“On it.”

“I suggest we back away, give the young man some breathing room,” Naomi says. “There will be much to download and ponder. Iced tea on the rooftop deck, I think.”

She buzzes Beasley.

“Can I smoke a cigar?” Jack asks, straightening his blazer. “In celebration?”

“If you have one for me,” Naomi says, not missing a beat.

“Are you kidding?” Jack says, taken aback.

“Yes, I’m kidding. But permission to wreck your lungs is granted.”

“I never inhale.”

“That’s what they all say,” Naomi says, leading the way to the roof.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Two if by Drone

Taylor Gatling, Jr., steps from his office to the second-floor balcony overlooking the airfield, lifting the binoculars to his eyes. Thinking, not for the first time, that to call this an airfield isn’t to do it justice.

The former Pease Air Force Base in Newington, New Hampshire. Miles upon miles of wide concrete runways built heavy enough and long enough to accommodate squadrons of B-52 bombers. Now reconfigured into a civilian trade port, but back in the day this was a fully manned SAC base. Strategic Air Command, charged with keeping a third of the fleet in the air at all times, armed with nuclear weapons, just in case the Russians decided to go for the final option, a first strike. The golden age of atomic bombs and mutually assured destruction, long before Gatling was born. Method of delivery, the magnificent B-52 Stratofortress, with a wingspan of nearly two hundred feet and an enormous tail section towering more than forty feet above the tarmac. Loaded weight of a hundred and thirty tons, which explains the overbuilt runways, since one of the heavy beasts was landing every fifteen minutes, like clockwork. More like deathwork, really. That was the point. Making sure the Russians understood that a first strike would leave hundreds of the enormous bombers still airborne, capable of destroying at least three thousand targets in the old Soviet Union. A million megatons of atomic madness delivered right to your door, Mr. Khrushchev, turning Mother Russia to glowing dust. Your call.

Glory days. Back when not even U.S. presidents dared mess with General Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay, who personally selected the enemy targets and didn’t bother to share the list with the Pentagon, for security reasons laid out by the general himself. There was no second-guessing in LeMay’s Air Force, just a perpetual readiness to unleash Hell. And it worked. The Russians never dared to pull the trigger and the old Soviet Union eventually collapsed under the weight of all that armament. All because one righteous man was willing to take a stand.

Something to keep in mind when the going gets tough, as it surely will in the next few days and weeks. The reckless insubordinate Kidder being just one of the many problems to be solved.

“Sir? Bird One on vector, sir.”

Below the balcony one of the young technicians calls up, notifying him that the drone aircraft is about to be recovered. Taylor sweeps the binoculars to the southwest and is pleased to pick up the glint of wings just above the tree line. The new Predator RQ-Mini isn’t easy to see, for obvious reasons. The Mini has a wingspan of only twelve feet, and is transparent to radar. Virtually undetectable once airborne, unless you know exactly where to look. The little craft is limited to low altitude and has a fairly short range, but is capable of making the fifty-mile trip to the designated target, in this case downtown Boston, and hovering at low altitude for up to three hours before returning to base. Armed not with weapons but with state-of-the-art hi-res video cameras and signal detection receivers. A million bucks per unit, not including the remote-control console, and well worth the cost, although this particular bird hasn’t delivered, for reasons yet to be determined, although he has strong suspicions in that regard.

Gatling joins the tech on the tarmac, awaiting recovery.

“Bird One is down,” the tech announces. “Bird Two in place over the target, circling at seven hundred feet.”

“Any joy?”

“Like before. Nice pictures, no signal.”

No signal meaning the drones have been unable to recover data from the bugs the recovery team left in place. There’s only one possible explanation. Gatling waits until the little unmanned aircraft—there are model airplanes bigger—taxis into the open hangar under remote control. Then he heads for the control room, housed in an unassuming one-story cinder-block building that was once a bunk room for bomber crews, and therefore christened the Bunker.

The Bunker is his own dedicated unit, off-line and off the books. Here in the States, GSG has recently acquired a long-established company that supplies uniformed security guards, patrolling office buildings, investigating employee theft and so on. But the bulk of GSG’s business—the big revenue generator—remains overseas, employing ex-military in a number of venues. Armed security details for civilian contractors, plus load and flight crews for the full-size missile-firing Predators deployed over countries identified as terrorist hot spots. That particular subsidiary, tasked with operating unmanned aerial vehicles, is funded by an open-end, no-bid contract worth hundreds of millions per annum. All of which has made it possible for him to run his own security operations here at home, in his own stomping ground, as it were, without regard to budget. An operation that includes not only reconnaissance UAVs and the tech crews required to run them, but a stealth helicopter and a superbly trained special-ops team available on a moment’s notice.

In Gatling’s mind he’s continuing in the patriotic tradition of General Curtis LeMay, who for a crucial time in American history had the entire Strategic Air Command under his unquestioned leadership, answerable to himself alone. Like his hero, Taylor Gatling, Jr., is prepared to cut through the bullshit and accept the responsibility of making difficult decisions for the protection of the homeland. He may not have access to thousands of nuclear warheads, but in his own small way he’s making a difference, standing guard against those who want to destroy America. In particular, unreliable characters like the late Joseph Keener, who openly consorted with the enemy, and who, if he wasn’t actively passing secrets to the enemy, certainly had the capacity to do so. The FBI, in Gatling’s opinion a bunch of useless, vacillating, butt-covering ’crats, had declined to keep the professor under close surveillance. So Gatling had made the call, and even though the unexpected had happened and the crap had hit the fan, he didn’t regret the original decision. Plus, how could he resist the opportunity to put a personal enemy’s reputation in the shredder?

Things hadn’t gone according to plan; it happens, and when it does a righteous leader makes adjustments. That’s what he’s doing now, making adjustments.

In the Bunker, Gatling makes straight for the team controlling the Minis. A couple of New Hampshire kids, fraternal twins, who’d started out as gamers and progressed to joysticking—or “sticking”—unmanned aerial vehicles. Known in the Bunker as B1 and B2, the brothers affect swamp-water Yankee accents—“ayuh, bubba” their equivalent of “hey, bro”—but they’re bright and capable and love what they’re doing. Gatling likes hanging out at their consoles because their enthusiasm is infectious, and because they defer to him as something of a legend, a local boy who made spectacularly good and who has all the toys to prove it.

The brothers look up from the glow of their LCDs, shaking heads in tandem. B1, aka Bart, has the active bird, with images split on screen. B2, or Bert, has control of the Mini that has just landed, and is going through the remote checklist as the plane is refueled.