A few people gasped. Most stared at Lena in shock. She spoke with an unemotional detachment. They were hanging on every word.
“… we were unable to get any of their detailed plans. We have begun a very thorough mole hunt in the government and military right now. We need to use the next few months to root out every Chinese spy that has infiltrated us. Only then can we share this information with the people who will need to know. What we don’t want to do is tip our hand and bring on war without preparation. We are afraid that if we start disseminating this information and some of their spies find out, the Chinese might move up their timetable before we can prepare. Also, in that scenario, they would then be attacking with their spies in place. That can’t happen.”
She looked around the room.
“I know this is shocking. I know it may seem unbelievable if you are just now hearing it. But I assure you it is very real. Our world may soon change drastically. We may be in a war like our generation has never known. So I ask that you each do your part to the best of your ability. Work hard. Make the best decisions you can. Help to prepare our country for the worst. Good luck. Now, let’s get to work.”
The group sat stunned. Slowly, people started to stand up and move down the aisles and towards the back door of the room, where the administrative papers waited. The Air Force major was there, helping everyone get their paperwork done. The crowd resumed speculation on what the future had in store with a renewed fervor.
David found himself waiting in line to sign his nondisclosure agreement and collect a security badge. That struck him as a bit silly. If this island really was in the middle of nowhere, wouldn’t Lena and whoever else was running this show already know exactly who was here? The badges seemed more for show than anything. But show for whom?
“Thank you for participating today, Mr. Manning.”
David hadn’t seen Lena walk up behind him. Closer up, she was even more attractive. Her dark brown eyes stared intently into his.
“Of course. I’m glad to help.”
“I’m very interested to hear more about ARES. We’ll look forward to a full briefing from you later. I am fascinated to hear about its capabilities. And to know more about these men that have created the program.”
David was surprised she knew about it. But if that was why Tom had sent him, it made sense that she would.
He said, “ARES. Yeah. Well, I don’t know if you would even call them men. The three of them were in their early twenties. Boys, I’d say.”
She shook her head. “Remarkable. But I guess many of our strongest tech companies were started by exuberant youths. It takes a fiery intellect to really change the world. Like young Natesh there.”
She nodded toward Natesh, who was out of earshot across the room.
David said, “It sounds like we’ll need that brain power to help us, in light of the plot you’ve uncovered. Hopefully we can harness that power for the good guys.”
Lena said, “David, that’s why we brought you all here, to harness that intellectual power. And I promise you we’ll do exactly that.”
She nodded a farewell, turned, and walked out the door.
David watched her go and felt an uneasy voice in his head begin to whisper. It was the same voice that he’d felt when Tom was speaking to him on the plane. Lena and Tom had both said all of the right things.
But the whisper was still there. The whisper was what his father used to call it when David was a boy. His father’s sage advice never failed to keep David out of trouble: When the whisper tells you not to follow the pack, hear the whisper like a scream.
CHAPTER 3
The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.
Natesh sat on his bed, his moist palms pressed against white cotton bedsheets. He was always the most nervous on the first day. That was when all those intelligent and accomplished eyes began to judge him. In the first thirty minutes, Natesh found, the vast majority of his spectators made their decision as to the worth of his service. So like any good salesman, he had to nail it during that initial moment of truth. And he did it, time after time.
That was how he had made his millions. Not through his intellectual prowess. Smart people were a dime a dozen. Natesh made his millions by selling himself. He delivered both a high-quality exhibition and intellectual output for his clients. But he had to give them a convincing show for their money.
He always got nervous, and today’s nervousness went beyond anything he had felt before. He needed to keep calm. Just stick to the script. He must forget that the final product here wasn’t a product at all, but bloodshed. He tried to console himself with the fact that if he did his job well, there would be less of it.
Natesh had his routine. The stories changed depending on the exact project, but the basic formula stayed constant. Introductions came first. Then he would tell a story to both captivate and serve as inspiration for a strategy. For this project, Natesh decided that he would tell his story about a professional pickpocket from New York City. That one usually went over well. Natesh would follow that up with comparisons between the competitors. Normally his competitors were two major conglomerates. Today, they were two superpowers. From there, Natesh would get to the meat of the conversation. He would go over project objectives and begin brainstorming about ways to create competitive advantage. MBAs usually ate it up. He wasn’t so sure about this audience.
It was highly likely that the activities they created in this particular project would involve killing on a mass scale. It would be unlike anything Natesh had worked on before. He hoped that his gift for analysis and strategic thinking would transcend the line between corporate battle and actual battle. Certainly the man who had picked him for this assignment thought so.
But oftentimes, with the gift of genius comes the curse of thinking deeply. Life’s harsh realities were magnified by this lens. Natesh thought about how people on the Manhattan Project had felt, knowing that they were designing death. There was the utilitarian justification that was used by so many after the bombs were dropped on Japan. A far larger number would supposedly have been lost in a hostile invasion of the Japanese mainland. Was this war planning analogous to that? They were designing a most efficient plan for war. Natesh hoped that the greatest good would rise from the smoke.
Three sharp knocks sounded on his door.
He opened it to find Lena staring at him.
Natesh’s parents were both Indian. While he would never admit as much in an American society dominated by political correctness, he preferred women that were from a similar ethnic background to his own. Lena, however, was captivatingly beautiful. Her looks seriously called into question any previous preference Natesh had. Her dark brown eyes had a fire that showed intelligence, confidence, and — what was it? There was some other quality there. Passion? No. Ruthless commitment. She looked like she had never failed at anything in her life, and that she had expected as much. With full lips and a well-proportioned, athletic body, she looked like she could have been a model for one of those women’s fitness magazines. Natesh wondered if it was her looks that made his blood pressure rise when she was around. No, it was her ruthlessness.