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at you there. I just don’t want to be late for the meeting.”
    “Well, we won’t be,” said Jed. “I got a heads-up. The president is running behind.”
    “I thought I was his first appointment.”
    “You were. But they slid in some domestic stuff and the chief of staff called last night to slide back the appointment. We’re not on until nine-thirty. And given the way things usually go …”
    Dog curled his hands in front of his chest. The president was the president, and you waited for him, not the other way around. And surely there were many important things on his plate.
    But this wasn’t a good sign.
    “I didn’t have time for breakfast myself,” added Jed.
    “Let’s get something then,” said Dog, acceding.
    Jed described the restaurant as a “coffee place,” but if that was true, it was the fanciest coffee place Dog had ever been in. A hostess greeted them and escorted them across a thick, plush carpet to a table covered with three layers of thick linens. Dog recognized two senators and one of the aides to the vice president at different tables along the way.
    “The NSC’ll pay, don’t worry,” said Jed before Dog opened the thick, leather-bound menu.
    That prepared him, somewhat, for the prices. Dog told the waitress he just wanted coffee. She nodded, men turned to Jed. “Feta omelet. Light toast. Right?” she asked.
    Jed nodded.
    “You come here a lot?” said Dog.
    “Uh, Mr. Freeman does. And so, because of that, I do.”
    “He’s going to drop in on us?”
    “He might,” admitted Jed.
    “You might have warned me,” said Dog, finally understanding that Jed’s delays and hunger were part of a prearranged plan.
    “I am warning you,” said Jed. He closed his mouth as the waitress approached, not continuing until she left. “Look, the president has already made up his mind on Brunei.”
    “Brunei doesn’t need a fleet of fighter jets. Or Megafortresses, for that matter,” said Dog.
    “The president isn’t going to reverse the Megafortress decision, Colonel. Not even for you. The two other planes are to go to Brunei as soon as they’re ready.”
    “With Flighthawks?”
    The Flighthawks, or U/MF-3s, were among Dreamland’s most prized possessions. “U/MF” stood for “unmanned fighters.” The Flighthawks were highly capable interceptors, typically launched from the wings of the Megafortress and used for a variety of tasks, from defending the big plane to attacking ground targets. About the size of a Miata sports car, they could go nearly the speed of sound and could be controlled up to twenty miles from the mother ship.
    “That’s still to be decided,” said Jed.
    “We have to protect our technology, Jed.”
    “I don’t disagree. But it’s not my call.”
    “You’re not in favor of any of this, are you? Rewarding their cooperation in dealing with China is one thing, but giving our technology away to countries that don’t need it and have their own agendas—”
    “They are allies.”
    “For now.”
    “It’s not my call,” said Jed. “I think we’ll hold the line on the Flighthawks. And probably the F-15s. But they do have a legitimate need for surveillance aircraft, and for more modern fighters. And they’ll buy from the Russians if not us.”
    “Did you try pushing LADS?” asked Dog. “They could buy that system with the money they’ll spend on jet fuel for one Megafortress over the course of a year.”
    “I did. State did, too. Very hard”
    “That’s what they need. It’s low-cost, and we could work with them. It’d be useful to us as well. Let them keep the one Megafortress for sea patrols, and use LADS to guard the kingdom’s borders.”
    “Blimps aren’t sexy,” said Jed. “However much they make sense.”
    Dog frowned, but he couldn’t argue. LADS stood for Lighter-than-Air Defensive Surveillance system, and at its heart it was simply a blimp—or more accurately, a network of blimps. Outfitted with millimeter and phased array radar as