​Katherine “Kate” Reinhardt stood outside her trailer with sweat pouring down her face and soaking her dress leaving permanent stains.   She’d come to the Palestine Territories,  Israel’s Occupied West bank, two years before with a goal of starting a school to prepare young women for the modern world.   Her goal was to teach practical skills.   But, after a year fighting the Israeli’s and the Palestinian authorities for permission, and this year trying to enroll enough young women to make it useful, she was tired and exhausted.  In the end, she’d yielded to the authorities so the curriculum was light on practical skills, her original goal, and heavy on religion and politics. 
 
 Approaching her trailer after a day of teaching, she stopped suddenly for there was a tall, well-dressed man standing just outside, smoking a cigarette.  When he saw her, he snuffed it out and approached with a broad smile.  
 
“Who are you and what do you want?” 
 
“Just a few minutes of your time, Miss Reinhardt” he said coming closer.
 
“Press or the police?” she asked. 
 
“Charles Michael Smith,” Smith handed her his card.  “I write for the Times of London, The Guardian, and when I’m lucky the New York Times.” 
 
“Are you going to call me the ‘Mad German of Palestine’, or has that been copyrighted already?”
 
“No, not at all; it was rather catchy, but I’m afraid I’m less stylistically flamboyant.  My style has been described as fact-based pedantic, but I prefer to think I simply write good readable prose. ” 
        
The longer he spoke, the more certain she was that he wasn’t a journalist, although she didn’t doubt that was his cover, more likely he was another foreign intelligence operative sent to keep an eye on her while she was on dangerous ground probably as a favor to her cousin, Helmut.  Still he was handsome, in an angular, English, sort of way, and she welcomed the friendly banter in English, far easier for her than Arabic.   
 
“Perhaps, if it is something serious Charles, we should go inside.” She recoiled  from the blast of hot air as the flimsy door of the trailer opened.    
 
“I have a far better idea. It’s too hot in this paradise for beggars, thieves, and murderers.    Gather your passport and we will adjourn to the Israeli side of the Green line.”
 
“Is this a trap?”  Katherine asked, quite wary of Israeli intrigues.   
 
“No, does it seem like that, just an invitation to dinner where they know what an air conditioner is and how to mix a dry martini.” 
 
 He didn’t look dangerous and she was exhausted from months in the heat. “Let me freshen up and see if I have anything to wear.”
 
The trailer doubled as the headquarters of her NGO; the money came from her family and friends, and occasionally, from strangers too.   Her goal in coming to work on the West Bank, in Israeli occupied Palestine, was to set up a school to teach practical skills to Palestinian girls.  But working here was like no other place on earth.    People were caught in a web of hatred and were told half-truths to keep them fighting.  It was a losing battle against Israeli’s and the Palestinian’s own leadership.   Of course she realized the futility of the task, trying to teach skills for the modern world when  the men only wanted to make them into cannon fodder or slaves. 
 
 Katherine changed into the one good dress she brought with her when she came back from Germany six months before.  She had never worn it here.    The fabric was a fine silk weave that followed the lines of her body, stopping just above her knees.  She was tired of covering up, wearing long dresses in stifling heat, covering her head and hiding her hair.       
 
 
The trip to central Jerusalem, from just outside Ramallah, should take no more than 30 minutes.  To cross the border required an additional two hours.    They waited in a long line watching armored vans and buses carrying settlers quickly pass through special authorization gates. 
 
The Israeli border guard studied her German passport and the visa that allowed her to live and work on the Palestinian side.     Katherine watched nervously as he made a few calls.  After what seemed an eternity, he returned and handed her back the passport. 
 
“You’ll need to renew your Visa in a few weeks Miss Reinhardt,” he studied her face carefully before handing it back.  
 
“Does that happen each time you cross?”  Smith asked with a laugh.
 
“I’ve only tried it twice since I’ve been here.”
 
“Same reception?”
 
“No, but I will get the damn thing extended.  They don’t dare deny me a visa.    I think there are people in Israel who also worry about me,” she said knowing that many Israeli government people  didn’t like the idea of having a close cousin of the American Chief of Staff living in the midst of extremists and terrorists.   
 
“Not surprising. You are, after all, writing stories of your experiences and posting them on your website. But, I suppose they are concerned about your safety. ”
 
“Why is that Mr. Smith?”
 
“Your relationship to General Reinhardt, of course, they wouldn’t want anything to happen to you that might jeopardize their good relations with him.”
 
She was certain that she wasn’t well liked by either the Israelis or Palestinians.  Whatever contribution she could make to the lives of the girls in her school was destroyed by the facts on the ground. There were no jobs after graduation.     
 
“Katherine, or should I call you Kate,” Smith asked as they approached the Sheraton.  
 
“How did you know that?” she asked, surprised by his use of her nickname.
 
“I interviewed your cousin in Washington.  He’s quite worried about you.”
 
“Helmut?” she suddenly felt a rush of adrenaline.  “Why did you interview him?” 
 
 “He’s running for President next time around, he’s taken a somewhat less sympathetic approach to the Israeli-Palestinian divide than you apparently have.  I thought you might like to give the other side of the picture to his views.”
  
“Don’t do me any favors, Charles,” Kate pulled away, “it will make my life a bit harder than it already is.” She walked into the hotel agitated by the thought of another article published in a British newspaper calling attention to her work.
 
“Perhaps,” he said catching her inside the lobby, “a different approach might be better.  Truce,” he stuck out his hand. 
 
“No more mention of Cousin Helmut, okay?”
 
“A deal,” he said, “come on Kate, I promised you a meal, but I would bet you’d like a bath first, that trailer didn’t look like it had any proper facilities.”
 
She was hungry for attention, the kind paid by a man, almost any would do.  And the idea of a proper bath in the cool comfort of an air-conditioned room was alluring.  She overcame her normal reluctance to accept anything without knowing the full cost involved, and followed him into the elevator. 
 
“What did Helmut say about me?”  Kate asked, curious about her cousin’s true feelings about his young cousin. The relationship, like other things about her life, was complicated by Reinhardt’s celebrity and the wide difference in their ages.    
 
“He said that poor Kate was confused about right and wrong, but that your heart was in the right place.  He also said that he loved you, and worried about you.”   
 
“And what’s your opinion, Charlie?”  She kicked off her shoes and sat down on the overstuffed armchair. 
 
“You’re the archetype of a self-loathing German.  You carry German guilt despite the fact that the events were long ago.   It’s your excuse for embracing the world’s problems as your own. That’s the standard definition of someone like you Kate, but I suspect the reason is not so textbook and clearcut.”   
 
“Did my cousin have the same opinion? What did he tell you about me?”
 
“He said you were adopted, that your life, before you came into the family was difficult, but that he’s known you for a long time.” 
 
“Did he tell you that we were roommates at one time?”   
 
“When?” Smith asked.
 
“I was nineteen.  I was in school at Georgetown.  Helmut was kind enough to put me up, in exchange for my quite excellent cleaning and cooking skills.”
 
Smith saw something more in her look as she talked about Reinhardt.   There was a story there that went beyond big brother-little sister. 
 
 
After a long shower, Kate felt better. Before leaving the bathroom, she cracked the door and peeked out at Smith. There was something ruggedly attractive about this Englishman.      
 
Smith took her to one of the better restaurants in Jerusalem.  Perhaps he’d planned it that way or it was simply chance, It was too late to return to her trailer by the time they finished.
 
“Okay Charles, let’s be brutally honest with one another,” she said once they had returned to the hotel room.  There, dressed in only his pajama top, she leaned against the pillows on the oversized bed luxuriating in the cool air. 
 
 Smith poured two glasses of cognac from the bottle he had had sent up earlier.  Handing her one, he sat on the bed next to her.
 
“Friendship,” he suggested raising his glass, “just that.” 
 
“Are you queer?” She smiled wondering.
 
“No!  It’s simply a matter of good sense.  I like you too much to abuse our relationship.    I’ll take the other bed.”   He said moving over to the second bed in the room.   
 
She had not expected that from him. 
 
“I’m flattered that you like me, but there’s more to this than simply a story, isn’t there?  I’m a big girl and I can take the truth.”  
 
“I’m researching a book.  My thoughts are to interview  young women who have taken up causes, usually hopeless ones, but continue to pursue them despite the odds, sometimes even beating the odds, succeeding.”
 
“I suppose it’s the Mother Teresa syndrome?” Kate said sipping the drink and letting the alcohol to take effect.   “And why do you believe women, especially Germans, are attracted to these hopeless causes.  Am I right, Charles?”
 
“Post-war guilt,” he repeated the stock answer trivializing her commitment.   
 
“I was born long after the war ended.  Besides, I’m working on the wrong side of the Green line for that theory to hold.  Try something else.”  
 
“Extreme confusion, perhaps” he suggested with a laugh. “After all Arabs hate other Arabs just as passionately as they ate Israelis.  Nor do all problems come with a  ‘Made in USA’ label’ or perhaps you really don’t like your cousin?”
 
He offered a smile as if he were making a joke, but for Kate, it wasn’t a joke, she wasn’t sure about Helmut and her relationship to him, it bothered her too.  
 
        
 
He dropped her off the next morning at the border crossing with a promise to take her to the beach near Tel Aviv next week.  It was something to look forward to despite her doubts about who, exactly, Charles Smith was working for.     
 
Some of her anger at the unfairness of life in the Territories returned as she watched Israeli guards harass Palestinian workers returning home.  Still, Smith had made some good points suggesting the problem came from entrenched positions on both sides of the border.    As she crossed into Palestinian territory she looked up as two Israeli F-16’s fly high overhead, their high-pitched roar drowned out the hubbub and noise at the crossing.   At that moment, she thought of Helmut and smiled.

