The heat and humidity almost knocked Jennifer Gleason down as she walked off the ramp of the big C-17, carrying a briefcase with two laptops and a backpack with extra clothes. The airplane had left from Dreamland several hours ahead of schedule, partly because the situation seemed more dire as news of the guerilla attacks came in, and partly because the Dreamland people couldn’t see the point in hanging around twiddling their thumbs once they were ready to go. Jennifer had spent the flight brushing up on the LADS technology, learning about the lighter-than-air vessels. While she knew a bit about the computer systems already, she wasn’t familiar with their operating procedures. The skins of the aircraft were made of a high-tech fabric containing LED matrices and what might be called a flexible plastic lens; the system made the airships almost invisible from a distance. The engines were also extremely efficient, thanks largely to recent inventions. But the rest of the airship design was hardly revolutionary, and materials aside, the small bag of air and its semirigid interior spine could have been designed fifty years before. Its simplicity was among its assets.
The blimps were controlled by a central ground station, which communicated with them via satellite. At present, the design allowed only one “live” receiver, which meant that the images from the system had to be uploaded back to Dreamland through a slightly kludgy arrangement that used Dreamland’s regular com channels. Turning over control of the blimps to another remote station, or to Dreamland for that matter, was a similarly laborious affair; the system had been designed with the idea that it would have its own dedicated command and control network for security purposes, and the present arrangement was actually a hack around those safeguards.
Jennifer spotted Major Alou near the C-17, talking with the loadmasters.
“Have we deployed LADS yet?” she asked after he said hello.
“Whiplash is in the process of launching two of the airships from the platform to cover the city. The helicopters will be bringing additional units with them as soon as they leave.” He glanced at his watch. “Which ought to be any second now”
“Great. Where are the helicopters?”
“Over beyond the second building on the right. Why?”
“Because I have to oversee the LADS technical operation.”
“You mean you want to go out to the platform?”
“How else would I do it?”
“And stay there?”
“How else would I do it?”
Alou gave the men a look and then motioned with his head toward the side. Jennifer followed him.
“You can’t stay out on the platform,” said Alou.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because it’s dangerous. They’ve already been attacked.”
“Do we have other people there?”
“Well, the Whiplash team.”
“If they deployed LADS from there, that’s where I have to be.”
“No.”
Jennifer put her hands on her hips. “I’m sorry, Major. But I have a job to do. And you can’t tell me not to do it.”
“I’m in charge of the deployment.”
“No, you’re not,” she said. Jennifer felt her cheeks starting to burn.
“I mean — listen.”
“I’ve been on deployments before,” she said, turning and heading for the helicopters.
Chapter 64
Jed took the information Colonel Bastian had given him, double-checking what he could against the last CIA briefing and compiling it into a briefing paper and a PowerPoint slide presentation. His boss, Philip Freeman, had told him to bring it down to the White House situation room as soon as possible; Jed pulled the paper copies of the briefing page by page from the printer, barely making sure they were in order before starting for the secure area on a dead run. When he burst into the conference room a few minutes later, President Kevin Martindale was on the phone; Freeman motioned for Jed to come forward and give him the paper version of the briefing. Jed slid it over, and Freeman spun it around and separated the pages, showing one copy to the president and the other to the secretary of state, whose gray face turned even darker.
“Interesting,” the president told whomever he was speaking with. He leaned back in his chair and gave Jed a thumbs-up. He seemed somewhat tired, though as usual his voice was so calm he might have been chatting at a cocktail party.
“Well, perhaps you can explain then how one of your ships came to be firing upon an oil platform off the Brunei coast?” the president said finally to the person on the other end of the line. “Seems to have had some bad luck there.”
Jed started up the laptop presentation and then slid it over toward the president. A wry smile came over the president’s face; he looked a bit like a poker player about to reveal a hand filled with aces.
“I’m looking at an image of it in the water right now. Very interesting craft,” President Martindale said. He leaned forward to read the notes in the pop-up window on the screen. “What does this use? Surface effect technology? No — wing-in-ground effect? Wing-in-wave? Very impressive.”
The president looked at Jed. One of the CIA technology experts believed that the ship might have been built for Malaysia by China, but Jed had his own theory — the U.S. had experimented with some of the technology, and used parts built by a South Korean firm. He thought it possible that the plans were stolen somewhere along the way through industrial espionage; heads were going to roll if that was the case.
“Well, as prime minister, you’re in a position to do something about it, aren’t you?” said Martindale. He sat up straight, figuratively laying his cards on the table. “I expect to see concrete steps toward cooperation with Brunei forces within twelve hours. In the meantime, I’ve dispatched some of my own units to keep an eye on the situation. It would be very good if we could use one of your bases.”
The president listened, nodding as the Malaysian prime minister spoke. Jed slid out one of the sheets from his report, placing it so the president could see.
“Well that’s very good,” the president said finally. “I’m told you had some troubles at that secret base in the hills above Meruta where you were operating Su-27s until the other day. Rumor has it you bought those from the Ukraine — odd that the purchase wouldn’t have been announced, or shared with other members of ASEAN.”
The president smiled as he listened to the Malaysian leader’s continued excuses. After a minute or so, he interrupted.
“With all due respect, you have treaty obligations to honor. If you don’t honor them, I think you’ll find your position in the world community very, very tenuous.”
The president handed the phone to the secretary of state, who listened for a few more moments, said “Great,” and then hung up.
“They’ll cooperate,” the secretary announced. “We can use any of their facilities we want.”
“Dreamland preferred the, uh, hidden base,” said Jed. “Because it’s location is more isolated. Less chance for spies to see them coming and going. There are some security issues — we’re very short of personnel.”
“The Malaysians promised assistance,” said the secretary of state. “I think they’re sincere.”
“I doubt they’re sincere,” said President Martindale. “But I think they’ll go along with us for the time being. We’ve just given them carte blanche to attack the terrorists wherever they find them. I imagine they’ll use it to justify all manner of things. But for the moment, these terrorists are a bigger problem. Imagine what they’d do if they controlled a country like Brunei, with all its oil revenue. Jed, give Colonel Bastian the heads up. Get the Pentagon to send them more security personnel, Special Forces, whatever they need. Then you go get some sleep young man. You look as tired as I feel.”