“Tell me it’s not true,” Stockton cut him off.

Jameson frowned. “What’s not true?”

“Don’t play this game with me, Miles,” Stockton said. “The PLF. That we created it. That you created it.”

Jameson’s face grew grave. “Oh no. Don’t tell me she’s got you convinced. Carolyn needs help, John. The job’s gotten to her. The woman’s paranoid. She’s clinical.”

“So you deny it?” Stockton asked.

“Every bit of it!” James said. “Did you know she fabricated a story about an attempt to kill her? About some sort of covert escape with stealth gear and a helicopter?”

“Fabricated?” Stockton asked.

Jameson nodded. “She crashed her rental car, barely made it out with her life, made up some alternate story, has been telling people about it, some sort of James Bond story.”

“But it’s not true?” Stockton asked.

Jameson shook his head. “No. She might actually believe it, mind you, in some sort of paranoid delusion. But we interviewed the officers on the scene of the car crash. We talked to the flight crew she says flew her. She was in the car. She was driving. There was no helicopter.”

“And these witnesses will swear to this?” Stockton asked.

Jameson shrugged. “I don’t see why they wouldn’t.”

“Because you’re a damn liar!” Stockton yelled, exploding with rage, thrusting an accusing finger at Jameson. “Aiken interviewed those people. Two of them say they were offered bribes, in the millions to lie!”

Shock registered on Jameson’s face. Disbelief.

“CALVINIST,” Stockton said. “HARBINGER. SENTINEL.”

He threw the names at Jameson like slaps, every one an insult.

Jameson’s face grew enraged.

“You don’t get to lecture me, John!” Jameson growled. “You opted out of the hard calls.”

“Bullshit!” Stockton said. “I was there! I was ready!”

“No,” Jameson spat. “You weren’t. You’re still not.”

“We don’t fucking lie!” Stockton shot back. “Not like that! Not on that scale!”

“We lie all the time!” Jameson leaned forward, staring at Stockton, punctuating each word with a sharp small movement of his head, with an extended finger jabbing down at the floor, like a school master teaching a thick-headed student. “We do whatever it takes to keep this country strong. You better fucking learn that, before it’s too late!”

“You can’t build a country on lies,” Stockton said. He strode for the door.

“John!” Jameson reached out, grabbed Stockton’s forearm with one outstretched hand.

Stockton pried it off.

“You’re going down, Miles.”

Bo Jintao looked up as General Ouyang re-entered the room.

“We were repelled,” Ouyang said. His voice was grave.

Bo Jintao’s eyes grew wide. “At Jiao Tong?”

Ouyang nodded. “They had anti-tank weapons. Cyber weapons.” He paused. “And the clone soldiers were there. I fear the Indians are correct.”