​Sarah had not seen the movie Twenty Minutes to Failsafe, a story about a massive asteroid on a collision course with the earth before it’s shoved off course by a bunch of roughnecks led by a burley former pro-wrestler, turned actor,  when it came out back in the early 1990’s,  so she rented it to watch at home that evening.  After seeing it, she had nightmares for almost a week.   
 
“No Miss Fisher,” the Space Guard public affairs officer chirped happily when she called California, “no problem setting up a meeting.  We can also provide you with a short video that show what a kilometer or larger NEA might do if it made its way into the atmosphere.  Sure won’t be a pretty sight.”   
 
Sarah thought of the over muscled actor who was the lead in the movie as the Air Force officer spoke earnestly about the risks.  
 
“What’s a NEA?”
 
“Near Earth Asteroid, little pieces of misery over one kilometer in size.  It could literally wipe out life, as we know it.    Hit a point just off the East coast and good by New York and Boston.” 
 
“Like killing all the dinosaurs,” Sarah laughed nervously.
 
“More like killing all humans,” the Air Force officer said in sotto voce. “So far we’ve not found any that large, but it’s always possible that one will make it through undetected.  We think we’ve caught about half of the ones out there in deep space that might get close.  Frankly, there are lots of gravitational slingshots that can change a benign orbit into a dangerous one.” 
 
“What’s a gravitational sling-shot?” 
 
“Each planet, moon, and our sun, has a distinct signature in terms of its attraction to objects in motion, you know, Isaac Newton 101.  If you get more than two lines of gravitational pull working together you increase the speed of the object and change its direction.  If they are working against each other, then you slow it down.  Astronomers and geophysicists spend a lot of time trying to figure out what all these forces do to the orbits of deep space objects.”   
 
Sarah had nodded off just after he made it to gravitational pull, but she awoke enough after he stopped droning to set up a time to bring a film crew out to JPL in Pasadena.  While watching the actor in the asteroid movie destroys the asteroid one more time, she started plan an approach that would be both scientific and also spark human interest.  After a couple of hours, she realized that she needed more information on asteroids and the real danger they posed to the planet.  The JPL space search group had a vested interest in frightening people, if for no other reason, than to insure next year’s budget was appropriated.   The theme had to be more down to earth, more personal in order to vest viewers in the show.   One way was to show that if a meteor strikes it can kill; and that it’s not so rare an occurrence or improbable Australia was just too far to travel for the show.  What she needed was an event that ended someone’s life that was closer to home.  
 
In the middle of a nightmare about total destruction in which the actor in the movie was holding it back with one hand while stroking her thighs with his other, she remembered why the story had seemed familiar to her.     Susan Spenser, her roommate from college, had called her, about fifteen years back,  asking if she could give her a reference.  She’d dropped out of school the middle of her Junior year, obviously pregnant, and returned to New Mexico, to her families ranch somewhere in that state. While they talked, Susan babbled something about meteor striking the house and killing her parents and her sister.  It was a long shot, but unless she could find another human side to the story, then Susan Spenser’s story might have to suffice, that is, if she could find her.    
                         
 
“Where do I go to talk to an expert about meteorites and asteroids?” she asked Connie Smith, the WNN librarian the next morning. 
 
“Dr. Winifred Thomas at Cornell,” Connie answered without a second’s pause.
 
“Anything you don’t know Connie?”,
 
“Jameson asked for information on super nova’s and other cosmic things for a special we did last year, so I did a bit of research on the subject of meteors and other objects in space.  She’s a disciple of Carl Sagan. Straight shooter, quite down to earth for a college professor, you’ll like her Sarah.”   
 
 
When she told Ed Randall about needing to interview an expert on meteors at Cornell before she went to see JPL in California, his eyes lit up. 
 
“I’ve got a great idea.  Let’s see if I can get you to do an interview with Judith Wilson when you’re there. I bet you that little lady needs all the good publicity she can get right now.”     
 
“Typical male testosterone,” Sarah responded with some anger, “Judith Wilson is no more for peace than other Secretaries have been for war.  What Secretary of Defense is for war? ” 
 
Randall laughed.  “Let me see what I can do with arranging a meeting with the Dr. Wilson, and you call that other Professor, what’s his name?”
 
“It’s a woman, Winifred,” she turned on one foot and marched out of the office still angry.
 
Back in her office, she thought again about Susan.  If she hadn’t lied to her about the cause of the accident that killed her parents then ending the segment at the ranch with Susan showing them around the burnt out structures would add the personal to the scientific. So, it was time to dig up Susan again.  Where should she start to look?   There must be a hundred Susan Spenser’s in the United States assuming she kept her last name the same.      
 
 
 
The next Secretary of Defense, Judith Wilson, was seated in her cramped office surrounded by a pile of student papers waiting to be graded.  Years before, as a young Assistant Professor of Political Science, she founded Cornell’s Peace Studies Department in response to the belligerent, super-Americanism of the Kelly administration that alternated between calling the Soviet Union the “evil empire” and negotiating treaties to reduce the number of nuclear warheads pointed at each other.     Graduates had gone to work in many fields, from law to diplomacy.  Some even became military officers, many had populated NGOs dedicated to peace and justice.
 
She stood by the window looking out at the wet falling snow falling on the gothic buildings of the Cornell campus. She hated to leave.  After twenty-five years the view was a familiar.  Yet she knew she had no choice.  Here was a chance to reshape the military-industrial complex and to shake-up the Pentagon.   
 
She was also well aware that the task before her might not be achievable.    McNamara was probably the last to do so successfully only to use this new organizational structure with its modernized logistic chains to fight an unwinnable war 10,000 miles away in Vietnam;  Forrestal tried but became bogged down in Iraq.    One thing she did know was General Helmut Reinhardt, whose departure was rumored to be  before the New Year, had crossed the imaginary line and  had to go.   She was hardly naïve as to the threats facing the country and the world and she resented the idea that either she, or the new President, Kirsten Anderson, were so stupid as to now see the obvious, as General Reinhardt had said, ‘we live in a dangerous world’.
 
 
 
The knock at the door startled her. Her part-time secretary, a harried graduate student on a work-study grant, looked in.
 
“They’re ready for you in the conference room Dr. Wilson.”  
 
Straightening her suit jacket, decidedly different from the jeans and work shirt she normally wore to the office on the days she didn’t teach, she walked down the hallway towards the lion’s den. 
 
Sarah stood up when Judith Wilson entered the room.  She was a short woman so Sarah towered over her.   Ron Evans, the cameraman, quickly touched up her face before  switching on the lights.
 
“Now that you’ve made me into something I’m not,” she smiled, “let’s get this over with.”
 
“Dr. Wilson your appointment was not universally applauded,” Sarah asked.  “Does this bother you?”
 
“No, not really,” she leaned forward. “I expected that reaction.  And no, Sarah,” Judith smiled brightly, “I’m not planning on trying to change the name from Defense to Peace. All nations, free or totalitarian, have a right and duty to defend their sovereignty.  We all live in dangerous neighborhoods.”
 
“Then you won’t try to cut the defense budget?”
 
“Let’s put the defense budget into perspective.  America spends roughly the same amount on defense as all the other countries in the world combined.  Even if we reduced our expenditures by one half, we would still outspend every other country individually.  I’m not calling for significant reductions, only redirections towards much needed equipment maintenance and supplies. At the present time we would run out of munitions and spare parts within three or six months with little chance of replacements coming from cold production lines.  We have too many orphan systems.  I want to see our military buy only what is needed and maintain it so it can be used and there is a sufficient logistics tail to sustain a long duration conflict if necessary.”
 
  “What kind of force mix are you looking to build Dr. Wilson?” Sarah asked sounding more knowledgeable than she knew she was on the subject of force mix and strategic doctrine.
 
“Forrestal started the process.  I have to give him credit for forward thinking, but he got waylaid in the task by having to fight wars we were ill prepared to fight.  I want to encourage the military to think seriously about how to fight insurgencies and then propose force structures that meet that challenge without losing sight of how to deter our old adversaries, Russia and China.  Right now we are invested mainly in Special Operations training and troops just as President Piroshky begins the modernization of the Russian conventional forces in Europe, we need a better balance between these two extremes.”        
 
“You once suggested getting rid of the service designations and combining existing forces into functional commands.  Do you still want to do this?”
 
“Honestly, if I were Queen, then I would do it.  Realistically,” she paused and thought for a moment, “it would fly against traditions long ingrained and accepted as precedent.  But, I would take the management of procurement from the Services and vest control in a professional organization dedicated to managing complex projects in the interests of the American people, not for the personal gain of senior military officers after they retire.    The Department is the largest business in this country.  It could benefit from having professional managers rather than amateurs drawn from the three services.”   
 
“General Reinhardt apparently has given a series of speeches that are highly critical of you.   Will you replace General Reinhardt if you are confirmed?”
 
“General Reinhardt is a great American.” Judith chose her words carefully, knowing that this part of the interview would make it to the air tonight. “His rescue of trapped soldiers at Al Alhambra during the Iraq War was brilliant.  And I also know that only a soldier of his caliber and leadership skills could have saved the men downed by the Taliban along the Afghan-Pakistani border.  He’s perhaps the most accomplished military officer of his time or possibly of anytime, but he’s not infallible.  He has made a mistake if he believes that either I or Kirsten Anderson are any less aware of the dangers that we face as a nation especially during these very trying times, then he is mistaken.      The General, however, now has stepped over the line and become a partisan.   That is unacceptable.   I understand that he is retiring as of December.  We will find a new Chairman who meets our needs.”
 
