Do No Evil (Aeon Trilogy Book 2)

Chapter 18

Jaeger let out a sigh of relief as the Secretary of Defense answered his holocall. With war planning at such a feverish pitch, he had been worried that the Secretary would not have time to speak with him.

The Separatist military buildup along the Missouri-Illinois border had not slowed. At the urging of the cabinet and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the President was considering ordering a preemptive attack on St. Louis as early as this evening.

Jaeger thought the idea was mad. But that was not what he was planning to tell the Secretary. He knew that line of argument was not going to sway anyone in the President's war council. All the generals could think about was the threat represented by the Separatist buildup, and how the fall of Chicago would split their forces. The Aeons, the generals would say, were ultimately a bunch of kids with a lot of money but no idea how to fight a war. If the Aeons ever tried to challenge the US military, they'd be smacked down before they knew what was happening. The more significant danger, the generals would insist, was posed by the Separatists.

Jaeger could not convince them otherwise, and the harder he tried the less credibility he would have. If he couldn't convince them not to commit folly, he could at least try to minimize the damage they self-inflicted. If he could infiltrate the Separatist communication networks and find their battle plans, he could ensure the Federal armies won the civil war quickly, before they were too taxed to defeat the Aeons.

"Mr. Secretary," he began, "two nights ago, a team of commandoes in my unit attacked a central clearing point of the Separatists' intelligence gathering. If the raid was successful, they will have implanted a virus that will give me the ability to gather intelligence about the exact disposition of Separatist military forces in real time. That information will be an invaluable asset in planning and launching our attack on their positions."

"Well, were your operatives successful or not?" asked the Secretary. He looked tired and pressured, and was clearly annoyed at Jaeger's uncertainty. "I need facts and figures, not conjecture, General."

Jaeger rubbed his hands together. "I can't communicate with the team now as they are still in enemy territory. The only way to know if they accomplished their mission is to try to use the virus. However, the operation required temporarily damaging the network connections at the facility they raided. The virus will only be useful once those connections are restored, which I estimate will be sometime within the next day.

The Secretary was distracted for a moment by an aid requesting his fingerprint on a document. Then he looked back at Jaeger, massaged his temples for a moment and sighed. "All right, Jaeger. Let me talk to people over here. Stay on the line."

Jaeger waited, and waited some more. Either the Secretary was taking Jaeger's suggestion to the President for a decision, or he had forgotten about the call. Jaeger paced impatiently around his office. His scheme was a bit mad, he knew. Most likely, Sarah and Michael had failed in their mission, or not even attempted it at all. It was unlikely he would find anything that would help the Federal war effort against the Separatists and even less likely he'd find any information that could halt the war altogether. But this was all he could do, so he had to do it.

After ten minutes, the holographic image of the Secretary blinked back into existence. "All right, Jaeger, It's 6AM now. You have until noon. Then we have to launch the attack."

"Yes, sir. Thank you Mr. Secretary." Jaeger was already running to the door of his office as he offered his salutation. He sprinted down the short hallway to the central operations room. Once there, he quickly searched out and found Hank Green. "The Secretary gave us the go ahead. Make sure everything is ready and bring the prisoner in."

Hank ensured that two of his Demon commandoes were ready at terminals monitoring the facility's computer. In another aspect of Jaeger's plan that he had not explained to the Secretary, he was about to give the captured Aeon Nick Lal access to the government's photon entanglement registry. Most likely, the Secretary would not have approved the operation if Jaeger had been completely forthright.