The perks of working directly for the President come in small and sometimes unexpected ways. Being stationed in Shamballa means enduring “the waiting room to hell” and all that comes with it. Heat, discomfort, radiation and more heat and discomfort and radiation. Yet despite it being the hottest day in history down here, our operations center has never been busier and we are conducting and overseeing operations in Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Egypt, France, Germany, Russia and that’s just these past two weeks.

We have garnered many successes out of these efforts, some small and some large, and today it is clear someone is appreciative. I am looking at an unscrambled message that awaited me in my inbox. I have set my inbox and my Fortezza chip to “auto decipher mode” and the gist of the message is that our funding has been increased by some 20%. An Executive Order was signed the same day we finished mopping up a gang of the most active thugs in Liberia. That’s a whole lot of money and exactly what we needed with our stepped up activities. I know some folks who would say this is an example of uncontrolled deficit spending, but when one knows where this money is going - one know these are the best spent dollars in the entire black budget.

I have a contracting friend at the understaffed Darpa who is the liaison and point man for a few projects SDAI’s in-house research facility has not the capability or time to pursue. He had given me a call a few days ago excited about measurable progress on a new type of armor. As one of the primary funding sources of the research we get regular updates and reports on the contracts progress it has already advanced to phase III and actual prototype manufacturing is occurring.

The armor is an entirely new chemical synthesis and is a a new metallic alloy instead of a polymer based configuration. With our recent experience in Iraq and other hot Hell spots around the world, we are seeking a maximum protection armor that can actually cool the wearer both passively and even more so actively. This new alloy has all the markings of a miracle metal. It does not fracture or shatter even under point blank attack by high velocity armor piercing munitions, is extremely lightweight and has the ability to be lined with a heat absorber instead of a heat deflector and channel this heat electrically to dispersion pods. Sure, like all new armors, munitions makers eventually perfect their wares to defeat them. However, the US will have a decade or more leeway time to use them without fear of obsolescence.

With this new funding available, I send an e-mail and give the go ahead to fund three dozen prototype bodysuits which will be put into the SDAI body armor inventory. All this money spent because good people are hard to come by and we do not view any of our personnel as expendable. The casualties the conventional military has incurred in Iraq is a reminder of the value of advanced body armor with cooling capabilities and the need to speed up R&D, lower production costs and make SOTA technology available across a broad spectrum - from the lowliest grunt to the Commander-in-Chief. The Darpa agent had seen a prototype put through a test and his enthusiasm was contagious. “This is the closest thing to Terminator-type body armor yet developed.” His endless enthusiasm about new technologies is what makes him perfectly suited for his job and he‘s seen enough failed projects that he saves his comments for the stuff that’s real.

“You still voice recording all these events? You know Doctor Doom did that sort of stuff too and he was a first rate psycho.”

“Tech2 one of these days you’re going to pay for not knocking first.”

“No time for formalities. We have fresh intel on Saddam. According to a French double agent - he’s in France and left with in a private jet of French evacuees, including people matching the description of folks from Total Fina Elf, the French oil conglomerate. He’s on the run though and we have to move fast if we are to get him.”

“Let me get this straight - Saddam is in France and they know about it?”

“Not officially of course, but they know he’s there and are providing him cover. Maybe they hope we’ll pack up and leave Iraq and Saddam can pull a Khomeni number and walk straight off an Air France flight and back into power?”

“Who is protecting him?”

“Supposedly folks from the Direction Generale de la Securite Exterieure aka the General Directorate for External Security.”

“Ah jeez. How come I feel this is going to get real messy.”

“It gets worse. He is supposedly cutting a deal with Chirac as we speak and will be leaving to the French West Indies within the next 48 hours.”

“Do we have a defined mission yet?”

“Yes. And you’re not going to like it.”

I take the folder which had been resting in his hand and open it up. The blue ink seal on the bottom of the paper next to a hand written signature tells me all I need to know about this mission.

I read the mission synopsis and I feel my jaw clench. Tech2 is right - I don’t like it. It’s not well thought out and will put our relations with France further in the toilet if we are successful.

A foreign assassin has killed one of the folks on the payroll of BI, a former UN weapons inspector employee - his death adds political drama to a concerted effort to discredit my President and make our work more difficult. Not too many people go out of the house to commit suicide - but it is clear his home security was obviously to tight to breach. The sign of an amateur. Could be remnants of Saddam’s global henchmen, but without a forensic analysis on my desk and some more recent intel that’s just a poorly supported educated guess.

We are going to attempt to seize Saddam at the airport in France when he is ready to be flown to the French West Indies. We have 6 hours to get there which means we’ll get to fly the “Silver Mongoose.”

The “Silver Mongoose” is a highly modified SR-71 Blackbird which was equipped for fighting and small cargo loads. It stands ready 24/7 for operations just like this one. In 1968 LBJ’s administration ordered all the molds for the SR-71 Blackbird to be destroyed. Fortunately, they all never really were destroyed but instead most were ferreted away to the southwest R&D facility now known as Area 51, and twenty years later in 1988 by the executive order of George Bush Sr., they were delivered in filthy crates to an SDAI R&D facility. In 1990 when the planes were taken out of service several were tinkered with. The Silver Mongoose is the byproduct of extensive tinkering and the wonders of new titanium casting processes. The best way to describe it is a pregnant SR-71 which looks like it was dipped in a chroming tank. In some ways its fat tail is reminiscent of Von Braun’s early rocket sketches. It can carry eight people and some equipment or twelve folks butt naked.

The Silver Mongoose was put into active service in 2000 by the President, has one of the world’s only, actively deployed, satellite jamming devices. It flies so high that it can (and has been) be used to jam satellite transmissions or take satellites out with air-to-space missiles. It is equipped with three MK-61A1 Vulcan cannons tempered for the extreme heat thresholds that caused jamming and difficulties at speeds in excess of mach 2.5. The plane has a nuclear capacity as well, but hopefully I’ll never have to see it equipped for such a mission.

“No time for daydreaming, let’s get moving!”

I jump up and into the specialized gear which is closer to an astronauts gear than a pilot’s. The suit is uncomfortable and we need to help each other fasten the many pressurized joints.
The desert heat is unbelievable. The Silver mongoose sits on the tarmac like some gleaming, old fashioned chrome car hood ornament from the thirties. The heat creates a distortion wave and the plane looks like it’s shimmering or some sort of a mirage.

Tech2 is on my left and Techs 3,5,8 and 12 are on my right. If only I had a camera to record us walking out to the craft. It would make the camerawork and drama in “The Right Stuff” pale beside it. In the 115 degree heat it feels like we are walking in slow motion and the two hundred yards seems like a mile.

No one is running. Not for melodramatic effect mind you - but in reality everyone doesn’t want to break open any of the suit seals that will keep us alive at mach 3+ and 80,000+ feet.

The ladder climb makes me wonder what Neil Armstrong must have felt climbing back up the ladder and into the lander to depart. Similarities abound: The risks involved are tremendous. The craft is one of a kind. But we have to endure far worse than Neil... we are going to have to change clothes in France. I can see it all now… we enter the public facilities and while precious minutes click by we have to explain to the gardien why we are brandishing H&K automatic weapons in his toilet. He may charge us another €0.40 for his trouble.