“Share a cigar with him?” Ernie growled, nodding toward Bob. “And Matherson doesn’t smoke.”
“I’ll sit next to you and inhale deeply,” John said, trying to smile and break the tension.
*
Once into his office, Ernie opened the cigar humidor, and there were only two left within.
“These are my last two Cubans, and don’t ask how I got them before the Day,” he announced sadly as he held one up and sniffed it. “My homegrown stuff tastes like shit, but at least it is something after you two are gone.”
Bob actually smiled and nodded a thanks as Ernie clipped off the ends, offered one to Bob, struck a match, and held it for Bob as he puffed his cigar to life. Ernie hoarded the precious friction match, managing to light his own cigar as well before tossing the match down to the tile floor.
“Classified info,” Bob said, smiling after first inhaling the cigar, taking it deep in without coughing. “A year back, the navy seized a shipment of these, and I was able to trade a bottle of real scotch with an admiral friend of mine for a box. First one I’ve had in half a year or more. Thank you.”
“So that easy to get contraband stuff out there?” Ernie queried sharply.
“Not as easy as you might think,” Bob replied without breaking his smile, showing to John that he could still keep that poker-face grin even when someone was needling him.
Linda came in bearing a bottle of wine, and Ernie groaned. “That’s one of the last of the Malbecs.” He sighed as Linda handed it to him to uncork.
“Might as well send our friend John off with a proper wine,” she said.
“Who said I’m going anywhere?”
She looked at him, and her composure let down for a moment.
“You’re arresting him and taking him away, aren’t you, General?”
Neither Bob nor John replied as Ernie, taking that in, uncorked the bottle and poured out four drinks into slightly dingy glasses and held his up.
“America,” was all he said in a very formal salute.
“America,” the other three whispered, and at that moment, John picked up a subtle nuance when Bob drained off a good portion of his glass and put it down without further comment. Old tradition was to toast the commander in chief as well in any such setting when glasses were raised. He looked over at Bob, who did not return his glance.
“Shall we pull the wires now?” Linda asked without preamble. “Smash the motherboards and hard drives in front of you?”
Bob shook his head and then took another sip of the wine. “That won’t be necessary at the moment, but yes, I’m afraid it will come to that. If you can promise me there’ll be no confrontation, a couple of my people will come over tomorrow to take the computers away. I just ask that you disable them in some way now.”
“How about we fire off a mini EMP for you?” Ernie snapped, and Bob looked over at him sharply. Ernie smiled at his joke, which was definitely flat. “But then again, I suspect Bluemont has the same plans soon enough.”
“Why do you say that?” Bob said, and again John could see the poker-face smile.
“What you saw out in our Skunk Works isn’t there to play some damn games or set up a new Facebook or those damn Twitters. Yesterday, we noticed a real increase in traffic. We managed to capture and decrypt a few lines here and there after a lot of sleepless nights. Does Wallops Island, Virginia, sound familiar, General?”
“Nice beaches. Camped there years ago.”
“It was also a NASA and NOAA facility for lofting short-range rockets, not usually orbital, but they could launch from there for small payloads—say, what used to be known as a suitcase nuke. We’ve got something about a ‘package’ being moved there. Wallops Island, package, mix in my paranoia and I read it as something really dark.”
“I’m not privy to such information,” Bob replied calmly, and then he masked his reaction by taking another sip of wine.
Ernie smiled but did not press further, a reaction that John thought strange coming from this man. He saw Ernie glance over at Linda and read that there was something else up their sleeves, something beyond speculation regarding a “package” at Wallops Island, a place John was finding hard to place on a map.
“General, we’ve been picking up something else,” Linda interjected.
“Go on.”
“You know as well as I do that all systems, no matter how secure, are porous, only as secure as their weakest link, meaning personnel link. Recall some high-level types before the Day who would sit at home late at night, using their personal servers to send out chatty e-mails and then mixed with notes to friends, family, something official and classified?”
“I do,” Bob said, his features clouding with obvious disgust at such stupidity.
“Easy enough to crack if they break security protocols. Do that and a door might be wide open for someone to snoop into. Well, we’ve got such a person at Bluemont.”
“Go on.” After taking another drink of wine, Bob put the glass down on the table next to Ernie, who did not hesitate to pour in several more precious ounces while Bob took another puff on his cigar, and John gladly inhaled next to him. The entire Internet and computer security game was something he would readily admit was beyond him, so it was always fascinating to listen in on something like this.
“General Scales, what is ‘Site R’?”
John could see Bob stiffen at Linda’s query.
“Could you repeat that one, Linda?”
“Site R, and your response tells me that means something to you.”
There was a long moment of silence from Bob. Cigars had always been an excellent means of giving a man a moment to gather his thoughts as he appeared to examine the glowing tip, knock off a bit of ash, and take another meditative puff, which is exactly what Bob did, and it spoke volumes to John, who remained silent.
“Linda, I am not sure what you are driving at, and as far as this Site R is concerned, I have no comment.”
“Then it’s classified?” Linda snapped, her voice like that of a prosecuting attorney closing in for the kill.
She stood up, went over to a filing cabinet alongside Ernie’s desk, pulled it open, drew out a file folder, and tossed it on Ernie’s desk next to where Bob was sitting.
“My Site R file, General. Sorry, but our regular printer was fried off on the Day. We did scrounge up an old dot matrix printer from the college library and a couple of boxes of paper but no extra printer cartridges. My handwritten notes—excuse them, some people say I have a miserable left-handed scrawl—but take a look, General.”