“How much does your company involve itself in classified government projects?” Duffield asked.

“That’s classified,” Jon replied. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” He chuckled at his own joke, but none of them laughed back. The little girl looked up from her reading—the technical journal was back on her lap, opened up to a picture of a particle accelerator in Texas, probably the only pretty full-color photo in the entire magazine—but also did not smile.

“We have a top-secret security clearance,” Duffield said. “We’ve also received permission from DoD and the Justice Department to talk—”

“Not that I know of,” Jon shot back. “As soon as I have my security folks brief me on your security status, and we verify it with the FBI and DoD, we can talk.”

“Your chief of security seems to be on hiatus,” Duffield observed. “So are most of your senior development and operations staff. We wanted to meet the McLanahans especially.”

“They’re out of the country. On business.”

“What business?” Duffield asked. “Company business? Or is it classified?”

“I don’t want to discuss it.”

“We also wanted to see some of your research aircraft, particularly the FlightHawk unmanned attack aircraft, the Megafortress flying battleship, and the airborne laser pene- trator aircraft,” Duffield went on. “None of those aircraft are on the field, or at any of your other facilities either. Where are they?”

“They must be flying,” Jon replied. “They do that a lot, you know.”

“They certainly do—a lot more than we’d expect of a system still in design phase,” Hudson said. “A quick glance at your petroleum bills alone and one would think you ran a tactical air wing.”

“One would be wrong.”

“You certainly have the computer capabilities to do extensive computerized flight testing on all of your aircraft, weapons, and spacecraft,” Duffield said. Jon and Helen noticed that the little girl had gotten out of her seat and walked over beside her mother, her little hands clutching the upside-down technical journal, intently watching Jon. “In fact, your systems rival companies twice as large as yours—again, far more capability than your income stream suggests you need. You certainly use the computers you have, but for what we’re not quite certain—apparently not for advanced design and development, since you seem to fly the aircraft to test them.”

“Something wrong with that?” Jon asked testily. “Or is that a typical bean-counter question?”

“Most companies would lease additional computer systems—you purchased them, and you spend twice as much as most other companies in upscaling them yearly,” Hudson said. “Why is that, Doctors?”

“It has to do with our security classification,” Helen offered. “Leased systems usually means getting a security evaluation for the leasing company’s personnel as well, which we end up paying for and becoming responsible for maintaining.”