Chapter 16

Sanjay flipped the burger over with the spatula in one hand and a beer in the other. Grinning, he said, “This is the life. There’s nothing like cooking burgers over the grill with an ice cold beer in hand.”

“I know what you mean,” Mike said looking over the gas grill. He asked, “How do you like this grill?”

“It’s okay. I prefer the flavor of meat cooked over charcoal, but I don’t have the control over the fire that it requires,” Sanjay answered. He took a sip of his beer and continued, “It’s real good for cooking fish, though. It’s much better than my old grill.”

“I never cook fish on the grill. Usually Karen will dip it in batter and fry it or she’ll broil it with a little butter, lemon, and spices.”

Sanjay wobbled his head in agreement and said, “I like catfish fried and the bass grilled or broiled. My wife has a recipe for a fish stew that isn’t too bad.”

Mike looked over at where the two wives were talking and asked, “Do you tell your wife that it isn’t too bad?”

“Well, I tell her that it’s very good,” Sanjay admitted with a laugh. He lowered his voice when he said, “I might get some respect at work, but that ends the moment I enter the house through the front door.”

Mike chuckled and then said, “I don’t get to see you very often. How is it going at work?”

“It’s going very well. The people working for me are concentrating on the ties between the research performed here and overseas. There are a lot of people who are answering to two governments. It really angers me a lot,” Sanjay said.

“Yes. There is a lot of that going on,” Mike said thinking about his investigations into the Chinese high energy weapons programs.

“You were one hundred percent correct about the Chinese. We allowed a leak to the Chinese government about a pending arrest of Dr. Ming. He suddenly returned to China and it appears he won’t be coming back here,” Sanjay said.

“You let him go?” Mike asked looking at Sanjay in surprise.

“No,” Sanjay answered with a smile, “We didn’t actually have anything with which to charge him. We just let out a little rumor and suddenly he was gone.”

“Why did you do it?”

“He was about to kill another program headed by a former Chinese national. It was the Aerial Gauss Gun project. I didn’t want them getting that while killing our chances to have it first,” Sanjay answered.

Over at the picnic table, Karen was talking with Teva about children. Sanjay and Teva had two little girls four and six. Karen was telling about her fears that she and Mike would never have another child when Teva interrupted and asked, “Have you talked to Mike about what happened that day?”

“Well, we talked a little about what happened,” Karen answered.

“Sanjay told me all about how Mike saved many people that day. He had everyone wear masks to protect them from the dust. He led them out of the building avoiding all of the dusty areas. Once outside, he took everyone upwind of the building where they would further avoid exposure. He told everyone to keep their masks on and not to move around too much.

“When Sanjay was processed through decontamination, he was told that he and Mike had no signs of radioactive material in their bodies. Mike is a hero. He saved Sanjay’s life that day,” Teva said.

She looked over at Mike thinking that she was going to be eternally grateful to him for taking care of her husband.

“He didn’t say anything about that,” Karen said biting her lower lip.

She adjusted Robert on her lap and thought about what Teva had said. It was different hearing stories about Mike from other people who were there. His story was almost identical with Teva’s except he never mentioned that he was the one doing the leading.

Teva said, “Sanjay and I are trying to have a baby. We want to have a boy. I’m not worried about any radiation problems. I think you will have very healthy babies with Mike.”

“You’re looking pretty healthy. Being at sea must agree with you,” Mike said with a grin. The Admiral looked tired and haggard.

“I wasn’t at sea this time. I was up in New York at the Harbor to see what we can do about stationing a ship offshore until things get better,” Vincent said.

Although New York City had to request the National Guard to put down riots three times, they still didn’t want a military presence parked off shore. He had spent almost three days in near constant negotiation and had to leave without having accomplished his mission.

“I heard the President telling the terrorists that they should stop the senseless killing on the television this week. It seems to me like things should calm down immediately with such strong leadership in the White House,” Mike said. The President had talked about making reparations for past wrongs against the Arab countries.

Vincent nearly choked on hearing the President being described as a strong leader. He said, “That man is a total asshole. He’s got more people guarding him than any President in the history of this country. Even though he spends almost all of his time inside Camp David, he tripled the number of Secret Service agents assigned to him. He hasn’t made a public appearance in seven weeks.”

“I wasn’t talking about that. No, I was talking about his leadership in taking this country into the future. He’s re-examining American Foreign Policy so that we’ll be a softer gentler nation. He wants people to like us,” Mike said.

Central to his program was giving money to any country that wanted it. Mike didn’t have to wonder where all of that money was going to come from; that had been the second part of his program.

