She rubbed her hands on her bare midriff, feeling the perspiration. A long and drawn out whisper escaped. “Ha-a-ank, I’m not into kinky stuff. We can go to my place.”
“Neither am I.” The heat of the day hadn’t broken yet and the night air blowing into the bedroom was still warm with just a hint of river smell. “You ever been in New Or’lans when you can cut the night like soft butter?” His voice had taken on a richer, more husky sound, almost Southern. It was enough to tease her imagination.
He kicked off his Birkenstocks and pulled off his socks. She stood up and pulled his shirt loose, undoing the buttons. “Strip the bed,” he murmured. She helped him pull off the bed cover and shove the pillows on the floor. She sat back down on one side and looked over her shoulder as he crawled across the bed to her. Kneeling behind her, he gently rubbed her shoulders as her hands clasped the edge of the bed. She turned into the breeze, closed her eyes, and let the warm air ruffle her hair. His hands touched her waist.
“God, it’s hot,” she whispered.
His fingers traced a path across the top of her shorts, barely touching her navel. He felt a slight tremor dance across her stomach. “It’s going to get hotter, darlin’,” he promised, his voice now darkly Southern.
Marcy rolled over in bed. It was still dark and he was gone. “Hank, where are you from?”
“Bastrop, Louisiana,” he answered from the living room. “Not much there. A nice little town to escape from and go back to occasionally.”
Marcy sat on the edge of the bed, clutched a pillow to her breast, and buried her cheek in it, feeling warm and safe. She stood and took a few steps to the open patio door and let the warm night air wash over her naked body. She dropped the pillow and nudged it with her toe into the moonlight before padding into the living room. Sutherland was sitting on the couch in the dark, and like her, he was still naked. He was holding an envelope. “Can you read in the dark?” she asked. He shook his head. “Who’s it from?”
“My ex-wife.”
“What does she want?”
“Beats the hell out of me. I haven’t opened it.” She sat on his lap and nibbled an earlobe. “Ouch!”
“Do you have any idea what you did to me in there?” she breathed in the same ear.
He laughed. “Wasn’t that the idea?”
She licked at his damaged earlobe. “Are you going to read the letter?”
His arms encircled her as he tore the letter in two and threw it on the floor. “Nope. I’m done with her.”
She nipped his ear again. “Whoa! You’ve got sharp teeth.”
“If only you knew.” She stood and pulled him back to the bedroom and out onto the patio. She pushed him into a chair and knelt on the pillow in front of him. She rubbed his knees, spreading them apart. “Try not to wake the neighbors.”
Sutherland was cooking breakfast when Marcy came out of the bedroom wearing one of his white shirts and holding a cordless phone to her ear. “I’ll get right on it,” she said. She dropped the phone in its cradle and leaned over his shoulder. “That smells good. I didn’t know you were a cook.” He reached under the shirt and patted her bare bottom. “You are a bit of a goat, Hank. I’ve got a story assignment over on the coast near Fort Ross. Want to come along?”
“What’s the story?”
“About some group. They don’t have a name.”
“Millenarians?” he asked.
“What’s a millenarian?”
“Someone who believes they’ll find salvation at the end of the millennium.”
“We’ll find out when we get there.”
Marcy talked as she drove along the coast road. “I love this drive.” Sutherland relaxed in the passenger’s seat, glad that he didn’t have to navigate. He hated driving and got lost anytime he ventured beyond the city limits. Because it was mid-April, the road was deserted and the vegetation lush with the promise of spring. “Maybe we can spend the night at Mendocino,” she said. He said it sounded good to him and gave her a lecherous leer. “I think this is the turn-off.” She turned into a narrow lane that led toward the ocean. They drove past well-tended fields and into a farmstead on the edge of the bluffs that overlooked the Pacific. “What a beautiful place,” she said, stopping to take some photos.
Sutherland followed Marcy around as she toured the farmstead and interviewed the commune leader. He was a pleasant, ordinary-looking man in his early thirties who took a great deal of pride in his community. They walked past an expanse of lawn where a small group of children were clustered around their teacher listening to her read a story. “This reminds me of a kibbutz I visited in Israel,” Marcy said.
The man smiled and said they were just themselves, getting on with life. “Would you like to join us for supper?” he asked. “We eat early so we can meditate at sunset. We let the diurnal movement of nature dictate our lives, not the arbitrary ticking of a clock.” He led them into the commune’s dining hall where they sat at long benches. Large tureens of soup were brought out of the kitchen with baskets of hot, freshly baked bread and pitchers of crystal clear water. The people joined hands and silently prayed. Then the room exploded into a symphony of laughter and happy voices as they ate.
