Whiplash was the best group for the job, with or without the old Dreamland connection.
“You have to tell him,” Zen said.
“I thought you didn’t believe it.”
“But you do,” he answered. “You have to be honest with him.”
“Don’t tell me what I have to do. You don’t know what the pressures are.”
“What does this have to do with pressure, Bree? This has to do with basic honesty.”
“Honesty? Honesty? What the hell are you talking about, honesty? You lie to people all the time.”
“I don’t lie.”
“You’re a politician. Tell me you don’t lie.”
It was the worst fight they’d had in years. The only fight they’d had in years. There’d been disagreements, debates maybe, but nothing approaching this. This was a nuclear explosion, a blowout so severe it left them both trembling.
Maybe it had been a long time coming. Maybe they were just due. Maybe at its heart, the fight had little to do with Mark Stoner and Danny and who should know what.
Maybe at its heart, Breanna was worried about him and didn’t want to lose him. And he…
He wasn’t sure what he was worried about. He knew he was angry, over a lot of things, none of which had anything to do with his wife, not really.
Losing his legs most of all. Even now, even after all these years without them. He wanted them. He wanted them so badly he would trade anything for them.
Not his daughter. Not his wife, not even tonight in his anger. But anything else.
Zen stayed in the living room while Breanna went to the bedroom. He went into the kitchen and got himself a beer, then sipped it slowly, thinking back to his days at Dreamland.
He didn’t believe it could possibly be true. It wasn’t the question of whether Stoner had survived. He’d seen worse crashes—hell, his own for starters.
But to be rebuilt?
Science fiction bullshit.
The phrase was familiar. Zen looked down at his legs, trying to place it.
Oh yeah, he thought, remembering. It was what the Air Force secretary had said the day he arrived at Dreamland to review the Flighthawk project.
The day of his accident, when one of the Flighthawks cut too close to his tail.
The Air Force secretary had said it with a smile on his face, laughing, really, shaking his hand before the flight.
Science fiction bullshit, that just happened to be true.
SUPERMEN
14
Kiev, Ukraine
“Why Moldova?” Danny asked.
“I have no idea if it means anything,” Nuri told him as they debriefed the break-in over the secure sat phone. “He was looking at a lot of sites there. We’ll have a better idea in the morning, when MY-PID finishes churning through all the data. I just thought it was a little unusual. Moldova is not exactly the garden spot of the world. It’s not on the beaten path, that’s for sure.”
“It’s not,” agreed Danny.
“The guy loves porn,” continued Nuri. “And he’s an animal—he started screwing on the couch while I was there. I swear, I was ten feet away. Maybe closer. If they’d seen me, they probably would have asked me to join in.”
Nuri’s mention of Moldova brought back painful memories for Danny. A decade and a half before, Dreamland Whiplash had run an operation in neighboring Romania, helping rout guerrillas who were trying to disrupt a pipeline project. In the process, they’d helped rescue the country from a coup.
But they’d lost a key member of the team and a friend, CIA officer Mark Stoner. Danny could still remember getting the news.
They talked for a while more, about whether Flash should stay with Nuri or come to Kiev, about how many more people they’d need, about when to contact the local authorities.
Danny couldn’t focus on any of it. He kept thinking about Stoner.
He’d lost a lot of friends in the early part of his career, in Bosnia, and then with Dreamland. Later on in the Gulf and Afghanistan. It had been a luxury the last few years, not having to worry about forming friendships that could end all too suddenly.
“I’ll talk to you after we get the info dump,” said Nuri. “Figure out the next move then. In the meantime, I’m going to bed. You good?”
“Good.”
“You OK, Colonel?”
“I’m here,” answered Danny.
“Maybe you ought to get some rest, too,” said Nuri. “You sound a little tired.”
Danny glanced at his watch. It was five in the morning; no way was he getting back to sleep.
“I’m good,” he told Nuri. “Talk to you soon.”
15
Washington, D.C.
Breanna overslept, and by the time she woke, Zen had already left to take Teri to school and then go to work.
Her body felt raw from the fight, as if it had been physical. She took a shower, feeling drained of blood, even trembling a little. Coffee helped get her awake, but it only reinforced the jitteriness. She left for work without checking the news or looking at her version of the morning briefing. Her BlackBerry had a dozen messages, but none were from Zen, so she didn’t bother opening them.
Breanna generally split her days between the Pentagon and Room 4. Today she was scheduled to spend her time at the Pentagon, where, among other things, she was supposed to make sure arrangements for the Tigershark demonstration test flight were set. But she headed to the CIA campus instead, anxious for an in-depth update on the operation.
And considering, in the back of her mind, what to tell Danny about the Wolves.
To her great surprise, she found Reid in the bunker. Not only did he spend the bulk of his time in his office in the main building, he was famously known as a late riser, often grumbling about meetings that began before 10:00 A.M.
“Extra strong this morning,” Breanna told the automated coffee unit. “Very strong.”
“You saw the e-mail?” Reid asked her as the coffee began to brew.
“No. I just had an instinct that something was up.”
Reid was an old-school CIA hand, both figuratively and literally. Sometimes it seemed to Breanna that he had been with the Agency back when it was the OSS.
“MY-PID has arranged all of the data from the mobster’s computer,” said Reid. “There’s one possible lead through a bank account. And some interesting connections. Most of the information on the drives pertains to his business interests. The FBI will be interested. And there’s plenty more for the Italian antimafia commission.”
“Let’s have a look.”
“Here.”
Reid turned to the wall, then told the computer to display the data summary. Several windows of information appeared, long lists of files arranged in treelike fashion. A window on the left showed correspondence between Moreno and other members of his organization, translating them from Italian as well as decrypting them. They indicated that he was having some conflicts with upper level associates, or fellow mob bosses. There was personal animosity and friction as well. Based on what Nuri had observed, that was more than understandable.