 
“Good interview, ” Ronny Evans congratulated her as he started to pack up the equipment,  “ that part about General Reinhardt will make news for sure.”
 
Dr. Winnie Thomas’s office was cluttered with examples of meteors, sky charts of both hemispheres, and large framed pictures taken by the Hubble telescope.  Sarah noticed photos of Winnie and Carl Sagan prominently displayed as well and she pointed these out to the cameraman.  
 
“So you want to learn about meteorites Miss Fisher?”
 
“We’re doing a show on the dangers coming from outer space.  Question to you Dr. Thomas, should we be afraid?”
 
“Probably not; still, it’s a random phenomenon, quite unpredictable no matter what they tell you out there in Pasadena.”   
 
“We’re going to California next week.  How did you acquire the title ‘Meteor Lady’, Winnie?’”
 
“I search for fragments after an impact. I’ve hunted for these all over the world.  The fragments help geologists and geophysicists understand how the earth and the solar system developed out of the cosmic dust.    In Antarctica, I found a meteor that we believe might have come from Mars eons ago.”  
 
Winnie explained her techniques for collecting fragments.  It was similar to that used by archeologists or dinosaur hunters.  Sarah saw Winnie as part of the ranch sequence, scouring the ground for the meteor that destroyed killed Susan’s parents and sister.  She could bring some students with her too.  Co-eds, digging in the ground, with shorts and t-shirts, might make the show a little more interesting. .   
 
“What are the chances of a meteor striking a house, Winnie?”
 
“Very unlikely, but as I said before, a meteor hitting a house is a random occurrence and so it can happen.”       
 
“What if WNN flew you out to a site that has never been searched?  We could then film you and your students as they hunted for fragments.” 
 
“You have a site in mind?”
 
“Yes and no,” Sarah stammered thinking about Susan Spenser again. 
 
Winnie looked at the calendar on the wall.  “It’ll have to be after the term ends in early-December.”   
 
 
 
Sarah’s interview with Judith Wilson caused ripples in Washington.  Reinhardt went on a rampage. The right wing talk show hosts at WNN had a field day about how Professor Wilson had denigrated an authentic hero, winner of two Congressional Medals of Honor.
 
The Republicans, especially the neo-conservatives, saw enemies everywhere – from the crazy North Korean dictator with his growing arsenal of missiles and nuclear weapons, to more traditional adversaries like  Russia, China, and Iran, and even from a close allies like Germany and Japan.  They were organized and far from shy about shading the truth, and ignoring facts.  Randall, however, was elated by the interview.  He received many requests for excerpts from other news channels and was able to market it and recover his sunk costs from sending Sarah and the cameraman to Cornell.     

”What about the meteorite story, Ed? Have you looked at the budget I submitted.”
 
“The what?”  He’d forgotten about her original assignment entirely.  
 
“You know the one about lurking dangers from outer space, something to scare the shit out of parent and child just before Santa arrives.”  
 
"Oh yeah, I remember, tell me what you’re planning...”
 
 
 
The Air Force Space Guard Program was part of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California.  Its mission was to find all near earth objects, map their orbits, then identify the ones that could pose a risk.  They estimated that they’d found only about half the objects that could pose a potential danger to human life.
 
 “Isn’t there a theory about a large meteor striking the earth and leading to the dinosaurs’ extinction?”
 
“That theory is one of many for the extinction, but in any case the destruction that such an impact would cause would make any of our recent problems seem mild.  It would create either a massive tidal wave or worse or if it struck land, throw up as much debris as a nuclear war creating a haze that would make growing crops nearly impossible for possibly decades and cause worldwide extinctions of animals and possibly humans as well.”  
 
Sarah hoped that Ron Evans, the cameraman, picked up the man’s facial expressions accurately.  She saw fear in his eyes.  Good, she thought, that’ll make people sit up and listen.  
 
“What are the odds of something like that happening?” Sarah asked.
 
“Million to one, but it’s still more than we can afford.  But even smaller objects, like the one that just a few years ago  was visible as it crossed nearly all of the Eurasian landmass  can be dangerous.  Shock waves alone are quite destructive.  So we have to be prepared to deal with these as best we can.  Unlike the dinosaurs, we have means to nudge a bad rock in the right direction so it misses us.   Don’t you think?”
 
“I suppose you’re working on some solution that would enable us to destroy one of these monsters.  Right?” Sarah asked hopefully.
 
“Of course, but that’s more of an engineering problem and not an astronomical one.  If you want to talk about remediation, then you need to meet with Professor Carlton.  He’s heading up the Special Engineering Studies Department here at JPL. ”
 
“Robots or trained roughnecks” Sarah asked with a smile. 
 
The Air Force officer barely cracked a grin. 
 
 
It took another day to arrange a meeting with Roger Carlton.  He had a joint appointment at JPL and Cal Tech, where he taught Mechanical Engineering.  He didn’t like to interrupt his normal routine.  After many unreturned calls to Carlton, Sarah turned to the Director of the Lab for help.   
 
“I don’t know what the hell I can add to your story, but apparently someone here thinks it would help the Lab keep it’s meager budget,” he barked at Sarah, as she and the cameraman entered his cramped office.
 
“This won’t take long Dr. Carlton. After all your work might be the difference between extinction and continued life.”  
 
“Get that over muscled idiot of an actor who played that B movie about an asteroid,” Carlton said with a laugh, added, “frankly, the only damn menace circling our planet are things that go bang in the night and are manmade.”  
 
“What?” Sarah asked surprised.  Don Evans continued to roll the tape. 
 
“Old idea; stupid government boondoggle that I was dragged into long ago,” he stopped suddenly.  “I must not say any more.  Loose lips sink careers.”  He smiled.  “Forget that last remark, Miss Fisher, for my good and for yours.  Now, what can I do for you?”
 
“They tell me you’re working on the design of a prototype robotic device that could land on an asteroid to set-off explosive charges that would break it apart.  Is this something that is feasible?”
 
“Quite, but it will take money to build, and probably will need to already be in orbit to be effective.  So far, it is not high on NASA’s wish-list. There are some private companies that want to tow an asteroid, hopefully one with valuable minerals, closer to our orbit to mine it, but I think  that is a pipedream and could turn out to dangerous too if the rock decides to go ‘rogue’.”  Carlton laughed.
 
The phone rang.  While Carlton talked, Sarah walked around the office.  There were a few mementos, a couple of NASA plaques that she’d seen in other offices, and a framed 8x10 glossy photo on the wall.    She recognized Carlton, and she also recognized Helmut Reinhardt standing at the center of the group.  Sarah read the sign one of the men held in his hands.  It read “Project NorthStar, In Defense of America”.  
 
“Interesting photo Dr. Carlton,” Sarah pointed while Don Evans filmed.
 
“I’d like to forget the entire experience.”   
 
“Why?”
 
“It was a stupid concept, bad idea, dangerous too, and a waste of taxpayers’ money as it was buried deep and forever once the powers that be decided it was just too damn dangerous to have around.”
 
“And General Reinhardt, what did you think of him Dr. Carlton?”
 
“That bastard pushed it through.  Eventually, even Secretary Forrestal got cold feet and I think he was the one who verbally gave the task to Reinhardt. ”  He stared at his ring finger.  Sarah noticed and saw the gold ring.  It was on the wrong hand to be a wedding ring.  
 
 “Enough said on bad things in orbit around the earth.   Despite my reservations, it’s been a pleasure.” 
 
 
Sarah spent a good part of the flight back to New York working on the outline of the half hour segment.  There remained the problem of finding a live example of something similar to that meteor hitting the house in Australia in the United States so that Winnie could hunt for fragments and Ed Randall would agree to the added expense.  That meant that she’d have to continue to look for Susan Spenser.  The three names she found in her search had turned up to be dead ends.
 
Halfway through the flight, she nudged Don Evans awake.  “You have the entire discussion I had with Roger Carlton, including when I pointed to the photo on the wall?”
 
“Sure,” he yawned and then slipped back into sleep. 
 
She shook him awake again. 
 
“Can you stop action to see the photo clearly?”
 

​5. The Reporter 
Kip James, National Editor at the Washington Post,   noted the look on Teddy  Rothstein’s face  as he passed by his star reporter’s desk.
 
“I don’t know where to start, Kip, I read the transcript of his last speech and I am beginning to wonder if I really know the General the way I thought I did.” 
 
“I thought you knew the General inside out, Ted?” 
 
“No one knows Helmut Reinhardt except the General.” Rothstein answered turning his question around.  Despite the weeks spent with General Reinhardt on the two dangerous missions he’d gone with him, he knew that he didn’t truly fathom who or what he stood for.  He thought he knew, but he wasn’t certain anymore.
 
“Don’t you see Teddy” Kip said, “he’s  positioning himself as a national security hawk, after the King Presidency, the GOP will need someone with the real chops to find solutions to the problems we face with the Russians, the Chinese, and the North Koreans to name but three impossible to solve strategic problems.”         
 
 
Reinhardt certainly had charisma, but in four years, 2024, he would be 74 years old.  Still, he didn’t look his age and didn’t act his age.  Moreover, he had gained rank rapidly through ability and charisma.  On entering a room, he dominated it totally.  Rothstein, in his best-selling books, covering the two dangerous rescues he’d accompanied him on,  made him into a Caesar-like character, a natural polymath, as able to engineer a bridge to cross the raging Rhine, as win a battle against fearful odds while fighting on the front lines thus turning a battle lost into a major victory as he had done in Spain against the remaining troops of Pompey.  And yet the General seemed to everyone from the newest recruit to the Grandees of the American economic-political establishment to be approachable.    Like Julius Caesar had done two thousand years in the past, the General made enemies of men and women less capable, fearing the demigod in him.  Rothstein knew him as well as anyone, and yet he could not describe Reinhardt’s true beliefs.  He trusted him with his life, but would he trust him with his country?
 
