Breaking Point by Dana Haynes Read Free Book Online Page B

payroll. He had served for a dozen years as a sort of ex-officio cabinet adviser to specific members of leadership in the Pentagon, and also as an off-staff adjunct to the NSA. He knew, thanks to the suite of surveillance equipment at Malatesta, Inc., that Andrew Malatesta referred to him as “that damn spook.” Barry actually liked the nickname.
    The Infrastructure Subcommittee on Deferred Maintenance had been given its name under the theory that no congressional investigator or crusading journalist would think twice about such an excruciatingly dull, corporate work group. The members included Barry, whose personal org chart was a bramble bush of dotted lines and deniable culpability, along with Liz Proctor, director of the Aircraft Division (with oversight of both jet fighters and gunships) and Admiral Gaelen Parks, retired, formerly of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and now director of Halcyon’s Military Liaison Division. They met in an office in a building owned by Halcyon but leased out to the Department of the Interior, an office that was swept for passive and aggressive surveillance daily.
    When Barry said they had a “ploughshare” problem, Gaelen Parks growled, “Malatesta.”
    Barry cleaned his glasses, nodded.
    Liz Proctor, a willowy blonde in her fifties, said, “We all saw this coming. He’s been the weak link from the start.”
    â€œOf course.” Barry nodded, slid his glasses back on, and the lenses picked up glare from the overhead lights. “But his designs are revolutionary. We didn’t have all that many choices, and the wife has been gung-ho from the start.”
    â€œTypical for an immigrant who makes it big,” Liz said. “They tend to be überpatriots.” She started to light up a cigarette, then remembered they were in a federal office. She turned to Barry. “The prototype?”
    â€œUp and running. We really need to talk about field tests.”
    The admiral grimaced. He carried the same squat, square build that made him a tackle at Annapolis thirty years earlier. “We start testing the damn thing, we’re going to get caught. I’m speaking for the Pentagon here. I’m saying, if we get caught, we get no cover from the military. They cannot be seen making the commander in chief a liar, just days after he signed the accord.”
    Coward, Barry thought and smiled. “Sure. Understood. Liz: any word on China?”
    She crossed her knees and smoothed her linen skirt. Her linen looked crisp while Barry’s no-ironing-needed polyester sport coat was badly creased. “My sources at the NSA say they’re almost certainly testing a similar weapon. Pakistan, too,” she said.
    Gaelen Parks looked sour. “China gets it, it means North Korea gets it. Pakistan gets it, it ups the chances of al Qaeda getting its hands on it. Then we’re in the shit storm.”
    Barry said, “Hence the field tests. We’ll schedule a batch of them on the hush-hush. We’ll—”
    His phone vibrated and he pulled it out of the pocket of his ill-fitting suit. “Speak of the devil. Renee Malatesta just sent me a text. She wants to meet.”
    Liz said, “Is this good news or bad?”
    Barry smiled behind his thick lenses. “I suppose we’ll see.”
    *   *   *
    â€œWashington Post. Dreyfus.”
    â€œAmelia Earhart’s living in my mom’s basement.”
    Just past noon on a Monday, Amy Dreyfus had a Sprite in one hand and a fuchsia stress ball in the other. She sat at her desk with her butt barely in her chair, legs up on her desk and crossed at the ankles. A business reporter for the Washington Post, she’d been scanning the wire services—AP, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and Reuters—to see what was going on in the world.
    She grinned. “Andrew? Hey. Loan me some money.”
    She heard him laugh. “How do I know you