“Yeah, but for now at least, Castilla’s solid. And with the White House behind him, Fred has free rein to look into ways to mitigate the effect of Dresner pulling the trigger. They’re using an anti-terrorism study on the vulnerabilities of the power grid to see how fast they could take it down. There’s a chance that we could put most of the major cities on the East Coast in the dark over the course of a few seconds. And at the same time, we could pull the plug on the military networks.”

“How much would that cut casualties?”

“Maybe thirty percent in the U.S.”

“But everyone else in the world gets hammered.”

“Yeah.”

“And when they figure out that we knew and didn’t warn them, how’s that going to go over?”

Of course, she was right. But there was just no way to get the word out with Dresner watching. All it would take was one insignificant slip.

“That’s not all they’re looking at, Randi. Nothing’s off the table.”

“Including taking Dresner up on his offer to make a deal?”

It was an interesting question. Klein was strongly against it, but Castilla wasn’t a spy, he was a politician.

“Probably, but there’s no point in worrying about it. If they cut a backroom deal and we get called off this, then at least the pressure’s off.”

She nodded knowingly. If their plan went south—and it probably would—more than a million people could die.

They hit a thick layer of clouds and Randi turned her attention to climbing above them. When they were back out into the sunshine, she glanced over at him. “What if Castilla does make a deal? What if five years go by and suddenly twenty million just drop dead. Would you rebuild?”

“What do you mean?”

“The military. Fire back up the carrier groups and the tanks and the infantry. Sometimes, I think it all feels like a throwback to a different time. Now it’s all about nukes and people who are willing to fight guerrilla wars for the next ten generations. But we’ve got all that stuff and we’re used to it, so we perpetuate it.”

“I don’t know what I’d do,” he said honestly. “What about you? The CIA completely missed the fall of the Soviet Union, the Arab Spring, and just about everything else that’s happened in the world. Are you sure you’re worth the money we spend on you?”

“Maybe not,” she admitted. “What if the agency had never existed? Would the Soviets have invaded? Would al-Qaeda have destroyed us? I mean, I think we do a lot of good but if we had a clean slate, I’m not sure I’d set up the world the same way.”