Afterward, Marcy and Sutherland followed them to a grove of eucalyptus trees nestled at the edge of the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Sutherland sat on a bench and studied the waves lapping against the rocks eighty feet below him. “This is pretty peaceful now,” he said. “But I bet it can get pretty wild during a storm.”
“Shush,” Marcy commanded. All around them the people were gazing at the sunset in silence. He was amazed how quickly the sun sank below the horizon and assumed they would leave once it had disappeared. But the people sat there as the fading light painted the clouds and sky with shades of ever-changing yellow, gold, and red. It had never occurred to Sutherland that the most magnificent part of the sunset happened after the sun had set.
Instinctively, he looked around, letting the evidence speak for itself. What he saw was a group of sixty-four people living a pleasant existence in an idyllic commune. There was no ideology or weirdness driving them and they didn’t dress funny or act strangely. It was too good to be true, which in a D.A.’s world was an alarm.
I’m not in that business anymore
, he thought. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Then it was dark. He and Marcy walked in silence back to the car. “Not much of a story here,” she complained. “A waste of time.”
They got into the car and again, she drove. “I got a feeling they were searching for something, or maybe waiting,” he said.
“Waiting for what?”
He shrugged. “The end of the millennium? Someone to give them direction? Until then, they’re tending their garden.”
“I like that,” she said. “Tending their garden. The Gardeners. Still not a story, though.”
“There’s a story here, trust me. Keep asking yourself
why?
When you get an answer to the first
why
, probe deeper and ask
why
again. Keep at it until you get to the bottom line. It will surprise you.” He chattered on, wanting to discuss the dynamics of group behavior. But Marcy was bored.
“Hank, you were a D.A. too long. Besides, that’s not what reporting is all about.” She reached out and touched his cheek. “It’s been fun and the sex was great. But it’s not going to work, is it?”
He knew she was right. Without a word, she drove through Mendocino and headed for Sacramento.
9:55
A.M.
, Thursday, April 22,
The White House, Washington, D.C.
The Vice President was waiting when Art Rios drove the Lincoln Town Car up to the west entrance of the White House. A marine guard snapped the door open and Durant got out. The two men shook hands and walked to the Cabinet Room where the National Security Council was holding its first meeting since the San Francisco bombing. “We want to take a hard look at the Armed Islamic Group,” the Vice President said, “and the President asked for you to join us.” Durant read between the lines: The Project was going to be part of the discussion.
The men and women gathered in the Cabinet Room chatted amiably until the President arrived forty-five minutes late. He sat down without an apology and looked around the table. “Nelson, thank you for coming. We appreciate the warning on the AIG and I hope the Project can be put to more immediate use.”
“Mr. President,” Durant said. “As I explained earlier, it was only during a test run that our technicians stumbled onto the Armed Islamic Group. But the Project is at least a year away from being operational.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” the President replied. “Perhaps, if the Project was given to the CIA you could make faster progress and any information that is discovered can be exploited now.”
Durant was silent as the discussion went around the table. The clue was in the timing, and he was certain the President wanted access to the Project before the elections. To what end, he didn’t know.
Maybe Agnes can find out
, he thought. But just as quickly, he discarded the idea. There had to be limits.
“Can the FBI use the Project?” the President asked. “I’m thinking here of the San Francisco bombing.” He shook his head. “What is it about this time of year that drives people crazy?”
The Vice President answered. “Maybe it’s income taxes or spring. Who knows.”
“Mr. President,” Durant said, “the Project is programmed only against foreign threats.”
“Can it be reprogrammed for domestic enemies?”
“That raises a host of Constitutional issues,” the DCI replied.
“I want progress on San Francisco,” the President snapped. “Meredith—” His face flushed and he paused to gain control. Meredith’s criticism of the government’s handling of the bombing was reaching a dangerous level. “Meredith is beating us to death with it.”
The Vice President got the meeting back on track. “Mr. President, we need to discuss the Sudan.” They all opened the folders in front of them and the DCI gave a quick rundown on the Armed Islamic Group.
As usual, Serick was the most hawkish and demanded the laboratories be destroyed at the earliest possible moment with a Cruise missile strike. But target analysis revealed the laboratories were too deep underground for Cruise missiles to be effective. “So,” Serick replied, “we use a nuclear weapon.”
“Nuclear weapons are out of the question,” the President growled.
“There is another option,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ventured. “The B-Two Stealth bomber. We can employ a BLU-113 with a JDAM package.” He explained that a BLU-113 was a 4800-pound bomb that was mated with the Joint Direct Attack Munitions package. The bomb could penetrate two hundred feet of earth and still punch through twelve feet of reinforced concrete.
