Hartman, the secretary of state. Jed had been here dozens of times, but today felt different. Not because of the subject matter; the appearance of the UAV Dreamland had dubbed the ghost clone had enormous implications, true, but Jed thought the plan for drawing it out that Colonel Bastian had outlined to him made a lot of sense. He also felt that it was unlikely another spy was at the base, though admittedly the fact that he knew most of the important players there might be blinding him.
What was bothering him was the fact that he was at the meeting in place of his boss, Philip Freeman, the national security director, who had been hospitalized with pneumonia.
Jed would have been at the meeting even if Freeman was well; Dreamland was his portfolio. He might even be sitting in this chair. But somehow, being here officially as Freeman’s replacement – temporary as it was – unnerved him.
He stuttered as he said hello to the President. Martindale smiled and started talking about a football game the week before that Yale, Jed’s alma mater, had lost.
Jed smiled and tried to say something along the lines of ‘can’t win them all.’ But what came out was ‘k-k-k-k.’
The President laughed, maybe thinking he was joking, and moved on to start the meeting. Jed reached into his briefcase and passed out the executive summary of the Dreamland plan, then fired up his laptop for a PowerPoint presentation, which he planned to present on the twenty-one-inch flat screen he’d brought with him. But the President stopped him.
‘No slides, Jed,’ said Martindale, who put more stock in honest opinions than zippy pie charts. ‘Tell us why this is important.’
‘Well, um –’ started Jed.
‘If the Chinese have robot aircraft as capable as the Flighthawks,’ said Admiral George Balboa, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, ‘they could conceivably use them to achieve first-strike capability in a war against Taiwan and even us. The UAVs are very difficult to detect unless you’re looking for them, and even then they can be close enough to initiate an attack before the defenses are alerted.’
Ordinarily, Jed might have bristled at Balboa’s taking over his presentation. But now he was grateful. In any event, the admiral was merely stating one of Jed’s own arguments.
‘Yes,’ said Jed. He didn’t stutter, a major victory.
Maybe he’d get through this after all. Why was he so unnerved? His boss would be back in a few days.
‘The problem with this plan,’ said Balboa, ‘is that it doesn’t go far enough. We need the Navy involved – if there is a UAV we have to take it out. Right away.’
‘That m-m-might be premature,’ said Jed.
‘Nonsense.’
‘Provoking the Chinese at this point is risky business,’ said the secretary of state. ‘The meeting with the Taiwanese is set for two weeks from now. The rapprochement should take priority.’
‘Why?’ said Balboa bluntly. ‘Why is it in our interests?’
Hartman’s face turned beet red. ‘Peace is always in our interest.’
‘It depends on what the terms are,’ said Chastain.
If Freeman were here, Jed thought, he would be mediating between the blustery Balboa and the more reticent Hartman. He’d also be pointing out that finding the UAV and dealing with it need not interfere with the summit between the two Chinas.
So why didn’t he say that?
He should.
Jed opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
‘What do you think, Jed?’ asked the President.
‘I, well – if the operation is run exactly the way Colonel Bastian outlined it, sir, it won’t provoke the Chinese any more than any routine mission would.’ Jed took a breath and then pressed his fingers together, one of the tricks he had learned in high school when the stutter first became an issue. If he didn’t think about it, it wouldn’t be a problem.
The trick was not to think about it.
‘I don’t think that, urn, that the secretary of state is proposing that we stop gathering intelligence on the Chinese, or that we leave Asia,’ said Jed.
‘Of course not,’ said the secretary of state.
‘So this – if it were, say, wrapped up in routine maneuvers, in an exercise that they would be interested in, or that anyone who might have the ghost clone was interested in, I would think that would work.’
Jed glanced up and saw that Martindale was looking directly at him. He floundered, turning his eyes back down to the floor before continuing.
‘The, uh, the ASEAN, the ASEAN exercises are set to begin in two days. My thinking was that the Dr-Dreamland plan might fold into that, or we could use the maneuvers as a cover somehow.’
‘The Navy was ordered to take a low profile. We’ve only allocated a frigate.’ Balboa cleared his throat, obviously warming to the idea. While as the head of the JCS, Balboa was technically in charge of all the services, rare was the operation he didn’t believe should be spearheaded by the Navy. ‘We could get some assets there, a carrier, have some patrol craft. Yes. A P-3 in an Elint role, and we have two Vikings that have just been overhauled precisely for this sort of mission.’
‘Why don’t we just send the fleet?’ said Chastain.
‘We could do that,’ said Balboa, somehow missing the sarcasm in the defense secretary’s voice.
‘Jed?’ prompted the President.
‘I did some checking and, um, there was originally a request for B-52s in the exercises,’ Jed told them. ‘So we could grant it and, uh, the Megafortresses could go in their place.’
‘There is a bit of an issue with the Dreamland people,’ said Balboa. ‘Some folks feel Colonel Bastian and his people are cowboys who need to be reined in.’
‘That’s not fair,’ snapped Jed.
Balboa turned and stared at him. Jed realized that his dislike of Dreamland, born from a general prejudice against anything connected with the Air Force, had been fanned into a virulent hatred because of the Piranha affair. While the Navy had played an important role in preventing war, the Dreamland people were the ones actually taking the bullets, and for some reason that bugged him.
‘I didn’t say it was fair, young man. I’m just saying it’s the view.’ Balboa shifted in his seat, turning back toward the President. ‘We still haven’t reached a decision on where the command should be located. Technically, Colonel Bastian doesn’t answer to anyone at the moment. Except, of course, to the commander-in-chief.’
‘I haven’t reached a decision,’ said the President.
He smiled, as if apologizing for telling a fib. Jed knew that the ambiguous situation served Martindale very well and was therefore likely to continue indefinitely. Under the present arrangement, Dreamland’s Whiplash special operations team, its cutting-edge aircraft,
