Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 10 (27 page)

 
          
“Not
for long,” Khan said angrily. “Issue an order to the Ministry of Defense,
stating that the Supreme Judiciary dismisses Baris from his post immediately in
the interest of national security. He is suspected of masterminding the
assassination of President Salaam and inciting a military coup. Have him
arrested and Mrs. Salaam arrested as well.. . .” Then he thought better of the
political ramifications of that and said, “Better yet, have her taken into
protective custody. Do it right now.” Khan picked up the telephone. “This is
Ulama al-Khan, chief justice of the Supreme Judiciary. Is this Vice Marshal
Ouda?”

 
          
“Yes,
Holiness.”

 
          
“You
will tell me everything you know about what has gone on out there, Vice
Marshal, and you will do it
quickly
,”
Khan ordered.

           
He did—and Khan couldn’t believe
what he heard. “They are still here, Holiness,” Ouda concluded. “They have
virtual free run of my base, thanks to General Baris. He has ordered my
intelligence directorate to turn over the latest intelligence information on
hundreds of military sites in
Libya
. They fly aircraft in and out of here
almost hourly, everything from light jets to medium transports. These are the
same men who commandeered one of my warships! How dare Salaam and Baris give
them all that material and then harbor them on
my
base without even consulting me?”

 
          
“Baris
and Salaam gave them classified information?” Khan couldn’t believe what he was
hearing.

 
          
“Yes,
Holiness. The latest information we have. Mountains of it! Most of the data
dealt with Libyan defenses and installations—”

 
          
“Anything
on Egyptian installations?”

 
          
“Some,
Holiness. Overhead photos of some of our bases, easily obtainable
commercially.”

 
          
“But
are they classified photos?”

 
          
“We
classify all photos we obtain for three months, sir.”

           
“Then Salaam and Baris gave the
Americans classified information?”

           
“Well, technically, the photos are
not—”

 
          
“Yes
or no, Ouda?”

 
          
“Yes,
Holiness. We classified the photos ‘Confidential,’ but only because—”

 
          
“It
doesn’t matter,” Khan said. “General Baris violated the law by turning over
classified information to foreign nationals. You will do everything you can to
stop those men, Vice Marshal. They are a threat to
Egypt
and to our peace and security. Use every
man and woman on your base, or get more men—I don’t care if you take every soldier
in your district, but you will not allow those men to leave. And if Salaam or
Baris returns to your base, you will place them both into custody. Do you
understand?”

 
          
Khan
didn’t wait for Ouda to respond, but hung up the phone. “Major! Get in here!”
he shouted. When Gheit returned, he said, “Get the king of
Libya
on the phone immediately—and have Salaam
and Baris found and arrested immediately!”

TONOPAH
TEST RANGE
,
NEVADA
 
THAT SAME TIME

           
The security checks and
identification procedures took unusually longer than normal for one simple
reason: None of the security officers or their U.S. Air Force supervisors had
ever processed a security clearance on a nine-year-old before. But Kelsey
Duffield kept her amused, sincere smile and bubbly personality despite all the
probes, pat-downs, questions, and the double and triple takes as they proceeded
past the several layers of security.

 
          
Helping
occupy Kelsey’s attention was one of the female security guards, who identified
herself only as Sandy, a small but very beautiful woman appropriately dressed
in sand-colored battle dress uniform, web harness, desert- weight boots, desert
hat and aviator sunglasses, and carrying an Uzi submachine gun. Accompanying
Sandy
was her partner, one of the largest
Doberman pinschers Kelsey had ever seen. It was lean, muscular, angular, and
lithe in every movement it made. Its face never changed expression, but it was
soon evident that the dog’s demeanor could be judged by the position of its
long, regal, pointed, cropped ears: When the ears were pointed straight up and
motionless it was locked onto its prey; when they swiveled around like radar
dishes it was hunting, searching; and when the ears were down, it was sorry for
not paying attention.

 
          
Kelsey
saw the big dog and instantly fell in love. When she tried to go over to it,
the big dog’s ears drooped, and its little stubby docked tail actually seemed
to wag, but
Sandy
motioned her away. “Stay away, little
girl,” she said sternly.

 
          
“But
why?” Kelsey asked.

 
          
“We
call her the Alpha Bitch,” Jon offered.
Sandy
made a scolding expression toward him, and
he smiled back. “Not
Sandy
; the dog, Sasha. She was trained by the best military working dog
schools in the world—right here at Tonopah. She is the most protective dog I’ve
ever seen—I think she’d kill anyone who tried to lay on hand on
Sandy
. I’ve seen her in training: She can climb a
two-story-tall vertical ladder, drag a two-hundred-pound man, and open doors
with her jaws. I’ve also seen that dog eat—she devours two cans of dog food in
two bites.” He smiled at
Sandy
again and quipped, “Still can’t find a date yet, eh,
Sandy
?” The guard said nothing, only smiled
evilly. Kelsey waved good-bye to Sasha as they proceeded on, and Sasha seemed
to be disappointed she was leaving.

