Reynolds forced herself back to the present. “Well, the truth is, I’m here to make what may seem like a very strange request.”

“Sounds like a regular day at the office, then,” Murphy joked. “I get those all the time. From your people at Langley. From the Pentagon. Heck, you can’t even imagine the kind of oddball proposals that come in from the NSA or the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. I don’t think those codebreakers and satellite geeks really live in the same universe with the rest of us.” He saw her face and sobered up. “But you’re serious.”

She nodded her head. “Yes, I am. Dead serious.”

“Okay,” he said, leaning forward in his chair. “Shoot.”

“I need a top secret alert sent out to all U.S.-controlled radar stations, AWACS planes, and other air units operating in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Turkey,” Reynolds said bluntly. “Basically, if they detect an unidentified aircraft—any unidentified aircraft—in their zone of operations sometime in the next twenty-four hours, I need them to intercept and shadow it . . . but not to engage the bogey unless it takes hostile action. I also want them to immediately report any such contact directly to me. And if this unidentified aircraft tries to land at a friendly air base or even a civilian airport, they should allow it to do so—and then take immediate action to secure that aircraft against air or ground attack.”

Murphy stared at her for a few seconds. Then he shook his head in amazement. “Yeah, I guess you weren’t kidding.” He sat back a little. “And is there anything more you need?” he asked, with a hint of irony. “Short of operational control over . . . oh, let’s say, a couple of Army divisions, or maybe a Navy aircraft carrier task force?”

Reynolds flushed slightly at his tone. Maybe she should have laid out more of the groundwork first, but what was done, was done. “Yes, I do need more,” she said quietly.

“Such as?”

“Authorization to form a special ‘go’ team of CIA and U.S. Air Force security personnel and technical experts, including specialists from the Foreign Material Exploitation Squadron at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base,” she told him. “A team that would be prepared to fly anywhere in the world at a moment’s notice.”

The Foreign Material Exploitation Squadron was exactly what it sounded like—a group of scientists, engineers, and other experts whose job was analyzing foreign-built aircraft and aerospace equipment captured on the battlefield or acquired by darker, less savory means. In earlier incarnations, it had pried open the secrets of captured Luftwaffe fighters and Soviet-era MiGs.

“That’s a pretty long list,” Murphy commented dryly. “So let’s cut straight to the bottom line: what exactly is the deal here?”

Reynolds had known this question was coming. But she still found it surprisingly difficult to lay her cards on the table. Secrets were the currency of the intelligence community, and once you revealed them, their value diminished precipitously. For now, she decided to disclose most of what she knew, just not everything. “A new HUMINT source inside Russia has suggested that a pilot may be about to defect with one of their advanced military aircraft,” she said cautiously. “Probably from a base somewhere in southern or central Russia. So I want to avoid the possibility that this attempt could end in tragedy, with one of our own fighters or missile units shooting the defecting aircraft down by mistake.”