Shutting down the workstation, Ted walked the few blocks to Lafayette Park, across from the White House gate. A cold wind blew across the park, and he shivered.     That same bitterly cold wind had been blowing when he’d laid flat against the metal of the downed copter wondering if he might live to see morning.   That trip to the mountains of Eastern Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan had been his first experience with real war.  Later he would face the same challenge with Reinhardt again at the tail end of the Iraq War when he’d accompanied the General to Iraq only to find himself dragooned into a dangerous rescue mission across the poorly marked border between Iraq and Iran to rescue that company of lost Army support troops.   But it was the first time, in the wild, cold mountains that marked the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan that his baptism by fire had linked him, for all the rest of his days, to the General, where he had seen his true metal, and his greatest secrets.  His book about that mission had landed at the top of the New York Times Bestsellers list for more than 28 weeks.       
 
His mind wandered to that first night when the copter lurched from side to side, spinning and losing altitude fast.   He could almost smell the sickly sweet odor of the hydraulic fluid leaking from overhead piping, where 50 caliber rounds had pierced the thin skin and made junk out of the engine.  He could hear the gears fall apart, as the blades started their counter rotation in an attempt to slow the copters fall to earth.          
 
“Bit of a problem,” Reinhardt said flashing a grin as he looked back from the cockpit at the soldiers pressed against the wall, their faces masked with fear.  Ted watched, nervously, as the General patiently nursed the copter down, slowing the fall with the counter rotation of the blades, almost willing it to find a soft spot to land.  They landed in a hail of bullets that ripped through the copter, killing several of the men instantly, wounding several others as they tried to get seat harnesses off. 
    
The terror of that night would remain with him until he died. Sometimes, even now, he woke up in a cold sweat recalling the way the darkness was shattered by flashes of weapons discharges illuminated the inside of the copter.  As the casualties added up, Reinhardt became a one-man army.  Ted watched amazed as hardened Special Ops troops huddled behind rocks as shell shocked as any First World War soldier.  But the General wouldn’t let them cower; he forced them to follow him up the hill protected by his own aura of invincibility.  Later, when he and Ted were making their way to the Moktar’s village to get help for the wounded, Reinhardt had explained why he was fearless in combat.  “Many years back, not far from here, a Sufi holly man read my fortune. He told me the manner and place of my death and it wouldn’t be from a stray bullet or ordinary bomb.”   
 
Kip James was waiting for him, standing impatiently at his desk, when he walked back into the newsroom. 
 
“Where the hell have you been?”
 
“Thinking,” he said taking off his coat.
 
“All hell is breaking loose.  Reinhardt made a speech this morning that roasted the incoming administration real bad.  The Lady, Kirsten Anderson, our next President, not surprisingly, is yelling and screaming for Reinhardt’s head early.”
 
“Reinhardt will resign just before Christmas,” Ted said taking off his coat. “He’s throwing his own retirement party at the Mayflower.  It must be costing fifty thousand dollars at least.”  
 
“Here’s this morning’s speech Ted,” James said dropping the printed transcript on the desk.
 
Ted read the transcript. It followed along the same themes – America must never let its guard down.  And then there was the theme that America was exceptional, a special nation with unique rights and duties to the world at large.   It alone acted while the other nations only talked.  It was another call for pre-emption of threats compared to the oft repeated strategy of the incoming administration for cooperation with allies and working through international organizations to solve global problems.   
 
He stuffed copies of the speech into his briefcase and left the office.  It was a twenty-minute walk from the Post to the Adams Morgan row house he shared with his college roommate, a poorly paid employee of a defense watchdog group.  
 
“Dinner’s in the fridge,” Randy yelled as Ted came in the door.  The room was a minefield of papers and documents on the thin paper on which Congressional committee reports was printed. Randy sat on the floor in the midst with his yellow notepad trying to make sense of his mess.
 
“Don’t you have a desk?”
 
Randy pointed towards the desk in one corner of the room piled high with papers.
 
“Find any hidden treasures today?” Ted asked sitting on the couch, pushing the piles of papers there to one side,  he studied the too thin roommate he’d inherited when he rented the two bedroom apartment.   
 
“One thing,” Randy said looking up from the Congressional Record he was reading.   
 
“Okay, I’m listening.”  Randy was forever giving him hints of conspiracies none provable and Ted typically ignored most of what he told him in deepest confidence. .
 
“Your friend, General Reinhardt testified in secret before Congress, about fourteen years ago, about some ‘black projects’ that were run while he was head of Air Force Systems Command in Akron. At the time, he mentioned, in passing, a Project NorthStar, but gave few details to the Committee.  Does the name mean anything to you?”   
 
“No.  What’s so interesting about it Randy?” 
 
“Apparently, after the briefing, an Arms Service staff member did a follow-up with Reinhardt and managed to get a bit more in the way of details.   He talked further about Project NorthStar.  The Steering Committee was made up of key players from Los Alamos, JPL, Lockheed Palmdale, and Drapper Labs.” 
 
“And the significance of this little known fact,” Rothstein asked knowing he would get an earful from his roommate.
 
“Los Alamos designs, or, depending who you speak to, builds nuclear weapons, while JPL manages satellite programs.  Lockheed’s Skunkworks builds things that we don’t want anyone to know about.  Drapper makes guidance systems for warheads, especially nuclear warheads.  You figure it out, Ted.  NorthStar is some kind space based offensive weapon.  It’s a direct violation of the peaceful use of outer space treaty that we signed back in the Sputnik days.”    
 
“What’s your source?”  Ted was always amazed at what Randy managed to dig up without using the Freedom of Information route despite its obvious limitations as to content.
 
“You don’t want to know,” he handed Ted the handwritten notes, “but it is curious isn’t it?”
 
“What year?” Ted asked trying to see the date.
 
“The testimony was given sometime in 2006.” 
 
Reinhardt ran Air Force Systems Command in Akron, Ohio during that time.   Six months later, Ted was in Afghanistan with him on an inspection trip. That was just before he received his forth star and became Vice Chief of Staff for the Air Force. 
 
He remembered something that Reinhardt had said when they were on their way to Afghanistan.   “Reinhardt told me on the way over to Kabul that he had to be back by mid-June for an important test.   Anything more on some test in June of that year in the back story you have.”
 
“I don’t think it was completed or made operational.  By 2007 the paper trail disappears, nana, nothing.” He added for emphasis, “Usually, they list the programs, even the black projects just so the incoming administration doesn’t get blindsided when some smart ass in Congress gets wind of it.   I checked with a couple of good sources who worked on the Toure transition in last 2008, there was no mention of Project NorthStar.  It was as if it never had existed, at least that’s the assumption, and yet with Reinhardt leaving and given the hints about the US needing a secret, operational, deterrent  to deal with rogue regimes and terrorists, something like NorthStar, if it is the project I imagine it to be, might just be something that our future President Reinhardt might want to have in his back pocket.”   
 
“Or,” Ted argued because it was fun to go counter-factual with Randy, “as you say, most military projects are costly failures, maybe NorthStar, whatever the hell it was, is another costly failure.” 
 
“I don’t know, but check this out Ted.” He handed him a document with the Top Secret stamp clearly visible. 
 
“Doing a bit of espionage, are we now, Randy? Don’t show it to me, I want plausible deniability when they come and arrest you.”
 
“Like so many other top secret documents, Ted, it just has to do with how much something will really cost. It’s meant to keep the truth from snooping Congressmen wishing to make a point by showing how fiscally responsible they are.  See the parts that are underlined.”   
 
“How could I miss them,” Ted smiled.  Randy had a habit of underlying in black ink, then running a yellow highlighter across the paragraph for further emphasis. “So they spent $ 13 billion on it, and it blew up in space, what else is new.”  
 
“No one mourned the loss.  Aside from the GAO reference, and the one official notification to the Congress in 2005, there’s no paper trail.”

      If you’re right Randy, then NorthStar was the blackest of the black programs.  Many people knew about the two stealth aircraft they built back in the early 1980’s, long before they became public knowledge.  You’re saying that somehow Project NorthStar managed to remain a deep, dark secret from everyone now for almost fifteen years?”
 
Randy stood up, went to the refrigerator, and grabbed two beers.   Coming back he handed Rothstein a bottle.    “Some good news too, Teddy,” he said sitting down on the couch, oblivious to the stack of reports.  “I talked to Judith today.  She’s offered me the job as Special Assistant for the Budget and Defense Guidance once she’s confirmed as Secretary of Defense.”
 
“That’s great. Does this mean that you can finally pay half the rent?”
 
“Of course, you’ve been great, couldn’t have done it without you buddy, but my goal is to get the hell out of here.  It’s hard to get laid in a bedroom just big enough for a single bed.   Your reward, for losing my pittance of contribution, is that I can get you inside dope from the E-ring.”  
 
“That is, if Judith Wilson survives the vultures circling for the kill.   And you, my skinny friend, better learn to bulk up and work out at the POAC, if you want to survive in the puzzle palace.   I wouldn’t put it past someone to put a contract on your head.” 
 
“You think she’ll be eaten alive?” Randy asked.  His own opinion was that Judith Wilson was a tough old bird.  She’ll survive and so would he.
 
“Slow cooked, then served slightly warm.” 
 
“She’s tougher than you think.”   

