“Cheryl!” Jon interjected—it was the most emotion he had ever displayed in front of anyone before. “Listen, Cheryl, you have got to learn something—security is not something to be taken lightly around here or most anywhere in the company. To call these guys ‘sticklers’ for security would be a gross understatement. A company that gets a reputation for lax security gets aced out of every single contract competition—ask Northrop, ask British Aerospace, ask any of a dozen excellent companies that had one little breach. It doesn’t matter how good your product is— they’ll blackball you in a heartbeat.”

He pointed to a tiny white box on the side of a hangar several dozen yards away. “This place is totally wired for sound—I should know, because I designed most of the systems they use here. We are constantly being scanned for bugs, weapons, recording devices, explosives, stolen components, tracers, communications equipment, chemicals, microwaves—you name it.

“Every word you or I say is recorded and electronically transcribed and analyzed, and any keywords found in the transcript sends a security flag all the way up to FBI, CIA, DIA, and a dozen other government and military security and intelligence agencies in Washington for follow-up,” he went on. “You say the word ‘Soviet,’ ‘bar,’ and ‘Nashville’ in a sentence, and in two days the FBI will have launched an entire investigation of you, all your acquaintances, all the circumstances surrounding your presence at that bar in Nashville, and any other permutation of those words they can think of—and believe me, you’ll be shocked at the shit they’ll come up with.”

“Jon, don’t you think you’re exaggerating just a little?” Cheryl asked with an exasperated smile. “I’ve been involved with some of the most sensitive and intensive security systems out there too, and I’ve never heard of any of that stuff. And why would they be scanning employees out here in the open for things they just got through checking us for at the entrance? And besides ..Just then, Jon put his head down and muttered something under his breath. “What did you say, Jon?”

Moments later they heard, “Hands in the air, all of you!” Cheryl turned and saw a soldier in strange pixilated black, silver, and gray fatigues and helmet aiming an M-16 assault rifle at them from the comer of a building. The strange outfit made him blend in extraordinarily well with the buildings and the shadows at the same time.

“What in the world are you doing? How dare you!”

“I said, hands in the air!” the soldier shouted again.