Chapter 10

On a fine May afternoon, Mike sat in his cubicle attempting to work. The flow of intelligence data from overseas had dried up. The flow had dropped after a CIA agent in Iraq was arrested and sent to the Netherlands to stand trial in the World Court. When the President didn’t protest the arrest, a significant percentage of the few remaining agents overseas resigned.

One of the agents who resigned was the man who had been investigating the German company that had built the rail gun. The German Intelligence Community had stopped co-operating with the CIA. They were afraid of getting caught up in the backwash of an intelligence scandal in the United States. Without support of the German government, it was impossible for the agent to work through the German legal system to get permission to tap the company’s telephones. Knowing that if he was caught breaking German law he’d be prosecuted had been the final straw. The Israelis were still monitoring the company, but they had more or less cut out sharing Intelligence Data with the United States for the same reasons the Germans had stopped co-operating.

It was a surprise when his query against the intel data base returned a hit. He opened the article and read it. He groaned and rested his head in his hands. Getting up, he started shoveling the documents he had been reading into his file cabinet. He cursed his left hand after dropping a stack of papers. It took him five minutes to get all of his documents locked up.

Marching to Dale’s office, he ignored everything going on around him. He rudely brushed aside Chang in the hall and walked into Dale’s office without knocking. Dale gave him a look that should have sent him running. Mike ignored the look and said, “Eight months ago, the Iranians starting building ten of the rail guns... here, in the States.”

Dale felt like someone had slammed him in the stomach with a baseball bat. Falling back in his chair, he asked, “Ten? Here?”

“Yes,” Mike answered.

“Shit!”

“You look comfortable sitting there,” Karen remarked looking over at Mike seated in his favorite chair holding Robert in his arms.

“I am,” Mike commented. Robert chose that moment to start kicking. He put the child on the floor and watched as he crawled over to the small pile of brightly colored toys in the corner. Shaking his head, he said, “They grow up so fast. Look at him go.”

“Yes. I have to watch him every minute,” Karen said.

Robert was making all kinds of little noises as he played with the blocks. Mike smiled and asked, “Did you hear what he just said?”

Karen hadn’t heard anything that sounded like a real word. Looking at Mike suspiciously, she answered, “No. What did he just say?”

“OoRah. Our baby boy is going to grow up to be a Marine,” Mike said with a grin.

Karen laughed and said, “That’s right. He’d going to grow up to be a Marine just like his Daddy.”

“You know, sitting here watching you take care of little Robert makes everything right in my world. I mean, I see a lot of things that are pretty ugly at work. Coming home and seeing how much you love our child, well ... I think that the world is okay,” Mike said. He felt bad that he couldn’t put his feelings into better words.

Tears welling up in her eyes, Karen said, “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“I love you,” Mike said.

Mike sat in a chair at the front of the room in the Headquarters Conference room, thinking that he was really beginning to hate that place. Each time he looked out at the two hundred faces looking in his direction, he wished that he had a Tums. It seemed to him that every alphabet agency was represented in the crowd.

Dale finished with his introduction and turned to Mike. Smiling, he said, “The show is all yours.”

Mike rose and walked over to the podium. Reaching the podium, he said, “The following film is classified Top Secret.”

His announcement was met with looks that ranged from interest to total boredom. Looking up at the media center, Mike said, “Please lower the lights and show the film.”

Mike turned to watch the edited film play out on the screen beside him. It showed the rail gun and the operator releasing the canister onto the rail. It looked like the canister just disappeared as the electromagnetic forces launched it. The film transitioned to showing the outside of the targeted building. After a few seconds, a huge hole appeared in the side of the building. The scene shifted to cameras inside the building as a red cloud spread through the whole area.

The film ended and the lights returned. Mike turned to look at his audience. Two hundred pairs of eyes were staring at the screen despite the fact that the film had ended. The room was so silent that he could have heard a pin drop. Mike said, “That is a device that we built based on a design that originated in a German company. Iran contracted to have one built by that company. The red cloud was a powdered dye that had been loaded in the canister. I have to warn you that anything could be loaded in the canister. It could be loaded with Anthrax spores, sodium cyanide, or a radioactive material.”

Chang was staring at the screen with a look of horror on his face. He had been harboring a grudge since Mike had brushed him off the previous day, but that was forgotten in light of what he had just seen. He recalled when he had laughed at Mike about the rail gun intelligence. Feeling sick to his stomach, he didn’t feel like laughing now. He stared at the screen thinking that he would like to return to China.