The president looked convinced. “That should do the trick.”
“Is that sending a billion-dollar elephant against a hundred dollar mouse?” Durant asked. “Why don’t you check with Special Operations? They might have another option.”
“Do we have time?” Serick asked.
Rios was waiting when Durant came out of the west entrance. “I’ll drive,” Durant said, slipping behind the wheel.
Rios recognized the signs. “The meeting didn’t go well?” he asked, crawling into the right seat. Rios braced himself for a wild ride back to the Farm.
“They’re going to turn the Project over to the CIA or FBI. Can you believe that? And they’re thinking of using B-Twos to bomb the AIG. Damn! It’s all tied to the San Francisco bombing. They’re totally stymied and Meredith is all but blaming the government. They need to get Meredith off their backs before the election and the easiest way to do that is to stir up a foreign threat.” He snorted. “External conflict for internal peace.”
Rios held on as the big car hurtled around a corner. “It’s always easier to deal with foreign crazies than our domestic ones. Maybe the President can’t stop Meredith any other way.” A traffic light in front of them blinked red and Durant slammed the car to a halt. “Boss, if you don’t slow down, I’m gonna resign and join the National Guard.”
Durant laughed. “Really? Why?”
Rios breathed easier. He had broken the tension that was binding Durant. “It’s safer. Besides, I like the food.”
A low chuckle escaped from Durant. He was back on track. “Screw ’em. Let’s break the ‘surly bonds’ and go flying.”
Rios had done his job. “The Staggerwing is good-to-go,” he allowed, “and it is a beautiful day.”
2:38
A.M.
, Friday, April 23,
Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo.
Lt. Col. Daniella “Quick Draw” McGraw held her palm against the reader at the security entry point. She waited impatiently for the computer to do its thing and clear her into the basement vault of the Operational Support Squadron building. Finally, it buzzed and she pushed through the door. She glanced at her watch. “Four minutes this time,” she muttered to herself. “Still too long.” The new security system had been nothing but trouble since it had been installed.
She gave the technicians a mental deadline of one more week or they were going back to the old card swipe method. Until that happened, she would have a guard posted with an access list. Sometimes, the old ways still worked the best.
McGraw was an intense, pleasant-looking, thirty-nine-year-old, and at five feet five inches, with a medium build and short auburn brown hair, would have been attractive, maybe even glamorous, had she time for that sort of thing. Instead, she was a dedicated Intelligence officer and the director of the mission-planning division. On the surface, she was in total contrast to the nickname her subordinates had given her. Some claimed she had been tagged after a cartoon character from an old TV show, but those who worked for her knew better.
McGraw hurried down the hall and burst into the nerve center of her domain, the mission-planning cell of the 509th Bomb Wing. Lt. Col. McGraw, the thirteen people working there, and all the communications gear, computers, printers, and huge data banks that were packed into the basement vault had only one purpose in the Air Force—to do the planning that enabled the B-2A Stealth bomber to find and destroy targets.
What went on in the mission-planning cell bordered on magic, but the result was a series of digital cassettes that contained all the information and planning factors a B-2 crew needed to hit the target and return home safely. The information on the cassettes was downloaded into the B-2’s computers before the aircraft took off and could be updated in flight through satellite communications.
Once inside, McGraw did a quick head count. Everyone was there except one. “Where’s Brad?” she asked.
“Capt. Jefferson is on his way,” a voice answered. “He lives quite a ways—”
“I know where he lives,” McGraw snapped. Luckily, the two key planners, the pilot who was an expert on weapons and tactics and the electronics warfare officer, were there and already at work. Without them, nothing worthwhile happened. “Okay, let’s see it.” She was handed a red-trimmed folder with a large SECRET stamped at the top and bottom of the front and back cover. She opened it and frowned. She had been expecting a Warning Order to prepare for mission tasking.
“Well, well,” she finally said, realizing what it all meant, “here’s old Watash, the first of the Mohicans—again.” Inside the folder was an Air Tasking Order, or ATO for short, ordering the 509th to prepare for the first operational B-2 strike against a hostile target. She scanned the message, focusing on the key phrases:
STANDBY READY TO LAUNCH: H+
12
EXECUTION AUTHORITY: NCA
The “H” stood for H-hour which was, in this case, the time and date of the message. The 509th had twelve hours to load and prepare a B-2 and do all the necessary mission planning. The actual launch could come any time after twelve hours once the NCA, or national command authority, made up his mind to execute the mission. For the uninitiated, the national command authority was the President of the United States.
