The only other conversation he remembered from that night lasted less than a minute. He was ordering a drink when a man in his late forties came up to the bar. “I’ll have whatever this young man is having,” he said, before introducing himself as Zack Nielsen, congressman from Michigan. Nielsen, it turned out, was the one who had asked the DoD to invite Kilmer to the symposium in the first place. “I read your book, Professor. The Case for War. I thought we could use that kind of thinking around here. And I really liked what you had to say today… although you’re going to need to be a lot more assertive if you want to be taken seriously in this town. Good ideas don’t win unless they’re heard, Prof. Just keep that in mind.”
Kilmer had been all smiles after those two conversations. Finley and Nielsen had given him the kind of validation that he liked to tell himself he didn’t really need—even if the evidence, occasionally, proved otherwise.
Kilmer opened his eyes to find the Chevy Suburban making its way down Pennsylvania Avenue. He looked over at Silla, who seemed to be gazing out the window as they approached their destination.
“I don’t want to give you the wrong impression, Agent Silla,” he said, picking up the conversation where they had left off. “I really don’t have anything against this city. Things always seem to turn out better than I expected when I come to Washington.”
Silla looked back at him and smiled mildly. “Well, Professor, there’s a first time for everything.”
~ 21 ~
Kilmer, Silla, and Lane walked into the White House through the West Wing entrance, where they were greeted by Joana, Nielsen’s chief of staff. She offered the Triad agents a few options for where they might wait while Kilmer met with the vice president. They graciously declined the offer to hang out in the Press Briefing Room and settled instead for a small unused office nearby.
Joana knocked on the door to the VP’s office. When they entered, Nielsen was sitting behind his desk at the far end of the room. A dark blue carpet covered the length of the room, and two couches sat facing each other in the center. Neither couch looked very comfortable, although someone had tried to hide that fact from view. It occurred to Kilmer that anyone missing a decorative pillow in the White House might start by looking for it in Nielsen’s office. A glass coffee table and two ivory-colored armchairs helped to brighten the room a bit, but the office was still darker, narrower, and less glamorous than Kilmer had imagined. He had somehow pictured a smaller version of the Oval Office.
Nielsen met Kilmer in the center of the room and shook his hand enthusiastically. “Great to see you, Professor. Was the flight okay?”
“Flight was fine.”
Nielsen looked toward the door. “Thank you, Joana, I’ll take it from here.”
“Should I have them send the coffee?”
“Oh, yes. Please do.” As Joana departed, Nielsen turned back to Kilmer. “Are you exhausted?”
“More curious than tired. The sooner I find out what this is about, the sooner we can figure out whether there’s any point in me being here.”
“Unless you tell me the situation is completely hopeless, I’m sure we can use your help.”
“Things often look hopeless at the start, Zack—that’s not especially diagnostic, in my experience. Anyway, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
Nielsen nodded. “Come. Let’s have a seat.”
Kilmer was glad that Nielsen had pointed to the armchairs, and not at the pillow sale taking place on the couches.
“Let’s wait for the coffee before we get started,” Nielsen suggested. “I don’t think we’ll want the interruption later. And, sorry about this, but would you mind turning off your cell phone?”
“Sure.” Kilmer took out his phone, checked it once for messages, then powered it down.
A minute later, the coffee had been delivered, and it looked to be steaming hot. The cups were taller and narrower than standard issue—built to keep the contents hot for longer. A thermos with refills had been delivered alongside as well.
Kilmer picked up his cup and waited for the vice president to do the same. Nielsen hesitated, and then finally decided against it. Instead, he leaned forward and clasped his hands together, as if to convey, Here’s the thing, you see…
“Do you mind if I ask you something, Prof?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“Right,” said Nielsen, nodding his head as he contemplated his opening move.
“Professor… do you believe in aliens?”
~ 22 ~
Mark Lane was thirty-five years old and had worked at the CIA for eight years. Prior to joining the agency, he had been the founding chief technology officer of a cybersecurity firm and had made just enough money to no longer lose sleep over how much he brought home in his monthly paycheck. Lane was recruited heavily by the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology, and the agency was delighted when he said yes. It was a big cultural adjustment, but he decided to treat it like a startup—you work hard, knowing that you won’t get to reap the rewards for a long time. He stuck with it and loved it. In his fourth year, he switched over to Operations. In his sixth year, he was invited to join Triad.
Renata Silla was a star. She was thirty-seven years old and had been at the agency for thirteen years, starting out in Operations and then moving to Analysis. Silla had double-majored in history and computer science at Princeton, a college she had been able to attend only thanks to their generous need-based scholarships. She graduated early, and then spent a year doing graduate work at the Center for Nonlinear and Complex Systems at Duke—mostly because it allowed her to be closer to her father. Silla’s mother had left them when Silla was only two years old, and her father still lived in the rundown one-bedroom apartment where he had raised her. He was suffering from alcohol-induced cirrhosis and died during her year at Duke. He was only forty-nine.
