Hunter

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 is 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 is 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 moments 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 worse comes to worse. They don't use force against the stronger radical elements knowing that their powerbase 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," 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 minutes he was at the website. The first webpage 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.

There were two very interesting caveats to the Executive Order. All investigations were to be performed by individuals who had served in the American Military and no arrests were to be made until all of investigations had been completed. The first point was rather obvious to Mike. The President wanted to make sure that individuals who were naturalized citizens didn't perform the investigations. It was the second point that was the most intriguing.

Mike sat back and tried to decipher the significance of the second point. There were three obvious consequences. The first was that it would be years before any arrests were made as a result of that Executive Order. All of the arrests would occur during the term of the next President. The second was that it would allow them to roll up all of the individuals who failed the investigation in one fell swoop.

The scale of the investigations led to an obvious conclusion. No one would get off because of Political Correctness. The President wanted to make sure that no one could claim intentional profiling as the cause of the investigation. Mike felt it was the best decision by the President in four years and whispered softly, "Semper Fi."

Dale came into Mike's office and said, "We need to talk in the secure conference room. Lock up your documents and meet me there in thirty minutes."

"What's up?" Mike asked rather surprised by the need to meet in a secure conference room. Everyone in the area had clearances and access to the same information. If the topic wasn't associated with intelligence material, then the meeting would have been held in Dale's office.

"Just be there," Dale said before going down the hallway.

Mike could hear Dale telling Chang to meet him in the secure conference room in forty-five minutes. Chang asked all of the same questions that he had and Dale had given the same answers. His curiosity was roused, but he started locking up all of the documents in his area.

Mike had to wait outside the conference room while another person was inside talking to Dale. Pacing, he wondered what was going on. One of the other analysts left the conference room and he went inside.

Dale looked up at Mike and smiled. He said, "Your clearance has been upgraded to include access to SF compartmented information."

"Huh?" Mike said with a frown. He had no idea what SF compartmented information meant. He hoped that it wasn't an X- file type of designation thinking about the television show. The last thing he wanted to see were reports about UFOs.

"It is a new category of compartmented information that the President just introduced. Basically it gives you access to information being collected about individuals who are being investigated by domestic intelligence agencies in conjunction with an ongoing CIA investigation. It's all part of that sharing of information between agencies," Mike said.

Knowing about the investigations that were being performed by the FBI, the sudden appearance of the clearance made sense. He asked, "Why tell me here rather than in your office?"

"The clearance itself is classified and you are the only one here with the need to know. Only twenty-three people in the CIA have been granted it," Dale answered. He looked at Mike for a moment as if to let the significance of the number sink in and then said, "I'm giving out a couple of bogus clearances today as well. I imagine that a few people are going to try to find out if you have a FT clearance. You don't, but don't worry about it. If you should come across a FT marked document, don't trust it."

"I understand," Mike said. It was all part of separating out the wheat from the chaff.

"Good," Dale said. He reached out a hand and said, "Semper Fi."

Mike shook his Dale's hand and replied, "Semper Fi."

Later that afternoon, Mike entered a query for rail guns in the raw intel database. Normally, his queries never retrieved any results. However, this time it produced two results. The first was from an agent inside Iran. The second was from an agent stationed in Germany. He opened the one from inside Iran first. Shaking his head, he discovered that Iran had contracted with a German company to build a high energy rail gun. He read the little bit of information available and shook his head. According to the report, the rail gun was going to be a monster.

After the Iraq WMD debacle, the last thing that an analyst wanted to have handed him was information about a covert weapons development program in a Middle Eastern country. Even if the analysis was correct, the necessary level of proof to convince anyone that it represented a threat was extremely high. He would have to have a cable news channel broadcasting the weapon in action before anyone would believe him. Slumping in his chair, he said, "Oh, fuck."

Chang stuck his head in the office and asked, "What's the matter?"

"Iran hired a German company to build a rail gun," Mike answered shaking his head. This little piece of news fit in with the report about the German company ordering very large capacitors.

