chinese and Japanese ancestors, but he lived or lives on Taiwan. An adamant enemy of the communists. And a man who hasn’t been heard from since shortly after the last paper was published. There are no academic listings of him anywhere.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Even more interesting is the fact that his expenses to the conference were paid by a company owned by a man named Chen Lee. A billionaire who hates the communists and who has access to a wide range of technology.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Well, if Colonel Cortend isn’t going to investigate anything beyond her nose, don’t you think someone better?”

  White House, Washington, D.C.

  2130

  President Martindale had a state dinner scheduled to honor the ambassador from France, who was retiring and returning to Paris after a decade’s worth of service in America. The President, whose relations with France were as testy as that of any administration since John Adams’s, was only too happy to throw a big party for the departing buffoon.

  The dinner also allowed him the opportunity to get off on a good foot with his successor, a Mademoiselle Encoinurge. Encoinurge was an improvement in several respects, not least of all physically, and the President found it necessary to engage in a little personal diplomacy. This made it difficult for him to sneak away as planned, and so Jed Barclay and the others who were supposed to be meeting with him were ushered upstairs to wait. The secretaries of defense and state had been at the meeting and were dressed in tuxedoes. Jed, wearing his best pinstriped suit and a brand-new tie, felt underdressed. They were sitting in the dark and ornate Treaty Room on the third floor, next to the Lincoln Bedroom. A massive chandelier hung down from the center of the room like a beehive on fire. Though sturdy, Jed’s wooden chair creaked as he sat in it; it was at least a hundred years old, and he worried that he might break it if he got up too quickly.

  Nonetheless, he jumped to his feet as President Martindale bounded into the room, several strides ahead of two aides and Admiral Balboa, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

  “Gentlemen, Jed, good; we’re all here then. I’m looking forward to better relations with France,” the President told the secretary of state. “The ambassador actually seems to have a head on her shoulders.”

  “It’ll make up for China,” said Hartman.

  “One step at a time. Would you like to brief us on the situation?”

  “The Chinese are still officially blaming us for shooting down their aircraft,” said the secretary of state. “But the premier was impressed that you called the ambassador and is willing to take your call on the matter sometime this afternoon. We’re still working on the details. Jed’s pictures helped.”

  Jed felt his face flush slightly.

  “Good work, Jed,” said the President. “Maybe we’ll tell Mr. Freeman to stay in bed another week.”

  “Uh—”

  “Philip is feeling much better,” Martindale told the others. “I think he just didn’t feel like having anything to do with France tonight. All right, back to China.”

  “The premier is in a conciliatory mood,” said Hartman, picking up where he had left off. “Or at least he’s prepared to be, if you say you’re in favor of the summit between him and the president of Taiwan.”

  “I am.”

  “He’d like a sign of encouragement. He may suggest you attend.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” said Martindale.

  “The vice president? He’s in Japan.”

  The President frowned. “Let’s think on that. Jed, what else do we know about the clone?”

  “I have some data from Dreamland,” said Jed. He reached for his briefcase. “I just have to boot up my laptop, and, uh—”

  “No, let’s skip the presentation,” said Martindale. “Give us an overview. Quick one. I have to get back.”

  Until that moment, Jed hadn’t thought about his stutter — and hadn’t stuttered hardly at all. Now that he was on the spot, however, it came back with a vengeance.

  “Well, um, we, uh, know from the wing configuration it’s, uh, different than ours,” he said. “The experts have some, uh, more, uh, more technical data to go through, and they still have a lot of questions. But at the moment it looks slower, like maybe 450 knots—”

  “Whose is it?” asked the secretary of state.

  Jed shook his head. “Dr-Dr-Dreamland is still working on it. We have Space Command and NSA r-reviewing sensor data in the area, and that’s under way. But the first review of the earlier sighting didn’t yield anything, so we’re not sure what will come up.”

  He had to get rid of the damn stutter or no one would trust anything he said. It made him sound like too much of a jerk. Fortunately, Jed had some handouts summarizing the data Dreamland had compiled, and he passed them out.

  “So it’s not as capable as our craft?” asked Chastain.

  “Well, it depends on your cr-criteria,” said Jed. “The experts think it’s not as f-f-fast. But it can carry a heavier load, which would mean a couple of things.”

  “Did the Chinese get all this information?” asked Balboa.

  “No,” said Hartman. “They know there was another craft involved. And that we’re trying to track it.”

  “If they believe u
s,” said the admiral, “and that’s a big if, then we’re in race with them to find this thing. Because if they grab it—”

  “The Dreamland people will get there first,” said Martindale. He rose. “Right, Jed?”

  “They’re getting closer.”

  “Close doesn’t count,” said Balboa. “We need results. Now.”

  Dreamland

  1900

  Danny knocked on the door to Jennifer’s small apartment twice without getting an answer. He turned and looked at the two airmen who had accompanied him, then reached into his pocket for the master key he’d brought along. He was just about to insert it in the door when a faint voice asked from inside who it was.

  “Captain Freah,” he told her. “Hey, it’s Danny, Jen. Can I come in?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Jen?” he said.

  He heard her footsteps and then her hand at the chain, pulling it open. She stood in the doorway wearing a bathrobe, though below it she had on jeans and a sweatshirt.

  She’d cut her hair.

  God, had she cut her hair — it looked as if she’d hacked it off with a knife.

  Danny decided it was best to ignore it. He tried not to stare.

  “Hey, you’re off the hook. Completely,” he told her. “Those conferences — we got information from the FBI and the security review at the time that clears you completely. Are you okay? Can I come in?”

  She didn’t answer, turning away instead. Danny glanced back at his men in the hall, then stepped inside by himself, closing the door behind him.

  “Colonel Bastian’s been trying to get ahold of you,” he told her. “And Chief Gibbs. How come you don’t return their calls?”

  “How do you know I don’t return their calls?” she said, twisting around in a fury. “Do you have a tap on my phone? You think you can just listen in to anything you want any time you want?”

  Danny was authorized by the security regulations covering Dreamland to do just that, but this clearly wasn’t the time to say so. “Of course not.”

  She pursed her lips. The lower one started to quiver.