She smiled, even laughed a little. She had heard about General Pickler from Barrett long before Neal had even met the man, but Neal was right, the general was not the right man. Neal saw the last of the copy windows close and clicked on one of the files now on the drive to make sure it had copied fully. Happy with the result, he grabbed it and stood up, coming over to face Ayala.

“Look,” he said, “I absolutely agree that this is 100% Barrett’s call, of course, but maybe we, and by ‘we’ I mean you, could suggest that he think of another senior officer other than General Pickler who might be able to help us.”

She looked at him a moment and he took the hint and got more specific, “I know it will go against the grain for an air force guy to go to another branch, but, well, I think that Admiral Hamilton could be our man.”

She thought about this for a second, then nodded and said, “And who is going to approach the admiral? It isn’t easy to for an air force colonel to get a meeting with a senior admiral without his superiors knowing about it, you know.”

Neal smiled, “True, but a White House science advisor can arrange a meeting easily enough. If the colonel just happens to be at it, then so be it.” he shrugged, then his expression became much more serious and he added, “And if he happens to be carrying a gun …”

He left the thought hanging out there. She did not need reminding about their recruitment policy, she had been ready to kill Shinobu in a moment if their meeting had gone differently. Killing an admiral, however, would be a different matter.

“OK, I’ll talk to him about it. For what it is worth, I think you may be right. But military recruitment is Barrett’s field, and I will go with his decision here.”

He nodded, turning the now full USB drive over in his hand and then handing it to her. She unbuttoned the bottom of her blouse and slipped it inside a nook in her pants, tucking it down before rebuttoning. Neal always tried his hardest not to enjoy seeing her do this, but the truth was Ayala had encountered countless strip searches and worse, including her run in with a veterinary vaccination gun on her all too recent trip to North Dakota, and she was not shy. She didn’t care whether he looked or not. She did enjoy catching him pretending to look away though.

Straightening her jacket, she thought about what Neal had said. She would share his thoughts with Barrett when she got to Hanscom, along with her own recommendation. After that …

She looked at him, “Anything else?”

He shook his head.

“Good.” then more gently, “And you, Neal, are you OK?”