Chang laughed at the look of misery on Mike's face and said, "Lots of luck with that one."

"Right," Mike said staring at the screen. He listened to Chang laughing all of the way to his cubicle. Grabbing a pencil, he started taking notes on what information he would need to verify that the project was going forward.

Sitting in the miserable Washington area traffic, Mike listened to the new President discuss his plans for the next year. He listened as the man described how he was setting up a task force to investigate the CIA in order to discover how the previous President had strong-armed them into giving such faulty intelligence about the WMDs in Iraq. Shaking his head, Mike said, "I can tell this job is going to get more fun by the day."

A car cut in front of him and he narrowly avoided an accident. Swearing, he turned his attention to the traffic. When things had calmed down a bit, he heard the news that he had dreaded for months. The President said, "We'll be out of Iraq by June."

Shaking his head, Mike said, "I wonder if that means that things are really going to heat up in Iraq or calm down. What am I saying? It's going to be quiet until the day we leave and then that whole country will explode."

He listened to the rest of the news with a sick stomach. The Majority Leader of the Senate was on the news next vowing to support the new President in all of his initiatives. In fact, he was going to form a committee to investigate repealing the Patriot Act. Mike shook his head and said, "The next thing he's going to say is that he is going to ask the President to shut down our other intelligence operations."

Mike was wrong. The next item concerned closing down the secure detainment facilities that were used to imprison suspected terrorists. Shaking his head, Mike said, "It just gets worse and worse."

Mike sat down in his office and stared at the computer screen. Someone had managed to photograph the plans for the Iranian rail gun. The picture wasn't very clear, but he could make out enough details to support an analysis based on physics. There were some scratches that looked like notes made in pencil that were barely visible. He flagged the image for photo-enhancement.

Grabbing a pencil, Mike started working out the maximum probable load that the rail gun could launch. The spacing of the rails suggested that the payload would have a diameter about the size of a can of cola. It was a pretty small payload considering the rest of the design. The power supply that was indicated was huge.

Mike frowned and examined the drawing again. It was definitely a rail gun. There were two rails connected to a power supply. When a metallic object was placed across the rails, the object would be accelerated as a result of the magnetic fields generated by the current flowing through it. The velocities that could be achieved were huge compared to the limits of explosive based guns.

The key problems with a rail gun was providing enough current and protecting the rail. The rail gun that Mike built during his doctorial research was a very small one. It launched a five gram payload (a little lighter than the bullet of a 9mm pistol) at velocities about three times that achievable by a rifle. The first advance was that it had a very high firing rate. He had used a novel rail design that allowed the rail to be refurbished even during operation. The second advance was in the design of his compulsator power supply driven by a diesel engine. As a result, his rail gun was able to maintain a high rate of fire for almost five minutes before the rails were damaged beyond repair.

After four hours of work, Mike sat back and stared at the answers he had gotten for the Iranian rail gun. Despite the huge capacitor- based power supply, it was actually a pretty small rail gun. Based on his best estimate, the Iranian rail gun would be able to launch a half kilogram load less than two hundred kilometers.

He knew that the system under development at Dahlgren would launch a two and a half kilogram payload the same distance. That kind of payload would be as destructive as a Tomahawk missile and would arrive on target in seventy-five percent of the time required for the missile to make the same trip. With GPS guidance, that kind of destructive ability would make it a very effective weapon for a battleship.

Confused, he asked, "Why would anyone build a gun with a power supply that size to launch such a pitiful payload?"

He turned to his computer and made queries about the capacitors that the German company had bought. They were consistent with those specified in the power supply. Reading the specifications from the blueprints, he put in a request to locate the company, if there was one, which had been contracted to build the rails.

He glanced at the clock and realized it was getting late. He put the materials in his file cabinet; double checking to make sure that he hadn't missed anything before locking it. Convinced that everything was in the file cabinet, he shut it and spun the dial five times. He logged off his computer and stood to leave.

He paused before leaving and looked at the file cabinet. He asked, "Why would they want to launch a half kilogram payload the size of a soda can two hundred kilometers?"