​He built his house a thousand feet above the bottom of the mesa.    The site had been chosen because it was remote and almost unknown by any but the few Indian and Hispanics who had lived there.  From his living room Ben Arnstein could see open sky on three sides. Sometimes, a violent thunderstorm roared past his window, other times the clouds drifted almost at eye level.  A good-sized thunderstorm produced the same energy as a thousand hydrogen bombs, leaving a trail of destruction worthy of anything Los Alamos could create.
 
  When he had accepted the government’s offer in the 60’s, his friends from graduate school ostracized him.  Working within the military-industrial complex was a career killer if he had wanted to switch back onto the academic track, but he hadn’t cared.  His graduate thesis had been on weak nuclear reactions propagation through plutonium.  Where else could he continue that type of research but at a nuclear lab with one of the fastest supercomputers in the world and tons of plutonium to work with?       
 
  Los Alamos was working on developing smaller, less lethal, warheads allowing a single Minuteman III to  carry up to 10 warheads each independently targeted.  Now, just a year from retirement, he was a Division Director without warheads to design or build.  But these were still city busters, but the last warheads he’d designed and even built were far smaller, almost micro in size, and produced in complete secrecy in a hidden underground facility, more than a decade before.  Now the talent was focused on something called “Stockpile Stewardship” which was just another name for waste of valuable high priced talent as they tried to estimate the likelihood that the existing stock of warheads would work if ever used.  Half of the people working under him spent more than half their time playing video games for lack of anything really constructive or interesting to focus on.  Deciding if a twenty year old nuclear warhead will actually explode when fired without trying one out was nearly impossible.  Any enemy must assume that an American weapon will likely do what it’s supposed to do irrespective of reading a thousand page report filled with graphs and charts.
 
         “Ben?” Marty Robinson asked stopping his car beside the road.      Arnstein stared at a point just across the open space at the lab’s well-guarded Site 58, where plutonium metal was stored for use in making the next generation of plutonium triggers for newly designed hydrogen bombs.  The facility might never be finished.  It was already billions over budget and years behind schedule.   Turning, reluctantly, he walked to the car where Robinson waited.         
 
         “Are you going to the meeting tonight?”  Robinson asked.
 
         “I wasn’t planning to, why?”
 
         “Mike Stetzer is speaking on the advantages of small sample statistical analysis for plutonium pressure tests.   Roger Carlton from JPL is coming too and promised to give a short briefing on his project to snag an asteroid and tow it back into lunar orbit. I remember you said you and he worked on something ten years ago.  Right?”     
 
         “Yes,” he answered thinking about that time and how exciting it was to work on Project NorthStar, and yet how destabilizing the NorthStar project was to the delicate balance between the major powers that had kept the peace for more than sixty years.
 
Ben watched Roger Carlton get hemmed in by some of the younger engineering types who idolized him and probably wanted jobs at JPL rather than Los Alamos.   It had been nearly ten years since they last met.     Carlton’s expertise was   robotics, the art of crafting machines that could assemble or repair satellites in space, or shut down nuclear reactions inside hot zones.  He was visiting Los Alamos, at the request of the director, to discuss developing better robotic arms for the assembly of new plutonium triggers.   
 
 
“How many years has it been?” Carlton asked once the lecture started and he could break away.   
 
“Ten, no almost fifteen,” said Carlton recalling the last time they had been together.   They’d been at Vandenberg watching the last of three NorthStar modules launched.  
          
“There’s a Starbucks down the block from here.”  K
 
Over coffee they talked about family and children, but not their work.    Security personnel were everywhere.  
 
On the way back to the meeting, Carlton asked the question that had been bothering him for years.    “You said something that confused me when the third bird went up,” Carlton said remembering the question he’d carried in his head for ten years.
 
“Won’t they be surprised,” Ben said with a laugh recalling the moment.
 
“And what the hell did that mean?”
 
“Exactly that,” Arnstein said without explaining more, “won’t they be surprised.”    
          
 It was time to change the subject.  
 
“You still have the ring?”
          
Arnstein held out his hand.  The gold ring was there on the opposite hand from where he wore his own wedding band.
 
Carlton held up his own hand, flashing his own, nearly identical ring.  
 
          

​Sarah read the story of the meteor striking a home somewhere in the Australian outback a second time.  
 
“Is there a problem Sarah?” her producer, Charlie Martin, the WNN News Producer for the early morning shift, asked when he noted her sour expression just  before her nine a.m. segment in the anchor test of the WNN morning straight news show.  
 
“It’s just that,” she paused collecting her thoughts, “I always thought a meteor striking a house was a one in ten million event.”  
 
“That story from Australia?” Martin asked.
 
“Yes” Sarah answered thinking about the story that her college roommate had told her.   “My college roommate’s parents and sister were killed when a meteor struck their house.”  She tried to remember more details.  
 
Martin shook his head and pointed towards the empty seat in front of the cameras.  The early morning news shows were mainly a rehash of last nights news, edited, and Sarah’s job was primarily to introduce the stories without much input to the content.  It was a far cry from what she had done when she joined WNN nearly ten years before.  Once the Markson Brothers gained control seven years back, the focus changed from straight news and investigative journalism to news slanted to a single point of view that Sarah found offensive.  Early in her time there she had been given assignments that needed her investigative skills, but once the change-over happened, her known left of center leanings had been channeled into more human interest stories and now, near the end of her run there, to reading the headlines and introducing canned reports.   
 
 
“We sugar coat the news Charlie or actually lie to our audience if it makes the point of the right wing owners of this company,” Sarah said walking over to his desk after her hour was finished 
 
“Why is that Sarah,” Ross answered knowing all of her arguments. 
 
“Compare how we treated President King, a man of few morals and who told far more lies than truths, and who even Randall, our chameleon of a New Director, agreed was dangerous to our democratic values,  with how we treated President Toure, his predecessor who could, according to commentators and guests on this network do nothing right.”
 
He waited for Sarah to stop her monologue, then asked, “what is your point?”
 
 “Take the story on General Helmut Reinhardt, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
 
“A hero by any objective measure,” Martin added, “so what?”
 
“The great man gave a speech yesterday to a bunch of right wing extremists two days back on the risks we face now that Kirsten Anderson will be our next President.    General Reinhardt asserted that Kirsten Anderson didn’t have the ‘ball’ that President King had when it comes to dealing with terrorists, that she’d be more worried about collateral damage for civilians rather than the risk that failure to bomb might have for American troops on the ground, that, Charlie, you know is not true, at least not from what she’s stated many times he saw as the failures of the Toure administration in Syria.”  
 
“Sarah, they were business executives and interested in what happens to the Defense budget with someone like Judith Wilson, Professor of Peace Studies at Cornell now, and rumored to be her nominee for Secretary of Defense gets her way and makes the cuts she’s hinted at . And,”  Martin paused, “he said things I think I agree with.” 
 
“Well, in any case, we ignored the most dangerous and inflammatory parts of his speech, letting him seem quite reasonable in his critique of what’s wrong with the foreign policy she laid out last year when she ran for office.  Someone like Helmut Reinhardt sounds reasonable, but the underlying message is – we can’t let our guard down, we have to protect the nation from the extremists in the Democratic Party who will now be in charge of keeping us safe.”
    
”So?”
 
“He called,” she paused for effect, “and not in so many words,  the incoming administration a bunch of far left progressives without any idea of how to govern or protect the country.”   
 
“I watched a good twenty minutes of the speech this morning.  The General pointed out the obvious Sarah; we live in a damn dangerous neighborhood and that simply assuming good intentions are not enough to insure security.”  
 
“You trust that man?”
 
“I trust that General Reinhardt has our nation’s best interests at heart, yes.”
 
“General Reinhardt is, at best, well-meaning and patriotic.  At worse, he’d like to create a fascist state offering security at the price of basic freedom.  It leads to Big Brother, and you know it Charlie!  He wasn’t talking about some crazy teenager with nuclear weapons like that nut in North Korea, he was talking about snakes in our midst and how best to weed them out. We have to let the NSA do it’s damn job, not hamstring it.” She stopped.  The argument with Charlie Ross was an old one and she knew she was skating on thin ice.
 
“What if this guy’s a fascist?” Charlie laughed. “They’re all fascists’ honey, spend most of your life saying yes sir, no sir, and you kind of get used to giving orders or taking them, but I’ll tell you what, we’re a few minutes short in the next hour, take a look at the speech, work with one of the editors to add a bit more ‘color’, about another minute okay?.” He smiled.  “ 
 
“Thanks Charlie.”  She touched him gently knowing he was one of her few allies in the news department.
 
As he was leaving her desk,  Ross remembered what he had  wanted to tell her.  “Sarah, make sure you drop by Randall’s office before you leave, he needs to see you about a story idea he has.”  
 
“What’s it about?”
 
 “Don’t know,” he said then remembered, “something about meteors.”
 
 
 
The message from Ed Randall, the WNN News Director, had been curt, to the point. Charlie Martin had handed it to her after she’d finished without a word, but he was obviously upset.  The note, while reminding her of the issue of a special story for the Christmas-New Year’s news drought on meteors, also suggested something more.  Perhaps, she thought,  as she walked to his office in one corner of the WNN building in mid-town Manhattan, she’d gone too far in adding to the clip on the Reinhardt speech with the few words of opinion she’d added at the end. 
 
“What were you thinking about when you changed that segment on General Reinhardt?” Randall shouted when she walked into his office after the 11 a.m. segment was finished.   “They’re going to give me hell about that upstairs.  The suits on the 20th floor love General Reinhardt and you made it look like he was going to round up everyone with a grudge against the government and put them in camps.  Your comments at the end didn’t improve the picture.”
 
“Quit fussing Ed.  I just highlighted the parts of his speech that made him sound a bit more strident and dangerous then the utter dribble that our editors had selected to show the people who happen to watch in the morning.”
 