Two hundred heads turned to look at Mike. He said, “Yesterday, we received intel that Iran has had ten more of them built in this country. We have no idea where they are. We need you to find them. Are there any questions?”

There was still dead silence in the room. People didn’t even shift uncomfortably in their seats. Mike hoped that meant the meeting was almost over. He turned to Sanjay and asked, “Sanjay, would you pass out the specifications for the device, please?”

Sanjay wobbled his head and answered, “Yes, Mike.”

One of the men in the audience raised his hand and said, “We’ll need to know everything you can tell us about who might have these devices.”

“I’ve told you everything we know about who has it. All we know is that Iran has ordered that ten of them be manufactured here. We don’t know who manufactured the parts. We don’t know who picked up the parts. We don’t know where they are being assembled. We don’t know anything other than the fact that we received an intel message telling us that ten rail guns were being built... here! The source is impeccable,” Mike answered. He forgot to mention that the order had been issued eight months ago.

“How does it work?”

Mike flipped the switch on the podium and the first slide of a PowerPoint presentation showed up on the screen. He started to give the lecture that he had entitled Rail Gun 101. It was a strange mixture of physics and engineering. He took his time hoping that he didn’t lose his audience with the technical details.

Weeks passed, and there was no news about the rail guns. Mike checked the intel database several times a day hoping to learn something new, but there was no news. After a week, the basic plans were released to law enforcement agencies in the hope that some alert cop somewhere would recall having seen them somewhere.

Dale entered the office and said, “We’ve been called to the White House.”

“What?” Mike asked wondering if he had misunderstood.

“We’ve been asked to visit the President at the White House,” Dale answered thinking that Mike hadn’t heard him the first time.

Leaning back in his chair, Mike picked up a report and opened it as if to read it. He said, “That’s nice, but I don’t want to go. I have an idea, why don’t we send Chang in our place?”

Dale laughed and said, “I’m afraid that won’t work. The President wants to talk to you. I’m coming along so that when you start to say something that will get you fired I can kick you under the table.”

Mike said, “That’s not going to do any good except get you fired, too. He’s not going to believe what I tell him. He’s going to fire me no matter what I say.”

“They say that seeing is believing,” Dale said giving Mike with a knowing smile. Looking at a piece of paper or hearing a description didn’t have the same impact as seeing it.

“That’s a good idea,” Mike said.

“I’ll have a CD couriered to the White House, send our bona fides over, and request that a secure conference room be set up for a briefing with the Secretary of Defense,” Dale said.

“He’s already seen the CD,” Mike said wondering why they would brief the Secretary of Defense on something that he already knew about. Despite the President’s general disdain of the military, the Secretary of Defense was a good supporter of the armed services. Mike wondered how long he would last in that position.

“I know that and you know that, but the President doesn’t know that. I’m pretty sure that the Secretary of Defense won’t tell him,” Dale said with a wink. Grinning, he said, “I’ll let you know when everything is arranged.”

Four hours later the President sat in the briefing room watching the film made of the rail gun in use. When it was over, Mike said, “We have an intelligence report that ten of them were built here in this country.”

“So on the basis of this one report, you scare the hell out every cop in the country?” the President asked.

“Yes,” Mike answered. He purposefully left off any honorific earning a look from Dale that suggested he should behave himself.

“Are you a fool?” the President asked. He growled and said, “On the basis of what might be little more than a rumor, you have put every police department in the country on alert. You know that I demand one hundred percent accurate intelligence. You admit that you don’t have any confirmation of that report.”

The Secretary of Defense covered his eyes with a hand while rubbing his forehead. Mike shook his head and said, “Let’s just assume for the moment that there is a one out of a million chance that the rumor, as you put it, is true. Are you willing to risk the consequences of what would happen if it’s true?”

“Yes.”

“You are a very brave man. In fact, you have to be the bravest man that I’ve ever met,” Mike said. Dale kicked him under the table, but Mike didn’t look away from the President.

“What do you mean?”

Mike snorted and said, “Because I can just picture one of those canisters filled with radioactive material exploding through the White House covering you and your wife with radioactive particles. I imagine that it will be a long slow painful death. Radiation poisoning has a tendency to kill very slowly.”

“They wouldn’t dare,” the President said with a white face.

Ignoring the President’s comment, Mike continued, “While I won’t miss you, I will feel sad that the White House will never be used again. It will be a tragic loss of a national treasure. I’m pretty sure they’ll replace this grand building with a bunker style concrete building that will be very modern in appearance, but ugly as sin.”