 
          
With
Kelsey was her mother, Cheryl, being escorted by Jon and Helen Masters.
Although Cheryl was patient throughout the several-hours-long process, at the
end of it all her patience was definitely wearing thin. “Is all this security
absolutely necessary?” she asked as they finally cleared the last checkpoint
and walked inside the facility toward one of the large steel hangars.

 
          
“You
should know better than to ask, Cheryl,” Helen responded.

 
          
“But
we have Top Secret clearances.. ..”

 
          
“That’s
just for
you”
Helen explained. “These
procedures are for this
area
—it’s
different. There is another set of security procedures once we actually get to
the specific
project
—they won’t be as
difficult as those were, but you will have to submit to them as well, each and
every time. The procedures change depending on which area we’re going to and
which projects are active, so they might be easier or harder next time—”

 
          
“Harder?”

           
“This isn’t even the worst of it,”
Jon added. “Hangar Seven-Alpha’s classification is only Secret. If you want to
go to the Top Secret areas, it’ll be an extra hour. Heck, we’ve gone through
three hours of in-processing just to pick up a can of soda because the ice
chest was in the wrong lab.”

 
          
“How
do you get any work done?”

 
          
“You
get used to it,” Helen said. “You just budget your time accordingly. You learn
not to come out here unless you’ve lined up an entire day or more of work, and
you stay until the work gets done. We sleep out here all the time. You ask why
we invest in the best computers, why we buy two or three systems when we only
need one, and don’t use leased equipment—this is part of the reason. Getting a
service tech to come out here would be impossible, and it takes even longer to
get clearance for a piece of electronic equipment to come in here than it does
a person—every diode, microchip, and printed circuit board has to be checked
for bugs before it comes in here.”

 
          
“This
is insane,” Cheryl muttered. “We’ve been involved with many classified projects
before, and I’ve never seen security procedures this tight.”

 
          
“Getting
a briefing or giving a talk on a classified program is one thing,” Jon said.
“Actually building a weapon system that won’t officially
exist
for another five years is another.”

 
          
“This
is like going to
Disneyland
,” Kelsey exclaimed happily.

 
          
“I
love your attitude, kiddo,” Jon said. Her excitement and glee, Jon had to
admit, was infectious.

 
          
The
partnership deal between Jon, Helen, the shareholders of Sky Masters Inc., and
Sierra Vistas Partners went through quickly and without any major glitches,
once Jon was convinced it was the best for all—thanks to Kelsey. Jon and Helen
Masters instantly became multimillionaires, not just on paper but in reality.
The price for that newfound liquidity was twofold—having a lot of strange
people working around the administration areas, and dealing with a whole new
attitude from the board of directors, who overnight went from having virtually
no power in the company to having the critical swing vote in every decision in
the entire company. They didn’t
ask
for information anymore—they
demanded
it. Memos flew, phone calls followed, and the staff was kept hopping keeping up
with requests for updates from directors and their attorneys and accountants.

 
          
Most
of Jon’s day was filled with bringing Kelsey up to date on all of Sky Masters
Inc.’s projects and programs, a chore that Jon actually found beneficial. Since
very few engineers at the company could match Jon’s intelligence and
innovation, Jon rarely talked to others about his projects— when he needed
input or help, he usually had to spend more time explaining what he was trying
to do. Not so with Kelsey. She listened intently, rarely took notes, could
speed- read a page of engineering data in just a few seconds, and always asked
intelligent, relevant questions—not just on the basic science, but on future
applications or future directions to push the research. Jon found that
explaining a project to Kelsey actually helped him rethink the problems and
discover a new approach to solving a dilemma or impasse.

 
          
Today
was the most exciting day for Kelsey—actually going out to the flight line to
see some aircraft. Cheryl’s only reason for going along, other than the fact
she wanted to be with her daughter as much as possible, was that she had spent
so long getting her special Top Secret security clearance that she thought
she’d better use it. Now she was regretting that decision. They had flown the
company jet from
Arkansas
to
Tonopah
Municipal
Airport
, and then loaded up into a company Suburban
for the drive out to the
Tonopah
Test
Range
, sixty miles to the southeast along narrow,
winding, cracked roads.

 
          
“I
thought we were going out to
Groom
Lake
,” Cheryl said perturbedly.

 
          
“Not
likely,” Jon said. “Heck, it took
me
a year to go out there—and I designed a lot of the stuff they were testing out
there! Helen is one of the senior engineers at the company and has been for
years, and she’s
still
never been
there! As rough as you might think the security is here, it’s nothing compared
to . . . well, out there.” It was obvious Jon was uncomfortable even
saying
the words “
Groom
Lake
.”