“He’s also our most decorated war hero.   Two Medals of Honor, a Gold and Silver Star, that makes him one of a kind especially for a General officer Sarah.  He’s a national treasure and likely the next President after the Kirsten Anderson leaves office.”   
 
“And he walks on water too Ed.  Cut the infomercial.  General Reinhardt is far too political for a general officer.”     
 
 “We made him sound like Attila the Hun.  I saw it in person.   We stood and cheered at the end.   And Sarah, he’s pointing out the obvious.   We can’t let our guard down, not now, not ever.” 
 
What she’d done to the speech wasn’t anything more or less than what WNN did daily to the words of men and women more liberal than the General. Randall cooled off and sat back in his chair.  He’d hired her because she had independence in her journalism rather than simply being a beautiful face with a good voice.   It was trait he had searched for when he ran a news desk twenty years before, but which was less in demand in this age of sound bites and top-down ideologically correct journalism.    He’d have to ease her out next year to make room for a new face.   
 
“You read that short clip on that family in Australia, the one about that meteor striking their home?”  Randall asked.  
 
“Yes,” Sarah felt a cold chill.  “Why?”
 
“I’d like to do a half hour special on meteors and the danger posed to life on earth” Randall said, something to run during the Christmas – New Years week.  You’re just too good an investigative reporter to leave reading scripts” he added watching her face for approval.  “I need a solid half hour on the dangers of catastrophic events destroying this rat hole.  Get me a budget and storyboards. Split it into short segments so we can use it as filler too in the late night time slots when new news is scarce.” 
 
“Something to frighten the children before Santa comes to give out treats?”
 
“No! Stop being so damn cynical Sarah.  I want a story that’s positive and that shows how the government’s working to protect us from disaster.  There was a close fly-by a few years ago and then the Russian meteor that struck somewhere in Siberia not too long ago.”
 
Sarah took the subway home with her eyes barely open.  The early morning schedule was exhausting.   To reach the studio by 5 a.m., she had to get up by 3:30.  To do that she needed to be in bed by seven in the evening, not the usual time to go to sleep and not in synch with any of her friend’s schedule.  Too tired to even put the few groceries she’d picked up at the corner convenience store, away; Sarah collapsed on the couch, and dozed until the phone rang.  
 
“I caught your 11 a.m. show.  You’re taking some chances aren’t you Sarah?”  
 
“Teddy” she said pleased to hear his voice.  Their affair had been on and off again over the past sixteen years with neither one able to commit, and yet they were still the best of friends.  
 
“Sarah, Reinhardt bites.”
 
“I thought the General was your hero.  You made him into a national treasure.”  Rothstein had written two best sellers that had glorified General Reinhardt in the minds of the public and highlighted his unique brand of leadership and skills.
 
 “He made himself into a hero, I only reported the story” and Ted added, he saved my life more than once.       “Make no mistake Sarah, Reinhardt is dangerous when he’s pissed off.  So darling, be careful!”  
 
“Let me tell you, Teddy, that at WNN, and in corporate offices everywhere, the General is like a God.”  
 
“Not surprising, quit, I’ll help you get another job, one that uses your talents better than this one.”   
 
She knew what was coming and she wasn’t in the mood.  “I don’t want to hear it today Teddy.  I’m a third rate journalist, and you’re a star.” 
 
“Don’t sell yourself short.”
 
“News anchors are well-paid jokes.”
 
Sarah let the receiver drop.  She looked out at the New York skyline, barely visible through her picture window.   The people below looked small, inconsequential.   For the first time since coming here, she felt small and inconsequential.  Rothstein was right, it was time to change careers, it was time to leave WNN before she was ushered out the door by Randall. 
 

 

​General Helmut Reinhardt smiled, pointed to friends in the audience, and waited until the applause died down.  The ballroom at the Mayflower was filled with defense lobbyists and Congressional staffers.   They were his natural allies and future supporters.  He’d been giving this speech now for the past few months, carefully choosing his audiences, mindful too that he was skating close to the wind with respect to what a General can say without fully retiring.  By January, before the next administration took power, he’d be gone.  He waited until the room was nearly silent before beginning.  
 
 “I know terror,” Reinhardt paused waiting for complete silence before starting again.  “I know terror first hand.  I know terror from the ground and from the air, and I know that we must never let this madness take root here.     We must forever guard our future against those who wish, fervently, to destroy everything that is good and great about this nation, be they home grown anarchists or foreign agents, be they right-wing sunshine patriots unwilling to accept this great country is changing its hues and colors, or from the left bent on redistributing wealth and property underlying our economy through their charity with the money and sweat of others.   I will never let that happen, not on my watch, not ever!”     
 
 Next he carefully laid out the timeline of terror from the first bombings of our embassies in Africa to that fateful day when the Pentagon and the World Trade towers were bombed.  He didn’t mince words laying blame on both parties for failing to act or for making the problem worse.  No one could say that Helmut Reinhardt, the highest-ranking military officer and also the most decorated soldier in the history of the American Republic, waffled.  He explained how even taking down Omar Ibrahim, the founder of Al Qaeda,  did not stop others from seeking our blood and treasure.  He knew firsthand how our actions over the past twenty years in the Middle East had sown the seeds of terror not just in that region but in every part of the developed and developing world.    As he spoke, he thought of Ali Hassan, his old comrade from his days in Afghanistan in the 1980’s, was likely the secret face of Al Qaeda, far more dangerous than Omar Ibrahim had ever been because he blended in, he was accepted, a rich man using terrorism like play dough to enrich him and make him more powerful. 
 
“Broad oceans no longer protect us from home grown terrorists or foreign saboteurs bent on the destruction of our very way of life.  So, my friends, this old soldier will soon retire from the uniform, but not from the fight.   I will not stop working to protect the American people from politicians who willingly open our doors by letting down our guard.”  Reinhardt paused, looked squarely at the huge American flag hanging at the back of the Mayflower ballroom, placed his hand over his heart, and added.  “God bless you all, and God bless the United States of America.”
 
He watched as the room erupted into applause.  Once the cheering subsided, the General saluted the American flag that hung from the second floor balcony on the far side of the large room, turned crisply, and marched off the stage. 
 
“How do you think it went?” He asked his aide, a full colonel, who carried the portable computer that tied directly into the National Military Command Center computers and served as a secure communications device from nearly anywhere in the world. 
 
“You’re a natural politician General,” he said, then showed him the text message that had come while he was speaking.    
 
          
“Seems,” he said with a kind of ironic smile, “I’m making even Winthrop nervous, and that takes something to do.” 
 
“Some people, General, believe you’re planning a coup.”  
 
They both laughed.
 
          
 
 Hollis Winthrop’s secretary waved Reinhardt through to the Secretary’s office.     Compared to Reinhardt’s office, buried deep in the JCS area, the office of the Secretary of Defense was huge.  Winthrop was a caretaker.  He’s moved up from Deputy when the Secretary of Defense had departed three months before the end of President Kings tumultuous term in office.
 
“You’re making quite a name for yourself General,” the Acting Secretary of Defense said with a chuckle.       
 
 “I’ll be gone soon enough Hollis.”    
 
“If their campaign promises can be believed, this building will be turned into the VA hospital it was designed to be after the last Great War to end all wars.  Appointing Judith Wilson has a lot of people looking for jobs.”  Winthrop, a nominal Republican appointed by King at the recommendation of one of his donors said with a smile.  He’d heard only complaints from anyone with a stake in the overpriced weapons systems from the F-35 to the ill-fated Army Fast Deployment flying carpet the M13 Ground Hugger.
 
“No doubt” Reinhardt had seen the look of fear on the faces of even senior military officers who were close to retirement.  If Wilson could be believed she would enforce the conflict of interest rules that were mostly ignored, making it hard for these old warriors to get rich on consulting contracts once they retired.
 
“You have plans for when you retire?”
 
“Consulting, lecturing, and speaking out.  It’s not money that I want,” Reinhardt left the rest unsaid knowing that Winthrop was well aware of his Presidential ambitions, “besides my mother left me a rather obscene amount of money  when she died.”   
 
“The Senate?” Winthrop asked.
 
“Takes too long to get ahead there, I’m thinking of something a bit higher.”  
 
“You think the Party would turn to you Helmut?”  
 
“Unlike some of the people they have turned to project “strength” I at least know when it can and when it shouldn’t be used.”  He had lived through the years of the King administration working hard to stop him from doing anything stupid, crazy, and in his own mind, preparing to remove him from office before he started a nuclear war that would have left millions dead from Korea to Japan to the United States mainland. “Still,” he mused, “ if there were a crisis, say a terrorist attack with a suitcase nuke, then I think I’d win in a heartbeat.  Also Kirsten Anderson will have her hands full just trying to get this country moving again after the October collapse given that the cookie jar has been cleaned out by the last Republican tax bill.  So there’s a real chance and God knows I’m no racist, but the far right wackos love me anyway despite my known belief that we need to close the racial and economic divide on this country.”   
 
Hollis Winthrop had known Helmut Reinhardt for more than twenty years. The General could be charming, and yet, there was something else about the man that made him uneasy too.     Reinhardt’s route to the Chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff had been quite unconventional for an Air Force officer.  He’d gone from the Academy where he graduated near first in the class, to flight school before the end of the Vietnam War, and then taken the special operations course in the jungles of Panama and a dangerous forward air controller job during the last year’s of the war flying missions deep into enemy held territory as a forward air controller.  He’d been dropped behind the fast changing lines during the last days of the war and called in air strikes to give the retreat from Saigon more time, and for that work he’d earned a Silver Star for bravery, the first of so many medals and commendations that many were left out of the numerous biographies and stories printed about him.    Within thirty years of leaving the Academy, he’d reached the rank of Major General when most officers were lucky to have made Colonel.  The rest of his career, Hollis knew, was the stuff of legends.     
 