“He wants to cut our budget by twenty-five percent as a show of good faith that we are moving away from being a Superpower that is to be feared,” Vincent said with a snort of disgust. Shaking his head, he said, “I can’t believe that any leader of this country would talk about cutting back the military at a time when it’s being attacked by suicide squads who were trained and backed by foreign powers.”

“Well, we’ve lost ninety percent of our former ability to gather intelligence about what is going on in the rest of the world. We can’t tell you who is training and backing the suicide bombers any more, at least not with the one hundred percent certainty that the President demands. Of course, I’d be happy with ten percent certainty about now,” Mike said.

“That’s a shame,” Vincent said.

He took a sip of his club soda wishing it was a scotch. He had given up drinking the occasional scotch because he felt duty bound to be in full possession of his faculties in the event of another emergency. A couple of lucky strikes on the Navy and he could be one of the highest ranking men left alive.

He asked, “How’s Karen doing?”

“The attack on the CIA building really upset her. I don’t blame her. A lot of our analysts are having a hard time dealing with it. We’ve had close to thirty percent of our people go on disability or quit. She’s slowly getting over it,” Mike answered.

A lot of the field agents were getting jobs in the private sector in the area of security or threat analysis. A lot of companies with branches overseas wanted to protect their investments by knowing what kinds of threats existed. The general climate of fear had made anyone with even the least bit of background in security or intelligence analysis a very valuable commodity. Many of the analysts who had been in the building the day it had been attacked were hospitalized for emotional problems.

“I feel sorry for Robert. I have no idea what kind of world we’re going to be leaving him,” Vincent said.

Mike walked into the temporary headquarters of the NSA for his meeting with Jack Lancer. Three very large buildings being destroyed in the Washington area had really stressed the real estate market for business buildings. Many of the owners didn’t want to rent to the FBI, CIA, or NSA out of fear that the entire building would be rendered unusable by a terrorist attack. The agencies had been forced to be a little creative in returning to business.

The temporary headquarters of the NSA was an example of that. The building was an old roller skating rink that had been empty at the time of the attack. It was a pretty heavy duty building that had a defensible perimeter, but that was about all that was positive about it. It beat the temporary headquarters of the CIA which was an abandoned grocery store.

Jack raised a hand in greeting and said, “I’m glad you could come.”

“You said that you needed to talk to me,” Mike said wondering once again why Jack had asked him to come.

“We finally got a secure conference room where we can have a serious discussion without much of a chance of being overheard. It’s the most difficult hundred square feet of space to book in the entire country. I managed to get it for fifteen minutes,” Jack said leading them towards the conference room.

“Fifteen minutes?” Mike asked.

“Yes. They are actually scheduling it down to fifteen minute intervals. I had to trade my first born son for that much time. The only way to actually get a full hour is to be on a first name basis with the man who assassinates the President,” Jack said.

“Wow, that is tough,” Mike said uneasily.

Jokes about the death of the President were becoming all too common within the intelligence community. The scary thing was that some of the folks in that community could actually make it happen.

When they reached the conference room, Jack stopped and looked at his watch. He said, “The group inside will be out in two minutes.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Positive. I don’t think anyone is willing to suffer the consequences of holding the room longer than their allotted time. Fights have broken out,” Jack said.

Mike had expected Jack to laugh or even grin, but when Jack remained serious he realized that Jack wasn’t kidding about fights breaking out. Shaking his head, he decided that he’d rather remain at the Internet Café.

The door opened right on time and four people came out. Based on the expressions on their faces, it must have been a pretty intense meeting. Mike wondered if the limited time in the conference room was forcing people to be more focused on their work. Jack said, “Let’s get in.”

“Sure,” Mike said following Jack into the room. He paused and asked, “Is anyone else coming?”

“No,” Jack said shutting the door.

“All this just to talk to me?” Mike asked.

“I went to the hospital the other day and talked to Dale. As you know, he is dying.”

“Yes, I know,” Mike said.

“He recommended that you take his place as representative of the CIA on the board of the Intelligence 100. I seconded that recommendation. Last night we met and voted on the matter. As of this moment, you are one of the five men directing the Intelligence 100,” Jack said.

He wasn’t going to mention that it was now down to the Intelligence 82 and with Dale dying it was going to be the Intelligence 81 soon.

Stunned, Mike was left speechless for a full minute. He couldn’t believe that such a position of responsibility had been given to him.

When he finally recovered, he asked, “Why me?”

“Dale said that of everyone who came to visit him in the hospital that you were the most regular and actually listened to him rather than try to cheer him up. He thinks you’re one of the finest analysts that he’s ever worked with. He also said that you can make the hard decisions and carry them through. I agree with that assessment,” Jack said.

He wasn’t going to mention the offer Mike made to administer the coup de grace if that was what Dale wanted.

“On what basis did he say that I could make the hard decisions?”