Whiplash

“With the President.”

Teri frowned. She had expected her mother, not her father. She loved them both, but it was her mother who always showed up at times like this.

Plus, she had said she would.

Zen read the disappointment in her face. “Mom’s working hard,” he told her. “She had something very important today.”

“I know.”

He decided it was better to change the subject. “What, are you bucking for a chair like mine?”

“Oh get out.” She hopped down from the table and began dancing around. “See? I’m fine.”

“Probably, but let’s let the X ray determine that,” said Dr. Watson.

THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL MET IN A SECURE CONFERENCE room well below ground level in the White House “basement,” but the room was bathed in what to the naked eye seemed like perfect daylight. The environmental controls kept the room precisely at 68 degrees, a fact that occasionally irked the President, who preferred a slightly cooler temperature, but allowed it to remain there out of deference to her aides and cabinet members’ comfort.

A rectangular table sat at the center of the large room. A video screen tilted upward in front of each of the thirty-six places; the screens were tied into a conferencing system as well as the secure intelligence intranet. Each seat was equipped with a bank of secure communication lines, allowing text and e-mail as well as scrambled voice and video.

Best of all, the coffee and tea were world-class.

Brea

Lovel nodded as she sat. He had started out as an enthusiastic supporter of the program, but lately had been rethinking its direction because of budget pressures. A relatively small part of the Pentagon’s so-called “black budget,” it still represented hundreds of millions of dollars, with the potential to consume much more. Lovel had bought the “multiplier effect” that Whiplash allowed—the idea that the program would pay for itself by encouraging more research and development, implementing high-tech tools faster and cheaper, and saving on manpower costs down the line. But the program was still so new that cutting it would not raise much of an outcry—far less, say, than lopping something like a destroyer out of the budget.

Lovel would have been the first to admit that counting angry heads was a terrible way to set government policy. But he called himself a “big picture” guy, and in the big picture he saw, some terrible decisions had to be made to support the overall agenda.

Brea

She was worried about her daughter. She knew Zen could handle whatever came up—he was always taking care of them somehow. But still, she felt she should be there, reassuring Teri that everything was fine.

The attendant brought Brea

“All right, let’s get to work,” said Christine Mary Todd. A tall woman, she moved with quick strides, shoulders back and head high. In a man, her quick gait might have been considered brisk, her physical style assertive. As a woman, they gave visual ammunition to critics who found her abrupt and distant.

“Ms. Stockard, Mr. Reid. Very good of you two to come on such short notice,” she said as she sat. The President did not attend every National Security meeting, but had pla

That was the President’s style—plunge right into the situation without too much fuss. Brea

“Some months ago, we initiated a joint program between the CIA and Defense that allows us to test and implement new technologies on an advanced basis,” she said. Her voice was stiff, as was her prose. “The program is still in its very early stages, literally only a few weeks old, but we already have important results to share with you. Alarming results. Some of you have received some information already, so I will be brief.”

Brea

“My associate, Mr. Reid, represents the CIA. We work together. I’m going to very briefly talk about some of our technology and the unit involved, just to give you background on our capabilities. And then Jonathon—Mr. Reid—is going to talk about what we’ve found.”

Brea

She made a point of mentioning that Da

Reid sat quietly, waiting for his turn to speak. Even now, he hadn’t decided what he would recommend as the next step. His boss, mentor, and friend, CIA Director Herman Edmund, had made it clear that he wanted the entire project under CIA direction. Reid had been swayed, at least to some extent, by Brea

“Excuse me,” said Secretary of State Alistair Newhaven. “Is Whiplash intended as a strike team, or as an espionage unit?”

“A little of both,” said Reid. He turned to Brea

“Jonathon is right. It can be both, depending on what the situation requires. In this instance, I’d say the operation leaned toward—is leaning, I mean—toward espionage.”

She paused and looked around the room. A few aides and staffers, lined up along the wall, were brimming with questions, but unless their bosses specifically asked for their input, none would dare ask them. Brea

“Our first mission began with a single agent, who was attempting to gather information on an arms network, known as Jasmine, operating in the Sudan,” said Brea

She turned to Reid.

“Yes, interesting. My colleague has a way with understatement,” said Reid. He flashed a smile. “Let me give you the headline first: Iran, or perhaps some element of its government, is refining nuclear material in Sudan, we believe in preparation for constructing a bomb.”

If the room had been silent while Brea

“We’re not relying on spies here, agents who have an interest in leading us on. These are our own people,” Reid said. “We have radiation sniffers that have data for us. We have purchases. We are still pulling everything together, and admittedly there is much that we don’t know. But the basic finding is unassailable—there is an operation here to refine nuclear material that can be used in a bomb.”