After her father died, Silla cleaned out his apartment, finished her semester at Duke, and decided to travel the world on the little cash she had saved up while working part-time as a waitress during college. After two years of living on the cheap and working odd jobs across Africa and Asia, Silla came back to the U.S. to start over. The quant funds she interviewed with offered her the kind of money that would forever make up for the poverty of her youth, but when she imagined her life in those jobs, she realized she wasn’t desperate to leave her childhood memories behind. She had never resented how little her father made; the only sadness she carried stemmed from the fact that her father had never managed to find any joy in his life. He would take whatever work he could get, but only to put food on the table and to make sure Silla wasn’t embarrassed by the clothes she wore to school. Yet when he died, he managed to leave her an invaluable inheritance: a deep conviction that what was most important in life could never be purchased. So when it came to her career, she opted for purpose over paycheck.
Silla joined the CIA at the age of twenty-four. As early as her third year, people joked that she might one day lead the agency. By her seventh year, it was no longer being said as a joke. Now, with only five more years at the CIA than Lane, she was already three levels higher on the pay grade. She oversaw three separate teams—a total of twenty-two people—and co-chaired two of the international working groups that had been created during the present crisis.
Two years earlier, Silla had been the one to ask Art to bring Lane into Triad, and Lane had reported to her ever since. The two of them had gotten along well from the start. She was a boss, a mentor, and, increasingly, a friend. A year ago, Lane had married Silla’s first cousin, making them family as well.
Lane put away his phone and looked up at her. “Don’t bother wasting your time on it. The information they sent over on Professor Kilmer is totally useless, except for the one bit of data that would have helped protect our dignity when we first met him.”
They had been sitting in the room—a few doors down from where Kilmer was meeting with Nielsen—for over thirty minutes. A short while ago, Silla had asked
Lane to look through what the agency had finally sent them on the professor.
“Nothing I need to know?” Silla asked.
“Bupkis. Except that he’s unmarried—in case that’s of interest.”
Silla ignored the comment.
“Doesn’t even explain why he doesn’t want to live in DC,” Lane joked. “These profiles just get worse over time.”
Silla stood up from her chair and walked a few steps. “Doesn’t really matter. If the president wants him at the White House on the night before Armageddon, I’m sure he checks out.”
“Actually, his resume is included as well. I don’t have much to compare it to, but it looks impressive. You might be interested to know that he’s written four books. You can add the others to your reading list.”
“I’ve already read all four.”
“Really? You didn’t mention that earlier. Afraid he’ll think you’re his biggest fan?”
“Shut up, Mark. Just find something useful to do. Look over the DoD and NASA briefs for anything Director Druckman needs to know before the 8 a.m. meeting.”
Lane gave a quick salute, entirely in jest, and then took out his phone again. He skimmed through both briefs and finished reading just as Silla was ending a call.
“Hey, Ren, how do you think it’s going for the professor?” Lane asked.
“Depends on what you mean. Do I think he fell off his chair when Nielsen told him what was going on? Probably. I wouldn’t blame him.”
“I thought you might expect more than that from him.”
Silla leaned against a wall. “It’s not about that, Mark. Keep in mind, as shocking as all of this has been for us, we’ve had the opportunity to ease into everything over a period of two weeks. First the detection, then FERMAT, then Station Zero, then the lunar attack—one thing at a time. Only recently did things go terribly wrong. That’s not how it’s going to be for Professor Kilmer. Those two weeks are going to pass by in a single meeting for him. In less than an hour, he goes from life as he knows it, to aliens exist, to we’re about to launch a nuclear strike to deter an alien invasion. It’s a lot to take in. It would be for anyone.”
“So, he takes it pretty hard. And then what?”
Silla thought about it for a moment. “And then we find out what the guy’s made of. I don’t mean that in a snide way—I just have no way of knowing. Maybe he sticks around, maybe not. Maybe he can help, maybe not.”
“I think he stays. I bet he tries to help. What do you think?”
“I don’t know Professor Kilmer enough to venture a guess.” She paused. “I’m not sure what I think of him.”
Mark smiled. “You sure about that?”
Silla raised an eyebrow, looking textbook inquisitive. “Excuse me, Agent Lane?”
“Sorry, Agent Silla. I retract the statement.”
“You don’t get to decide which statements you retract. Just finish what you were going to say.”
Lane wondered whether he had crossed a line. They joked around often enough, but not so much at work—and rarely about topics like this. Lane’s wife was always trying to set Silla up with eligible bachelors, but Lane stayed out of those conversations. All he knew was that Silla typically said no to a second date.
Lane glanced over. The look on Silla’s face made clear she wasn’t going to drop the issue while the insinuation he had made still hung in the air. No escape.
“Okay. I’m just saying, there are some facts we ought to consider,” Lane began casually. “You’ve read all of his books. You think he’s brilliant. And then, it turns out he looks nothing like we expected, and ‘I don’t mean that in a bad way.’ He even has a sense of humor. So I think it’s only reasonable to ask… what does it all add up to?” Lane paused before adding the flourish he had picked up from binge-watching Columbo reruns on late-night television. “Oh—and just one more thing, Agent Silla. This… Professor Kilmer of yours… the president of the United States has just called on him to help save the planet. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I think the implications are clear.”
