“We are in the business of fighting wars,” Slaughter said, red-faced, laying on the theatrics like the professional that he was. “Not policing your pecker so it stays in your pants. If said pecker interferes with said war-fighting, then we got a problem. You read me, Major?”
“Loud and clear, sir,” Schmidt said.
“Why you?” Slaughter said, his eyes narrow slits. “Are you such an easy mark that Chinese girl-spies come up to you in bars to get information?”
Already braced to attention, Schmidt’s shoulder blades nearly overlapped at the accusation. “No, sir!”
“Did either of you happen to let slip what kind of bird you fly?”
“No, sir, Captain,” Schmidt said. “She… They know I am a pilot. That is all.”
“A fighter pilot?”
“That is possible, sir.”
“I realize that with spy satellites being what they are,” Slaughter said, “our enemies know when one of our birds has a rusty rivet, but sometimes we just might have a plan in place to thwart that eye in the sky… Do I need to spell out for you that very often, the type of aircraft we do or do not have aboard is… I don’t know”—he spoke through clenched teeth, slamming the flat of his hand on the desk—“A SENSITIVE MATTER?!!”
“I understand, sir.” Schmidt stared at the far wall.
The CAG turned his light-of-a-thousand-suns gaze on Major Black. “How about you, Skeet? What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Captain,” Black said. “We were drinking, letting our guard down more than we should have, conversing with members of the opposite sex, whom we now believe to be Chinese intelligence operatives. We broke contact immediately once we developed this suspicion. No critical information was revealed, but in hindsight, we should have been more careful about the information we did convey. I will use more diligence in the future, sir.” He ended with a phrase common to the debrief after every Blue Angels flight, displaying, he hoped, the fact that he knew there were many Naval aviators with just as much skill as he had, who’d worked every bit as hard, but somehow, through fate and fortune, he’d ended up where he was. “I’m just glad to be here.”
Captain Slaughter let it soak in for a moment before turning back to Schmidt.
“NCIS is going to ask you this, but I want to know myself. Did either of you give up any information about our upcoming mission?”
“All due respect, Captain,” Schmidt said. “But we haven’t yet been made aware of the specifics of our upcoming mission.”
“Sounds like a sound decision on the part of both the Navy and the Marine Corps,” Slaughter said, looking at Skeet. “Generalities, then?”
“No, sir. The young ladies know we fly, but that is all.”
“Well, gentlemen,” Slaughter said. “You will, no doubt, be ecstatic to know that you will shortly be leaving my gentle care aboard the Reagan for the meat of your assignment.”
“May I ask where, Captain?”
“Orders will be forthcoming,” Slaughter said. “But, as you can both surmise, the type of aircraft you fly are more suited to the Gator Navy than big-deck carriers.”
That made sense, Skeet thought. Amphibious landing craft and the sailors that ran them worked with Marine Expeditionary Units to project U.S. power around the world. The ships were smaller, with no catapults, but capable of launching all manner of rotary wing aircraft as well as STOVL-capable fighters like the Marine Corps Harrier and the F-35B. Skeet knew one thing: The CAG was extra-tense, even for him, so the assignment must be something big.
Captain Slaughter peered across his nose as if deciding what to do — though both pilots were well aware that any decision had been made before they ever entered his office. They were Marines, and accustomed to the theatrics of discipline.
“You’ve got balls,” he said, “I’ll give you that. We have some work to do in the coming days and Lightning pilots ain’t exactly growing on trees. We need you, but we don’t need you that bad. You read me?”
“Yes, Captain,” the men said in unison.
“Outstanding,” Slaughter said. “Now, go grab your shit from your apartments and get back here at flank speed. I’ve already spoken with your Marine Corps chain. Consider yourselves confined to base until further notice. The only way I want you off these premises is when you’re in the air on your way to your next assignment.” The CAG’s voice calmed a notch, and he took a long breath, like the theatrics might be over, and he was about to bestow some sage, fatherly advice. Instead, he curled up his upper lip like he needed to spit out something bitter and said, “Dismissed.”
25
Three minutes.
Cecily Lung looked at her watch and squirmed in her ergonomic desk chair. She was new to Dexter & Reed, not yet completely trusted by the rest of the engineers — but Phil had a crush on her, so that was something. She’d give herself another minute and a half and then go to his desk, two cubicles down. He made no secret of the fact he’d like to ask her on a date, but he hadn’t quite figured out how to navigate work relationships.
She’d been there only a week, but Lung kept notes on everyone in the office, looking for useful weaknesses that she could leverage — like Phil’s AWF — Asian woman fetish. She used her own made-up code to jot everything down in a notepad she kept in her purse along with a .22-caliber Beretta semiautomatic. She had a small suppressor as well that a former boyfriend had given her. It wasn’t much longer than her thumb and didn’t silence the subcompact pistol, but rendered it quiet enough that anyone listening behind a closed door might wonder if someone had dropped a book.
There were few doors here, though, and only a couple of walls. Dr. Li didn’t believe in cordoned work areas, insisting that open spaces inspired cooperation and group effort. He’d grudgingly allowed cubicles, so long as the walls didn’t go above the shoulder of the shortest seated individual. He had an office — the bigwigs at corporate had insisted so as not to make them look bad for having offices of their own — but he’d taken the door off and kept the blinds raised.
The computer control room itself had a door — an extremely secure door. Known among the engineers as “the vault,” the control room was connected to the outside world, to corporate and government clients, including the Missile Defense Agency, who purchased and depended on Dexter & Reed products — and the periodic software updates that product required. Sealed like a fortress, the vault was built of reinforced concrete block, sheathed in wire mesh walls, floors, and ceiling. Alarms and scramble pads controlled entry.
It wasn’t that there was an atmosphere of mistrust. They were all on the same team and all had high-level security clearances. But Li stressed redundant security and oversight. If anyone, including him, performed any task on the terminal, it had to be double-checked and verified. Engineers with specific hardware or software needs could enter the vault two at a time during office hours, but Li had the only code that worked after hours.
Tucked in Cecily Lung’s purse with the notebook and the pistol was a small thumb drive that her handler had delivered to her that morning, along with the instructions to upload it at once into the central terminal — behind the secure door. The sooner, the better. It would be quick — her handler estimated some fifteen seconds, but that might as well have been fifteen months if she couldn’t get into the locked facility by herself. She’d asked Phil to go in with her to check some hardware, but there was no way she could insert the drive. He was smitten, but he was also smart — and would surely see if she inserted any drive.