Chapter 6

At the office, Mike read through the reports picking out items that caught his interest. With what he had learned the previous night, he discovered a whole new interpretation for the information in the reports. Turning to the computer, he started writing an analysis of the four reports that were on his desk. He was actually working on two versions. In the first, he included only facts that were available in the four reports. In the second, the major gaps were filled in with what he had learned the previous evening.

Working diligently, he finished the first report in four hours. The second one would take him several days. Using the standard commands on his computer for archiving classified documents, he submitted them into the document control system. There was a small modification in the system that hid the second version of the document when the name was prefaced with CIA023.

He had just about finished up for the day when Chang stopped by his office. Looking concerned, Chang said, “I read your report on the Chinese High Energy Weapons Initiative. Are you sure that they are ahead of us?”

“I’m pretty sure. It looks to me like they are working in areas where we’ve stopped a few programs. I’m not sure if they are making progress or wasting time, but they are learning things that we are not. I’d say that it puts them right up there with us,” Mike said.

“I read that report and thought that we stopped our programs because they weren’t feasible. That would suggest to me that they are blindly following work that hasn’t panned out here,” Chang said.

Nodding his head, Mike said, “You might be right. Is there any chance of getting inside their labs and seeing how they are progressing?”

“I might be able to go there and check with some of my contacts in their research program,” Chang said.

“That would be outstanding,” Mike said looking over at Chang. He knew that Chang was looking for any excuse to return to China for a while. According to the bio he had read, Chang wanted nothing more than to visit his wife and family who were still living in China. Of course, Chang had a wife and kids here, too.

“I’ll mention it to Dale,” Chang said pleased that Mike hadn’t uncovered anything of much significance. He asked, “What will you be working on next?”

“I’m going to examine the Russian program,” Mike said.

“Now that is a waste of time,” Chang said with a snort. The Chinese had examined that program and felt the Americans were well ahead of the Russians.

“We’ve got to produce a quarterly and annual report on the Russians, the Chinese, the Germans, and the French. It might be a waste of time, but ours is to do or die, not to question why,” Mike answered.

Chang looked at Mike with a puzzled expression. He asked, “What does that mean?”

“What?”

“That thing about doing or dieing,” Chang answered wondering if it was a threat of some kind.

“I just butchered a line from a rather famous poem,” Mike said.

“So what does it mean?”

“It means that we have a job to do, so we do it,” Mike answered.

Shaking his head, Chang walked away saying, “I hate American poetry. No one can understand it.”

When Chang was well out of hearing range, Mike chuckled and said, “I wonder how Lord Tennyson would feel about being called an American poet!”

Vincent looked at his son-in-law and said, “So you’ve fixed up the house enough to move into it.”

“That’s right,” Mike said.

The weekends spent fixing up the house had paid off and three rooms were ready for occupancy. They had a working bathroom, a fully functional kitchen, and a bedroom. The rest of the house was coming along and could be finished with just a little more work. The remaining rooms needed painting, carpets, and fixtures.

“You can stay here until it’s finished,” Vincent said repeating an offer that he had made every other day. He didn’t mind having Mike and Karen living with them despite Karen’s occasional mood swings as a result of her pregnancy.

“I do appreciate the offer, Captain. I figure if I’m living there then I can finish the house in half of the time. It’s not that we are in a race against time, but I’d like to get the house finished and decorated before the baby is born,” Mike said giving his standard answer to the offer.

Vincent decided to try another tactic to get them to stay. He asked, “Are you sure that you want to live in an unfinished house with a moody pregnant woman?”

Mike laughed at the memory of his wife’s overly emotional reaction at the hardware store and said, “Now that is a good question.”

“I wondered if you thought about that,” Vincent said with a chuckle.

“I’m not worried about that. I love her. I’ll put up with a few mood swings with pleasure. She’s pregnant and that’s to be expected. After all, it means that I’m going to be a daddy,” Mike said. He couldn’t wait for the day when his child came running to him calling him daddy.

Vincent was pleased to hear Mike discuss his feelings towards his daughter in that manner. He’d seen a lot of men who had fled upon hearing that their wife was pregnant. He’d seen a lot of men cheat on their wives while she was at home feeling unwanted, unloved, and unlovable. It was a pleasure to see a man who embraced his pregnant wife and the future she represented.