Silla offered Lane a slow clap for the performance.
“Okay, Mark. I’ll play along. I’ll give you the rebuttal, and then we drop it—for good. First, I didn’t think he was as funny as you did. Second, I read a lot of books. Third, if I had been smitten by his work, I would have looked him up before tonight—which, clearly, I did not. And fourth, he hasn’t saved anything yet. He might come out of there begging to be taken back to Boston. The jury would vote to acquit within seconds. Are we clear?”
“Understood,” Lane responded candidly. “And… in all seriousness… I’m sorry if I said something offensive or out of line. I didn’t mean for it to come out that way.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Then again,” Lane added, reviving his smile, “if I heard you correctly, it sounds like you might reconsider the matter if the professor really does help save the day.”
Silla sighed, not hiding her exasperation. “Okay, Lane. If he ends up single-handedly saving the world, I promise to give him a second thought. Happy? Until that happens, let’s focus on our work. I mean it. We can’t afford any mistakes—none of us can. So get to it.”
Lane got back to work.
Silla returned to her chair and tried to focus on a lengthy email that Energy Secretary Rao had sent. But after re-reading the same paragraph three times, she finally gave up. Silla put away her phone and leaned back. As she closed her eyes, it occurred to her that she was really hoping Kilmer would stay.
Damn it.
That’s annoying.
~ 23 ~
Heirs of Herodotus by D. Kilmer.
Excerpt from Chapter 4.
An examination of the historical record points to several problems in how we strategize for “today’s” crisis. First, policymakers tend to overweight episodes from the past that they experienced first-hand—both victories and defeats. Second, too little data is considered, with the same half dozen or so salient historical examples cropping up in discussions every time a new threat arises. Third, the depth of the analysis is dangerously limited—what are described as “lessons learned” from the past are usually little more than punch lines, loosely tied to an event that was much more complex, and whose outcome was multiply determined. When all three of these factors coincide, the probability of disaster shoots higher still.
If you enter Korea to avoid another China, and enter Vietnam to avoid another Korea, and enter Cambodia to avoid another Vietnam—at what point do you begin to worry that you are drawing lessons and inspiration from too shallow a pool of historical events? Has this analysis really considered more than racial or geographic resemblances, or a shared ideological threat? Policymakers must resist the urge to think so narrowly—especially when the surface similarities between events seem compelling. The phrase “this is just like” strings together four simple words in a seemingly innocuous way, but it does so in a manner that might do immeasurable harm when strategizing in high-stakes environments.
Should we really expect Napoleon III to get away with acts of aggression like those committed by his uncle and namesake, Napoleon Bonaparte? Of course not. It is imperative for us to recognize that the seismic changes that took place during the decades separating their reigns make it such that even a Napoleon is not a good analogy for Napoleon.
~ 24 ~
It took Nielsen fifty-five minutes to give Kilmer a detailed summary of the previous two weeks, starting with the detection on Day 1 and ending with the show-of-force proposal that Strauss had made a few hours earlier. Kilmer didn’t fall off his chair even once—but that might have been only because he had the habit of leaning back when shocked, not forward. He leaned back on three occasions. First, when he realized that Nielsen wasn’t joking about the detection of alien spacecraft… astonishment. Second, when he was told that communication had been rendered possible, and FERMAT was now in use… delight. Third, when he learned about the lunar attack and the spacecraft’s su
bsequent return to its Earth-bound trajectory… horror.
“That’s where we are, Professor. You can see why I wanted you here tonight. We will discuss the show-of-force proposal at 8 a.m., and the president will make her decision soon after.”
“Yes… I see.”
“So—what do you think about Strauss’s proposal?”
“I’m not sure yet. I need to think about it some more. And I want to hear from everyone at the meeting. I don’t mind making a call with too little information, but I do mind making it with less information than I can get.”
“Okay. What additional information can I provide?”
Kilmer reached for his coffee. He had taken only a few sips of it over the last hour, and what remained in the cup was now cold. He took the extra cup that was sitting in the tray and filled it with hot coffee from the thermos.
“I do have some questions. I didn’t want to raise them earlier because they might have taken us off on tangents.”
Nielsen waited until Kilmer had taken a sip. “Go ahead, Professor. Ask me anything.”
Kilmer was about to ask his first question when there was a knock at the door.
“Sorry about that,” Nielsen whispered. Then he called on the visitor to enter. In the few seconds that transpired between the knock and the opening of the door, Kilmer found himself hoping it would be someone bringing them a bite to eat.
It was not.
President Whitman had barely stepped into the room when Nielsen got up from his chair. Kilmer hadn’t entirely forgotten that the president might stop by at some point, but the thought of meeting Whitman had fallen into the dim recesses of his mind. Seeing her in the room now renewed the profundity of the moment.
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