McGraw had seen a permutation of this ATO many times before and, for her, it meant politicians were mentally masturbating with the titillations of power that lay close to hand in response to some new problem. None of them were really willing to take the final step and actually launch a strike mission with real bombs. Which was just fine with her.
She scanned the intelligence and threat estimate the team’s Intelligence officer had already extracted from the computer database. “Ma’am,” a voice ventured on her right, “all things considered, him being Muslim, maybe it would be best if Capt. Jefferson was out of the loop on this one. And since he’s not here yet—”
McGraw stared at him while her staff held its collective breath. “Give me a break.” She didn’t bother to remind them that Capt. Jefferson was the computer genius who had finally debugged the new Air Force Mission Support System and made the complex computer system work as intended. “Okay, troops, this is a new target, one we haven’t worked before. The Wing King”—she used that nickname for the brigadier general who commanded the 509th Bomb Wing partly in jest—“is gonna want a mission profile soonest to run through the simulator.”
A mission profile was the total flight planning package that included everything from takeoff, to navigation, refueling, the combat phase of the mission, escape, and finally recovery. Nothing was omitted, and creating a mission profile took hours, only made possible by the state-of-the-art computers and software in McGraw’s mission-planning division. She smiled. “Knowing the way he works, he’ll want two; a high and a low.” The mission-planning cell groaned loudly.
Regardless of popular perceptions, the B-2 was not totally unobservable to radar at short ranges. It was the old controversy over the best way to hit a target. One side maintained it was best to sneak in at low level and use terrain masking to escape detection. The other side of the argument opted for high level and corridor tactics where standoff missiles destroyed any radar they could not avoid. Both sides of the argument had many supporters, but either way, creating even a single mission profile was a Herculean task. “Okay, sweathogs,” McGraw said, “let’s get to it.”
McGraw pulled the captain who had suggested cutting Jefferson out of the loop into her office, closed the door, and gently massaged her neck, a sure sign some target shooting was about to begin. “You, son, are truly suffering from a massive case of brain farts. Shitcan that type of thinking or you’ll be scrubbing out septic tanks for the rest of your career in the Air Force.” She relented, but only a little. “Look, Brad is unique and if he gets the idea the Air Force doesn’t want him, or trust him, there’re at least five major contractors who do.” Then she turned up the heat again. She didn’t want the troops to think she had gone all soft and mushy in her old age. “I hope you can say the same.”
The captain felt he had to justify himself. “I apologize, ma’am. But I was only thinking about his—ah—background.”
“Brad and I go a long way back. It’s not a factor. Trust me.” Her intercom buzzed and a voice said that Capt. Jefferson had arrived. McGraw glanced at her watch. “About time.” She made a mental note to get Jefferson jumped up on the waiting list for base housing. If the Old Man wouldn’t make it happen, she knew a general who could.
She wandered back into the mission-planning cell. It was humming with purposeful activity. “Brad,” she called. “Got a minute? What happened? Were you late in getting notified?”
A slender, pleasant looking African-American looked up from his computer. “I got stopped for speeding coming through Lone Jack.”
McGraw shook her head. “It figures.”
9:00
A.M.
, Friday, April 23,
Warrensburg, Mo.
The beat-up old van was parked on a side road off Maguire Street. To all appearances, it was a construction van loaded with ladders and pipes with a big storage container on top. But inside, two men were surrounded by the latest in surveillance technology. From where they were parked, the men could monitor the modest homes on the southern side of the road and the few struggling businesses with their half-vacant warehouses on the opposite side.
“Check this out,” Brent Mather said. The other FBI agent on the stakeout looked over his shoulder at the monitor. A statuesque redhead with a cascading mane of hair down her back was getting out of a car on the residential side of the street. She was wearing a minidress that gave maximum play to her long legs as she stood up.
“That’s Sandi Jefferson,” the senior agent said. “She’s married to a black guy at Whiteman.” Whiteman Air Force Base was ten miles away from Warrensburg, which was one of the reasons they were on stakeout. “If you want a good image, get her on the long lens.”
This was Brent Mather’s first assignment since graduating from training, and he was still learning to handle the equipment. Mather used the telephoto lens on the high-definition camera to zoom in on Sandi Jefferson as she moved around the car. Her quick steps whipped the short hem of her dress into a sea of motion that made for some interesting photography. “Nice ass,” he said.
“She’s white trash,” the senior agent replied. He patted Mather on the shoulder and went back to his newspaper. The kid was doing okay. Unfortunately, Mather lacked the arrogance required of FBI special agents, but the senior agent was certain that age and experience would cure that defect in his character.