Coffee in hand, she went to her office in the basement. Two minutes later she was talking to Danny over the Whiplash com network’s secure link.
“No video from your end?” asked Danny when his tired face appeared on the screen.
“I have it off. Commander’s prerogative.”
“I have an update on the UAV we encountered today.”
“OK,” she said, yawning.
“Turk was looking at the flight patterns that were reconstructed by the team Frost heads,” said Danny. “He says it followed a defensive pattern he recognized from the Flighthawks, to the letter.”
“Is he sure?”
“I had him go over it a couple of times. He looked at everything — the approach, the maneuvers, the way it got away. He said he’s flown against that attack a lot.”
“Is it a Flighthawk?”
“No. Turk compared it to a late model Flighthawk with stubbier wings.”
Breanna tapped on her keyboard, tying into the Cube’s computer system. Within a few minutes she had a video of the reconstructed encounter.
“I see what he’s saying,” she told Danny. “But we still don’t have any elint data.”
“Turk had a theory about that. This is a preprogrammed pattern, something you could tell the Flighthawks to do. They wouldn’t need to be in full communication.”
“That’s right. Have you talked to Ray about this?”
“He’d gone home.”
“I’ll talk to him,” said Breanna.
“If it is following the Flighthawk’s program, the source might be — it could be—”
“Us,” said Breanna.
“Yeah. Someone who worked on the Flighthawks.”
While there had been Flighthawk crashes and shoot-downs over the years, the aircraft were equipped with a series of fail-safe devices for completely scrubbing the memory and destroying the chips. There was no indication that the systems had ever failed. There hadn’t been a crash now in several years.
“This thing gets worse and worse,” said Danny before hanging up.
Zen opened his eyes as soon as he smelled the coffee. He glanced at the clock — it was a few minutes before three.
He lay in bed, listening to the house. He couldn’t hear Breanna; that meant she was downstairs in her soundproof office. She wouldn’t have left the house without kissing him good-bye, which inevitably woke him up — though he would never tell her that, for fear she might stop doing it.
Their daughter Teri was sleeping down the hall. He could hear her light breath. The child could sleep through a train crash without waking, something that never ceased to amaze Zen.
The coffee smelled good.
Zen made a halfhearted attempt at drifting off; a grand total of thirty seconds passed before he threw the covers off and pushed himself to the edge of the bed for his wheelchair.
Breanna had grabbed his robe when she’d gotten up, so once he was in the chair he wheeled to the bureau and pulled out a sweatshirt. Then he rolled down to the kitchen. He was pouring milk into his coffee when Breanna came up from her office.
“You took my robe,” he told her. “Yours was on the chair.”
“Sorry, I just grabbed what was there.” She leaned into him for a long kiss. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“Worth getting up for,” said Zen. He took his coffee and went over to the table. “Problems?”
“Eh. Just the usual.”
He knew from the tone in her voice that whatever had gotten her up was particularly sticky, but he also knew that he couldn’t push her for details.
“Kinda strong,” said Zen, sipping his coffee.
“No more than usual.”
Breanna sat down at the table across from him. “Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.
“A lot going on.”
“Thinking about what Todd said?”
“Oh… no. I don’t think I’d want to be President.”
“Why not? You could do a hell of a lot.”
“Maybe…” He took another sip. Bree was right — the coffee wasn’t any stronger than normal.
“What are you doing today?”
“Committee stuff. And fund-raising.”
“Your favorite.”
“Worse than that. I’m meeting with Jake Harris.”
Harris was an entrepreneur who’d made three fortunes and lost two before he was thirty years old. He’d held on to the latest, and over the last few years had become one of the most important political fund-raisers in the country.
“Count your fingers and toes before you go in.”
“It’s after that I’m worried about. I’d have to do this all the time if I ever ran for President,” he added.
“The price you pay.”
“Yeah.”
Lifting his coffee mug to his lips, he realized he’d nearly drained it. He took a last gulp, then wheeled over to the machine for a refill.
Breanna watched her husband wheel across the floor toward the coffee. For just a moment she saw him as he was before the accident at Dreamland that had taken the use of his legs — a brash young pilot, skilled and already wise beyond his years.
He was extremely bitter after the accident. Even so, it didn’t change what was vital about him — the need to strive, the urge to compete and be the best at what he did. The tragedy hadn’t made him a better person, but his will to keep going, his struggle to keep contributing to Dreamland and the Air Force and above all his country — those things had made him into a man to be admired, a real leader.
He would make an excellent President.
But should she urge him to run? He’d have to give up a lot, from the trivial — his skybox at the Nationals — to things that had no price, like time with their daughter.
Breanna curled her feet under her, then tucked the robe around her. It was thick and warm, and reminded her of him.
She hadn’t taken it by mistake.
She felt an urge to tell him about the plane — he’d know right off if the maneuvers were the same as those programmed into the Flighthawks. He also might have a theory on why that was. Just a coincidence? Or much more?
But she couldn’t.
If he ever did run for President, how many things would they never be able to share?
“Need a refill?” Zen asked.
“No, it’s full.”
Zen balanced the cup between his legs and wheeled himself back to the table. All these years, and he still insisted on an unpowered chair. There was more than a little macho masochism in him.
“Whatever you do, whenever you do it,” said Breanna, “Teri and I are with you.”
Zen smiled. That was one thing that hadn’t changed, ever, and the way his eyes shone, it was clear it never would.
“Thanks, babe,” he told her. “You think we can go back to bed?”
“You think we can sleep after all this coffee?”
“Who said anything about sleep?”
“Hold that thought,” said Breanna, rising. “I have to make a phone call.”
Despite the hour, Ray Rubeo answered on the first ring.
“Ray, it’s Breanna. I–I’m sorry to wake you.”
“You didn’t. I’m working.”
“Oh. OK. Listen I just talked to Danny. He said that Turk Mako has a theory—”
“Let me guess. He sees parallels between the UAVs and some of our aircraft.”
“Well, yes,” said Breanna, surprised. “Did you talk to him?”
“No. But I’ve noticed the parallels myself. I understand the implications,” he added. “I’m taking it very seriously.”