As the closed-door security committee meeting progressed, Laurie tried hard not to fall asleep. The halls of power were, unfortunately, often filled with morons, and for some reason the morons typically seemed to control the agenda. I suppose the business world is much the same, she thought, though it was not much consolation. Meetings were, almost by definition, the product of the indecisive mind, and so they were usually run, and often populated, by indecisive people.

As they finished up another agenda item, she was wondering what was next, when General Pickler nudged her subtly with his elbow. Oh, I guess it’s us, she thought.

Admiral Hamilton had indeed just started presenting on the deep-sea probe project, and she knew she may be needed to interject at any point. She sat up and sorted her folders on her lap, she had several items with her which she could reference if there was a fight, and based on how things had gone over the last two days from a political perspective, a fight was entirely possible.

“After approving the second stage of the project in essence, Mr. Secretary,” the admiral explained, “we began reviewing each crash site in order to select the one most likely to provide a successful result.

“We eliminated the crash sites in Russian and Chinese waters immediately as politically untenable, and the one off our own Alaskan shore unfortunately fell in the Aleutian trench, whose particularly treacherous currents and weather patterns would add several extra layers of complexity to an already complex task. While the experimental scanner may be able to find the object, it would prove very hard to retrieve it from this location.”

“Yes, yes, I know about the problems there, Admiral, what about the others?” pressed the secretary of defense and chair of the meeting.

“Well, Mr. Secretary, that left the Eastern Mediterranean, Outer Hebrides, English Channel, and the two in the Indian Ocean. Of those the Eastern Mediterranean was the most practical, but we felt sending a naval vessel into the waters off Israel and Lebanon was less than wise, even a disguised one, so the next best options were the ones that impacted near the coasts of India and Sri Lanka, sir.”

“Ah,” said the secretary, sitting back, “so this is why I have been hearing about requests to enter India’s sovereign waters with a minesweeper. Requests that, I understand, have been denied.”

“Yes, sir, on the grounds that they intend to mount a retrieval project of their own, though we know from our own sources that they do not have the technology we possess to find the object, nor does it appear that they have dedicated the resources necessary to build such a device.”

“So what do you propose, Admiral?”