That was the official story.   There was also a classified biography involving his four years running guns to the Afghan mujahedeen fighting the Soviets.  He’d have to bury that deep if he wished to become President given the tendency of the American public to see conspiracies everywhere.    
 
“Do you still see that reporter,” Winthrop asked thinking about the two best sellers that had made Reinhardt into a household name.  The two deep penetration missions, one along the Pakistani-Afghan border in 2006 and the other about two years later near the end of the Iraqi war where he’d rescued a company of support troops that had strayed across the Iranian border, had earned him two Medals of Honor, a unique accomplishment especially as he was by then already a General officer and Generals rarely were placed in the kind of dangerous situations that Helmut Reinhardt craved.   
 
“Teddy Rothstein?  We had a falling out over that last article he wrote.   He’s become a bit too critical of me for my taste.”
 
“After you made his career?”
 
“Yes, but that’s the nature of this business, isn’t it Hollis?  Can’t always trust your friends, but you sure as hell can know your enemies will be coming after you.”
 
Winthrop was about to dismiss Reinhardt when he remembered the rings.  It was one more loose end he wanted to clean up before the new team took office.   
 
“NorthStar” Hollis asked. “Mean anything to you General?”
 
“NorthStar was my Waterloo, Hollis, a failure through and through,” Reinhardt explained with a sigh, “wasted about $ 13 billion in taxpayers’ dollars, all black money from over budgeting on purpose some of the new equipment.”
 
“What was it intended to do?” Winthrop asked, surprised by the answer.  He’d earlier tried to find references to it in highly classified project files on “black program”, but without success.  It was like it had completely disappeared.  He’d had the search go back all the way to 2001 without finding any reference to it, and yet there were the rings and the note saying these were part of NorthStar command and control.
 
“It was a blue sky project to develop a satellite system to intercept cell phone transmissions.  We tested the concept with one satellite in Polar orbit.  If that worked, then others would be launched to supplement the system.  Aside from the orbit being flawed, the equipment failed to perform as promised.  When the satellite’s orbit proved unstable, we blew it up.  We also blew up the paper trail on the project.”  
 
“You spent thirteen billion dollars without Congressional oversight?” Hollis asked incredulously.
 
“Don’t look so damn surprised,” Reinhardt answered angrily.  “You’ve worked here long enough to know how easy it is to spend that kind of money.  Secretary Forrestal, you know Forest’s obsession with using near space orbit to our advantage, you know the guy who added the phrase ‘there are known knowns and unknown unknowns’ to our military vocabulary, well,” Reinhardt paused remembering the conversation well, “set me the tasking first day he took office. He and his Deputy Secretary Kramer had been thinking about how hard it was to get a good fix on cell phones in remote areas for intercepts by NSA, then after 9/11, they decided to make it happen.   We had the first bird launched by 2004.  We tried to use off the shelf technology, but it didn’t do the job.   We killed everything once the orbit became unstable and electronic intercepts without a precise known orbit turned out to be worthless to the NSA. Before Toure took office, the lone NorthStar satellite’s orbit degraded so much it burned up in the atmosphere.    So we buried the record deep so no ninny from the Congress could find know what the project was about.     Honestly Hollis,” Reinhardt said with a chuckle, “its best forgotten.” 
     
 
“What’s this?”  Winthrop slid a small box across the desk.  Across the top there was a picture of a star hanging over a globe and printed underneath the words ‘NorthStar’ in gold letters.  
 
Reinhardt opened it carefully.   Inside were two rings that looked like simple gold wedding bands.  
 
“Souvenirs of the project,” Reinhardt said closing the box. “Mind if I keep this Hollis?  I lost mine a few years back.”
 
“Sure, keep them.  We were going to throw them out, but I had a hunch that you knew what Project NorthStar was all about.”
 
Reinhardt slipped the case into his jacket pocket.     
 
 He left Winthrop’s office feeling pleased.  Getting the rings back had been high on his agenda before he left, he’d suspected that they had been somewhere in the Secretary’s office.  Having them given to him so easily made him believe more strongly in the wisdom of his plan.  Added to his own ring from the project and the one that the prior Chairman of the JCS had given him on retirement meant that he had four of the nine rings needed to make NorthStar operational.
 
It was a short walk to the JCS area that filled nearly one fifth of the building, starting on the second floor and going down through three or more sub-basements.  At the very bottom, the National Military Command Center was located.   It was hardened to, in theory; withstand all but a direct hit on the building.  Deep inside the NMCC was the Tank, where the Joint Chiefs of Staff often met to discuss strategy and budgets.  It was a small, tiered room, in which the four service branch chiefs and the Chairman could sit facing one another and hammer out policy.   
 
Reinhardt opened the door to his office.   His personal assistant, a young Lieutenant, fresh out of the Academy, had been fielding questions for the past hour from angry four stars waiting for Reinhardt in the JCS conference room, six floors below deep inside the National Military Command Center.       
 
“You know how General Franks gets when you fail to show up for an Army briefing?”
 
“Who cares how General Franks gets, Mira?  I was with Winthrop.  Not surprisingly, he had a problem with my speech two days ago.  Wait until he reads the transcript of this morning’s speech.”  
 
“They’re waiting for you downstairs, General” Mira reminded him gently.
 
 
“Let them stew.  Franks will argue for more money in the January budget.  But it won’t make a difference, since the budgets dead on arrival. Twelve months of wasted effort.   Judith Wilson will cut the goodies, including that stupid, rapid-mobility hovercraft that Franks has been pushing.”  He paused and offered her one of his million dollar smiles. 
 
“Okay, General, what should I tell them?” Mira asked. “Are you going down or not?”
 
“What, Mira love,” Reinhardt kicked the door shut, “if we simply went to lunch, and after lunch we retreated to my place and screwed?”
 
Mira blushed, and then opened the communications channel to the JCS meeting five stories under the Chairman’s office in the command post.    The flat panel closed circuit TV along one wall showed General Franks, the Army Chief of Staff, standing ramrod straight in front of a podium.
 
“Helmut here, Bob,” Reinhardt said into the camera on his desk.  He studied the on the other screen in his office.  It showed the equipment levels projected for major commands by type for the next five years.     As he did so, he motioned for Mira to come closer, pointing to his lap, while turning off the video feed from his office to the conference room.  She chose a part of his large desk empty of papers and leaned back against it so she could see the  the huge  television monitor on the far wall of the office.  She’d made that mistake with Reinhardt once too often.      
 
“I think you’ll have to cut the M13 Ground Hugger program again.”
 
“Helmut if we don’t get that mobility platform then what the hell was the point of adding two divisions of light infantry to the active forces?  How are they going to deploy without the Ground Hugger?”
 
“The way you used to deploy, Robert.  March or ride in those fifty thousand plus Humvees or ten thousand plus Bradley’s, Styker’s, tucked away, safe and sound, in,” he hesitated as he tried to recall the exact number, “God only knows how many of those super-armored personnel carriers you just had to have for Iraq and Afghanistan.    Who says soldiers need to ride into battle on a cushion of air Bob?  And,” Reinhardt paused for effect knowing how it would infuriate Franks, “if you’d spent any time in combat, you’d know that a few grunts spread out is less of a target than twenty in one of those poorly armored Bradley’s or Humvees.  You agree Bull?”
 
The Marine General, a fireplug of a man with a head that rested squarely on his shoulders, without seemingly the benefit of a neck, stood up as the camera turned to focus on his face.    His nickname was ‘Bull’, because he never wavered in battle, always charging ahead at the front of the troops.  It was a wonder that he’d never been shot badly.
 
“A’hh agree with the General, Bob,” his Tennessee drawl making him hard to understand. “You know, and I know, the Hugger never will get you the kind of mobility you’ll need, besides the fucker costs too much; and unless it’s going across a parking lot, it’s slower than molasses.   We tested one, Helmut; damn thing only did about seven miles an hour across flat, open terrain, but then stopped dead when it came to trees.  Heck, it just barely made it over shrubs and underbrush barely four feet tall,” he laughed.  Then he added the final negative “the fucker uses fuel like an M-1 tank.  Unless you have flying fuel trucks in the mix, Bob, then you’d run out of gas before you reached the battle.”   There was just one final insult to be added to leave Franks fuming.  “Course it sure looks great going over shrubs.” 
 
 This was a standing joke within the senior brass, guaranteed to royally piss the Chief of Staff of the Army.    The Hugger had been previewed using a computer-generated simulation produced by the contractor when the system was in Phase I development. It showed the Hugger speeding across a field of low-lying bushes.  Explosions were going off all around it without hitting a single one of the 100 thousand dollar Huggers.        
 
The Army Chief of Staff, Bob Franks, knew the Hugger had problems.  Yet, if the Hugger were cut from the force table, then he’d be living on only his pension when he retired at the end of the year. With the Hugger in the budget, General Defense would hire Franks as a consultant, at a six-figure salary to keep the program on track for more funding, and he could retire to the golf course and fund his grandchildren’s college to boot.   
 
 Until Reinhardt had interrupted, the briefing was going well, but now the entire force mobility strategy, on which next year’s budget was based, would need to be reworked.  Franks glared at the Marine General, only to be met by an equally formidable stare in return.  He didn’t need to be told the best way to lead his million men by a Marine Corp General, whose force consisted of just two amphibious divisions of barely forty thousand soldiers.
 