Feeling a deep sense of satisfaction that his daughter’s future was in good hands, Vincent said, “I was away from home a lot when I was serving shipboard. The whole time I was at sea I would think about how I was protecting my family from people who meant us harm. My family was never far from my thoughts. The moment I looked forward to the most was getting home. Finding my wife and daughter at the dock waiting for me to arrive was special.”

“I know what you mean,” Mike said nodding his head. He had memories of returning home to Karen.

“I guess you are going to move out and there’s no way I can convince you to stay here,” Vincent said.

“That’s right.”

“I’m going to miss our conversations at night,” Vincent said meaning it.

“Same here, Captain.”

It took several weeks, but they finally got enough of the living room done to support a television and a couple of chairs. They were just in time to watch the National Elections. Dismayed, Mike stared at the early results being broadcast.

Shaking his head, he said, “The cut and run candidates have won.”

“The American people have spoken,” Karen said with a sad nod of her head.

“They want us out of Iraq no matter what,” Mike said. It wasn’t that he wanted war or for the troops to continuously put themselves in harms way. He wanted to win the war.

“The Liberals have a point. The Iraqis didn’t step up to the plate and take control of their country. The government had too many factions to be successful,” Karen said repeating what the talking head had just explained on the cable news program.

“Do as we say, not as we do,” Mike said with a snort of disdain.

“What do you mean?” Karen asked.

Mike answered, “Of course they had factions there. We have factions here. Our country couldn’t unify behind our efforts in Iraq, since the day we crossed the border. What in the hell were the Iraqi leaders supposed to do? Every one of them knew that if they threw their future in with us and then we left before the mission was complete, they’d be dead in three days.

“There was no way that they were going to support us with all of our bellyaching about our involvement there. All of the terrorist organizations have been claiming that America doesn’t have the stamina to see the mission through to the end. So what happens? Every day we broadcast to the world that we shouldn’t be there. Our congressmen start trying to pass laws trying to force us to leave Iraq on a timetable. We’ve acted in a way that supports everything the terrorist organizations have said.

“So what do the Iraqi leaders do? They do the smart thing and try to appease everyone so that they can survive, in case worst comes to worst. They don’t use force against the stronger radical elements knowing that their power base evaporates the minute we’re gone. They don’t investigate things in the hope that their lack of action convinces the terrorist leaders that they aren’t too pro-American. They are protecting their asses.

“In the meantime, the President has been telling them to get serious about ruling their country the way it should be done, and the fact is that they don’t know how. Our military has been trying to get control over a population that has been infiltrated by terrorists from all over the Middle East. Our Congress has been undermining the strategy by telling the Iraqis the one thing they don’t want to hear.

“Now the shit has hit the fan. This election has proven that the terrorists were correct. The one thing that every Iraqi politician has feared has come true. We’re going to leave them hanging,” Mike said.

“So you’re saying that their instability was due to our inability to commit,” Karen said.

“That’s right,” Mike said. He looked down at his left hand in disgust. He said, “I gave up the use of two of my fingers because our President couldn’t convince their leaders that he had the support of the American people behind him. Why couldn’t he? He couldn’t because he didn’t have the American people supporting him.”

“He did at first,” Karen said.

“No he didn’t. Half of Congress never believed that he was the rightfully elected President. They didn’t believe the results of first election and they didn’t believe the results of the second election. They weren’t going to support him in anything that required that they accept his authority to lead this country,” Mike said. Mike didn’t agree with the President on a lot of issues, but he respected the Office of the President. Too many people allowed their dislike of the man interfere with their respect for the office. He snorted and said, “At least I only lost use of two of my fingers. A lot of folks lost a lot more than that over there.”

Karen understood his anger. She asked, “What’s going to happen now?”

“The shit is going to hit the fan in two years or less,” Mike answered with a sigh. He pointed at the television screen. He said, “Look at that. The Iranians are dancing in the street.”

Mike sat down at the computer at the Internet Café and plugged the USB drive into the machine. Within a minute, he was at the website. The first web page was still the same, but the second web page was personalized with e-mail, notices, and announcements.

Mike stared at the announcement trying to figure out what were the full implications of it. The President, within twenty-four hours of the election, had issued a Top Secret Executive Order requiring that all holders of Top Secret Clearances be investigated by the FBI as if they were spies.