Smith had always monitored these devices when he could. A002 had a radioactive signature that couldn’t be traced from a distance until new spy satellites were orbited in the 1990s and new ground-based sensor systems were positioned throughout the White Sands Missile Test Range.
By then, nobody even remembered the lost A002, or its predecessor the A001, and the radioactive signature was too small to register on the security systems.
Harold W. Smith had fed the signature of the A002, and a thousand other ordnance specifications, into the immense network-monitoring systems that resided in the CURE mainframes, the Folcroft Four. You never knew when one of them might pop up out of nowhere.
Like tonight. The White Sands Range monitors sensed the signature, analyzed it and decided it was another small radioactive material spill. The location was put on the list for cleanup by the radiation cleanup crew. They called, themselves the Hot Janitors. The Hot Janitors had about three weeks of work to do before they’d get to the A002 site.
But the Folcroft Four saw the same bit of radioactivity and recognized it. Smith’s quick probe of the White Sands duty roster showed no scheduled work that would have unearthed the A002. His analysis of the other security feeds at the missile test range founds no sign of intrusion. Just a small dust storm.
As Smith watched the blurry thermal satellite feed, he saw the dust storm make a ninety-degree turn. He grabbed the red phone.
General Tainey liked his command to run smoothly. “A well-oiled machine, son, that’s what!” He had said these words recently to a lieutenant colonel who had been inefficient and sloppy. “Can’t afford to have craziness and what-all—not when you’re shooting off missiles! Every damned hand needs to know what every other damned hand is doing!”
The lieutenant colonel had tried to defend his actions. A substandard batch of amphetamines, issued by the Air Force to combat pilots, had been the real problem. The stay-awake pills were too strong. One pilot was experiencing cardiac arrhythmia. Another flopped on his back without any pulse whatsoever.
“That’s two,” the general pointed out acerbically. “All six pilots took doses from the same batch, General. I felt it was best to get them medical attention before they had severe reactions.”
“Which you didn’t even know they would have, now, did you son?”
“It seemed likely—”
“It
Somehow, the commanders up the ranks had bought the whole story about the dying pilots and hadn’t even reprimanded the general, so he’d gone easy on the lieutenant colonel and hadn’t ripped off all his stripes. Just some of them.
Now there was another debacle in the works. Two, in the same damned month? New assholes were gonna get chewed big-time.
“Yes, Mr. President,” the general answered politely. He could out-protocol any President you threw his way. “You say I have an intruder, Mr. President?”
Okay, so that rattled the general a little.
A moment later, the general forgot his manners. “May I ask where you received this intelligence, Mr. President?”
The President answered. The general’s face colored.
“Right away, Mr. President.”
General Tainey slammed the phone and stomped out of his office, surrounded by yammering aides, and burst into the missile range command center, where more than thirty Air Force men and women busied themselves.
“What the hell is happening on my missile range?” the general exploded.
He got thirty blank looks in answer.
“We got intruders on my missile range, and you don’t even know it? I just told the President of the United States of America that we were on it! Now get on it!”
One of his aides scurried up with a portable phone. “General Brown for you, General.”
“General
“From the Joint Chiefs, General. Calling with additional orders from the President, General.”
Dammit all to hell! Worst thing about a crisis is when all them ninnies upstairs started adding their two cents’ worth. Why couldn’t they just let a man do his job? “Yes, General Brown?” he said politely.
“General Tainey, your standard security systems are unable to pinpoint your intruder. I suggest you deploy your low-altitude motion-detection drones.”
Tainey chewed on that and responded, “General Brown, I don’t think I follow you.”
“Don’t play games with me. General Tainey. You have four experimental drone aircraft sitting in Hangar GH457, all equipped with Ultra-High Resolution LADAR devices.”
“Uh-Uh-Ultra-High Revolution what?”
