“I wish I could take all the credit for it,” Jon said. He motioned inside the belly of the AL-52 just as a little girl emerged, covered in grease and dirt but wearing a big smile. “Your Majesty, may I present Dr. Kelsey Duffield of Nevada, my partner and chief engineer of this particular weapon system. Dr. Duffield, may I present the king of the United Kingdom of Libya, His Majesty, Muhammad as-Sanusi.”

“Jon, for Christ’s sake!” Patrick gasped. “Pardon me, Your Highness, but. . . Jeez, Jon, you brought Kelsey Duffield ... to Libya?”

“I couldn’t keep her away, Patrick,” Jon said. “If you’re going to yell at me, stand in line—Kelsey’s mom isn’t done chewing on me yet. Patrick, this is Dr. Kelsey Duffield, our new partner; Kelsey, Brigadier-General Patrick McLanahan, retired, our v.p. in charge of operations.”

“Pleased to meet you, General,” Kelsey said, giving Patrick a big hug and a kiss. “Don’t worry about Dr. Wendy, sir—we’ll get her back for you and Bradley.” She gave Sanusi a little-girl curtsy, then went back inside the Dragon’s fuselage and back to work.

“Not exactly what you expected, huh?” Jon asked.

“I expected anything but a nine-year-old in a war zone, Jon,” Patrick said.

“We will get her out as soon as we can.”

“She’s advancing the state of the art in high-power lasers by five years every hour she works on the Dragon,” Jon said. But when Patrick glared at him, he held up his hands. “Okay, okay, as soon as we launch, Kelsey goes home.”

While Sanusi’s men and the Sky Masters tech crews loaded up the planes, Patrick and Sanusi met up with Dave Luger, Hal Briggs, and Chris Wohl in a meeting room, where charts and diagrams had been spread out on a table. “I have never before seen the defenses in Tripoli so strong and tight,” the king said. He took out a notepad from his tunic, then started drawing circles and crosses on the charts. “Zuwayy has definitely pulled in and reinforced his forces around Tripoli to prepare for air attacks. These are new mobile antiaircraft missile and gun emplacements—at least ten new units brought in within the past several days. We haven’t been able to actually count the number of fighters stationed at Al-Khums and Miznah, but we believe all of their alert aircraft shelters are occupied—that’s twelve fighter-interceptors on alert twenty-four-seven at each base.” He looked seriously at Patrick. “With all due respect to your men and machines, my friend, it would be suicide to attack Tripoli now.”

“We don’t have any choice, Your Highness,” Patrick said.