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same problem. You know the rules, Major.”
    Damn bureaucracy, thought Gould. Shut down the whole friggin’ operation for nothing more than probably a blown fuse. He ran a hand through his hair. “Major Beckman passed her check ride, Colonel. Once she regained control of the TAV there was no need to declare an emergency. I’m afraid there’s nothing more I can add to her report.”
    Mathin reddened. “Very well, Major, but it will be your butt if this happens again.” He nodded curtly to the two and spun around, barking orders to the gaggle of maintenance personnel who had congregated around the trio during their discussion.
    The SMART truck pulled up to the TAV. An airman ran out and attached a wire from the truck to the craft, grounding the TAV by bringing it to the same electric potential as the truck, circumventing any chance of having a spark arc during the maintenance and subsequent refueling.
    Gould pulled his flight briefcase out of the hatch and made his way to the crew van that had pulled up alongside the TAV. Delores caught up with him as he entered the van and signaled with her eyes for him to join her in the back. Gould scooted into the back seat; Delores sat in front of him, turning around to face him as the van started up.
    “Thanks.”
    He shrugged. “Sure, no problem.”
    “They would have taken me off flight status until the emergency was investigated. And with the shortage of maintenance personnel, it might have been months before the incident was cleared up.”
    “You passed the check ride, so you didn’t have anything to worry about. The emergency, if there was one, was entirely a judgment call. Look, Delores, this isn’t UPT. We’re not quite as Mickey-Mouse as ATC out here, but you’ve still got to cover your six. If you screw the pooch up there and don’t execute successfully, you’re gone. Period. No questions asked.
    “But on the other hand, if you jump the gun, like calling an emergency too early and the emergency doesn’t pan out, then that’s just as good as messing up. Colonel Mathin will transfer you out of here so fast your head will spin. He can’t afford to have TAV pilots who are too timid to put their life on the line. But he also can’t afford to have TAV pilots who end up killing themselves. You have to toe a fine line flying these babies. And today it looks like you passed the first test.” Gould sat back in the seat and stared out the van window.
    Delores was quiet for some time before saying, “Uh, thanks.…” Her voice trailed off.
    He just nodded. “Don’t worry. Now that you’ve qualified on the TAV you’ll start pulling alert with the rest of us soon enough. I guarantee you’ll be bored stiff after the first week of waiting around.”
    The White House, Washington, D.C.
    “Mr. President, I really think you ought to reconsider. If you go on this trip without stopping in the UK, it would be a slap in the face to their Labor Party. Especially when you consider the campaign support they gave you.” The White House chief of staff, Manuel Baca, stood rigidly in front of President Montoya’s desk.
    Sandoval Montoya—forty-sixth President of the United States of America, youngest son of Ronaldo Montoya, and father of three daughters—sat unyielding and scowled. In the two years of his presidency, Baca, his chief of staff, had buffered him to an unheard-of extent. Slowly but surely President Montoya was beginning to feel his power erode.
    He no longer made decisions; instead, he reacted to recommendations. Recommendations that were brought in by his chief of staff and sanitized into something that Montoya would think was acceptable. And it wasn’t just here, in the Oval Office. It was everything in his life—even Rosanna had the girls present their plans to him like an over studied, overstaffed GAO behemoth. He couldn’t return home to Santa Fe without his itinerary being inspected throughout the bureaucracy.
    Well, it just wasn’t acceptable! He tapped