Free America by Stephen Coonts Page B

want to work. The system had certainly been expensive, more than fifty billion dollars so far, yet the politicians had approved the expenditures every step of the way. If SuperAegis worked—there was that caveat again—the industrial superpowers would be protected from the missiles of the great unwashed who hadn’t been invited to share the prosperity of the booming world economy masterminded by the superpowers. That was the cynical view, of course, argued loudly and vehemently in Congress and the world press, but it lost out when the votes were counted. Politicians liked big-bucks defense projects and the public wanted protection. SuperAegis was a military-industrial PR dream come true, a hundred billion bucks for Congress to spend on something for everybody.
    As the helicopter carrying Jake to Washington droned along, he reflected on the political battles and diplomatic maneuvering that had won approval for SuperAegis. Sharing the antimissile umbrella with Europe and Russia had been the masterstroke—an insight of pure genius from the secretary of state, Wallace Cornfeld—that had made SuperAegis diplomatically possible. And created a host of problems for the liaison team.
    Inherent in the entire concept was the premise that the technology must be protected from states not under the SuperAegis umbrella, the so-called aggressor states. If an aggressor state learned enough about SuperAegis to defeat it, all the treasure and effort would have been expended in vain. Of course, the nations under the shield wanted to ensure that once SuperAegis was in the sky and operational, the United States could not turn it off if the winds of fortune shifted into another quadrant. In addition, the Americans did not want the Russians or Europeans to learn too much about the system for fear they would figure out ways to defeat it in some future crisis, nullifying its capabilities. SuperAegis presented a monstrously complex technical and political problem; military liaison was the place where many of these cares and concerns came together, generating heat and smoke and—who knows?—maybe fire.
    Jake’s boss was an air force three-star, Lieutenant General Art Blevins. Jake had tried to explain to General Blevins that the liaison team faced an impossible challenge. “There is no way,” he argued, “that we can absolutely prevent leaks or prove that leaks have not occurred. And to the extent that any potential enemy penetrates the security walls and learns about the technology, the SuperAegis shield is less effective. For the countries under the umbrella to have absolute protection, security would have to be absolutely perfect. The only way to get close to that standard would be to execute everyone who knows anything about SuperAegis as soon as the system is operational. Even then, we might get ’em too late.”
    â€œI would appreciate it if you would put that recommendation in writing,” Art Blevins said. Although he never smiled, he did have a sense of humor. A small one.
    â€œSecurity is never perfect,” Jake acknowledged, marching bravely where no one else cared to go. “Still, a hundred billion bucks isn’t peanuts, and it’s being expended for a system that an aggressor may know how to defeat when crunch time rolls around. And the protected nations will not know about the holes in the shield until the missiles fall on their heads.”
    Blevins didn’t seem disturbed by Jake’s theorizing. “All military systems have that flaw,” he remarked.
    â€œSir, it strikes me that SuperAegis is our Maginot Line. And you know what happened to the French.”
    â€œIndeed. A great many politically connected French contractors made a lot of money selling concrete to the government. Presumably the people in Congress and the White House also remember their history.”
    â€œFor Christ’s sake, Art—”
    â€œThe SuperAegis decision has been made