“Sorry to rain on your parade Bob, but I think you need to see how things look without the Hugger in there.  Look for other transportation options that we can afford without sacrificing too much in the way of firepower to get them.  I think I’ve heard enough.  Anything more, Bob?”
 
 
Franks found it difficult to go on.  Still, Reinhardt would be gone in less than a month.   “I guess I’ll go back and see what we can do with what we already have in the pipeline, but the Hugger is still needed.”
 
Reinhardt threw him a bone.    “Send me a report on what it will take to solve the technical problems.  Price out a 1000 unit-buy assuming the technical fix is in and it can clear eight feet at 20 miles per hour.”    Reinhardt knew that  these were program goals that it was unlikely to meet no matter how much was spent.  They were the original, pre-contract, minimums for the program.  GenD ignored these goals after it won the contract.  Trying to meet these had added at least a billion dollars to the development budget with no end in sight.           
 
“Sounds good,” Franks saw a glimmer of hope for his post-retirement lifestyle. 
 
 
Mira switched off the monitor.  She watched Reinhardt pace the room.  The man was an inspired liar.   He lied to her all the time.  He told her that he’d make her a proper offer someday when he was out of uniform, but she doubted it. She was caught between her ambition to move up quickly and being an attractive young woman. 
 
“What do you think about the Hugger,” Reinhardt came close to Mira who was still leaning against the desk trying to push down her skirt.  “Turn you on, Mira?”  He reached and took her in both arms from behind, his hands pressing against each breast.  “Now this, Mira, is a hugger that you can count on.”
 
She pushed him off, but he continued to caress her buttocks.  She hoped that there wasn’t anyone in the outer office waiting.  Reinhardt often became quite vocal and crude when they made love.  So much for sexual harassment training of senior officers in the military she thought, still there was something almost hypnotic about the General that allowed her to maintain just enough self-respect to keep quiet.
 

 

​“Hell of a mess Donny?”  General Reinhardt said observing the burning ranch house.  
 
“Yes, General, hell of a mess.” Colonel Donney Porchelli agreed looking around at the crash scene.  The fire that had consumed the ranch house was almost extinguished now.  Huge, portable lamps lighted what was left of the house and the grounds.    The warhead had missed by more than two hundred miles.   It had flattened an old ranch house deep in the Jemez Mountains setting it on fire and killing the two occupants. 
 
“The couple died instantly,” Porchelli answered before the General could ask.      
 
“The warhead, anything left of it?”
 
“What we found is over here.” He pointed to the small tarp that lay on the ground near the ruined ranch house.  
 
The General pushed the scraps apart with his gloved hand.  He wasn’t happy.  Someone, probably at Drapper, had screwed up what should have been a simple calculation of trajectory.     
 
The barn, however, was not damaged.   The General noticed one of the men lift something into his arms  just outside the barn.  .
 
“What’s that?” the General asked pointing.
 
Porchelli met the airman halfway.  He returned a minute later out of breath holding a small child in his arms.  
 
“She was in the barn,” he said.
 
The General looked closely.  The child, probably no more than three year old, was crying, clutching a worn brown Teddy bear.          
 
 “I guess we have a problem General?”
 
“I guess we do Colonel, any ideas?”
 
“None sir”, he answered. “It’s above my pay grade.”
 
 “As you said Donny, that’s above your pay grade.  Burn the place.  Make sure you get the animals out of the barn; I don’t want any PETA types investigating and getting nosy.  Fewer the questions,  the better, accidents happen.  Right?”  Reinhardt said thinking about the consequences of the system failure to meeting the deadline that Secretary had set.    
 
 “I don’t like it” the Colonel said worried.  He didn’t entirely trust General Reinhardt.
 
 The General knelt down to be on the child’s level.  With a light hand, he brushed her hair back, away from her eyes. “Honey, it’s going to be okay,” he removed his glove so he could caress her face, drying her tears as he did so.  “Come, I’ve a real treat for you.”  He pointed towards where a small helicopter at one end of the well-lit field.    
 
Taking his hand, she followed him towards the sound of beating eggs on hard ground.    

​Hassan gritted his teeth in the bone numbing cold.  It had been a long, slow ride up from Peshawar.  He was exhausted from the jostling as the truck bounced over the rock strewn road not much wider than a goat trail.  It was far removed from his native Qatar with its flat, dusty, desert or the towers of Doha.   Opposite him sat the American officer who seemed impervious to the biting cold or the rough ride.  His coming, a month ago had shaken his world more than had the Imam who dared him to come to this God forsaken land in a mission of holy Jihad.   Before the American had come with his attitude and his airs, he and Omar Ibrahim had led a comfortable life in a heavily guarded villa in Peshawar handing out funds to the many Mujahedeen groups fighting the Soviets for control of Afghanistan.  
 
The American officer had just recently arrived to coordinate supplies, but a comfortable life in Peshawar wasn’t for him, and he had challenged both Ibrahim and him to do more than opening religious schools throughout the Northwest Territories or handing out Saudi funds to the warring groups of Afghan freedom fighters based in Peshawar.  In the end Ibrahim had given in and now Hassan was cold, hungry, and angry at both the American and the Saudi for forcing him to risk his life in a tour of the multiple Afghan battlefields from the North where the Tajik’s were fighting and through to the southern lands where the Pashtun tribes were fighting both the Soviets, the puppet government in Kabul, and each other.   
 
The truck stopped suddenly sending him pitching forward.  He listened while the driver spoke to the American in Pashto, a language he barely understood.  The American stood up and reaching down helped him to stand.     
 
“Come,” he said in Arabic, “we’re here.” 
 
The driver helped them down from the truck and pointed to the mud brick building with a dirt-encrusted sign in English with the word Café barely visible in the moonlight. The American now took the two packs and rifles from the truck.  Without waiting, he lifted one on each shoulder and walked towards the light, leaving the Arab standing in the cold.  Reluctantly, the Qatari followed.  He was enough of a mystic, despite his Western education, to realize that from this point on their lives would be intertwined, like vines on a tree, so that even if they went in different directions, at some point their lives would intertwine again.                  
    
Once inside, the driver pointed towards the back of a smoky room smelling of stale tobacco smoke and fumes from the open fireplace.  The table was set back, away from the others, and there was one man seated, the face hidden by a hood so that only the eyes could be seen in the shadows.  The building was old, the thick adobe brick walls holding in the heat from the open fire at one end providing what little there was.   On one wall was a torn poster for an Indian movie complete with a half clothed young woman.
        
The face was hidden under the patu, the warm blanket that Afghan men used to keep warm in the mountains.  The voice that greeted them, however, was that of a young woman.   The Arab startled.  The American pushed the hood back to see the face more clearly in the dim light of the kerosene lamps.  Her eyes were gray-green, deeply set, and penetrating.     
 
“A girl?” the Arab said surprised.
 
“I’m mujahedeen!”  She corrected.  
 
 Before any more could be said, three grizzled men walked to where they were seated.  The girl rose, motioning them to sit, but the men continued to stand speaking quickly in Pashto.      They left and then she sat down again watching as they withdrew to a table closer to the door.  
 
“They’re to take us into the Khost region tomorrow, just over the mountain from here.”
 
“How long to the first village?” the American asked in English.  
 
“Depending on the Russians, a few hours, or days, or never,” she said in English, her accent lilting, but her words clear.  She was thinking about the road ahead.  She stared at the American.  He was ruggedly built; there was the look of a man who could not be stopped by high arid mountains and cold winds.   Then she stared at the other man, the Qatari.  He looked too frail to survive the mountains and the Russians.  
        
 
“Will he make it?” she asked in Pashto, looking directly at the American officer.  
 
The American looked at the Arab.   There was something in his eyes that told him the truth.  He translated the girl’s words into Arabic and the answer was quick in coming.
 
“He says if a girl can make it, then he can too.” 
 
A thick stew of lamb, with warm Afghan bread, and richly brewed black tea laced with cardamom, was brought to the table.    The woman ate sparingly; with wary eyes she watched the two men, wondering which would crack under the strain.     It would be a long journey through a dangerous land from the Panjahir valley, where the Tajik’s fought the Soviets in the north to the plains of Kandahar in the south.       
 
They finished their meal and were about to follow their Pashtun guides out to into the night when an old Sufi hobbled over to their table.  He spoke in a whisper in a dialect neither man could understand.  The girl listened carefully, and then she smiled.  She translated into English.
 
“He’s Iranian, a Sufi holy man.  He reads fortunes. He asks if you would like to have your fortune told?”  
 
“Why not?” the American answered intrigued.  So far his life had been charmed, but what might come now was more of a gamble, risking his career as well as his life, in these high, dry mountains.  Far more dangerous even  than when he had flown deep into Vietcong territory as a forward air controller during the last years of the Vietnam War. 
 
 “Only Allah knows the future,” the Arab answered looking towards the door. 
 
 
The old man sat down at the table as the girl laid a few coins in his cup.                 
 
 
With his gnarled, arthritic hand, he took  her palm first.  He studied it for a long time and then closed his eyes; his face turned dark, as he let go of her hand.  As the old man spoke, the girl’s smile disappeared
 
“What did he say?” the Saudi asked anxiously.
 
“Some futures are best not told,” was all she could say through tears. 
 
Next, he reached for the American’s hand, studying it.     When he finished, he motioned to the Arab.    The Qatari pulled away, but the American reached for his wrist and pulled it forward placing it in the old man’s hand.  The old man gripped it tightly and for a long time he stood very still mumbling words that only he understood.   Finally, he spoke, his voice almost a whisper.  The girl listened carefully, and then translated from Farsi.
 
 “Brothers in blood, owing a life, separate paths to the same end at the place where it all began.  Death will find both in a blinding flash of fire as bright as the noon-day sun.”