Ken saw where this was going. "And if you did, you'd want a way to make sure that you could just make everyone shut up. Even if it meant overriding every system capable of communication on the entire ship."
"Yep. Especially since you'd have to be worried that even other Americans on board might prefer the 'information wants to be free' path. And that the kinda apolitical captain might back you up . . . and, then again, might not."
Ken set his jaws. "That's pure bullshit. I'm not into politics myself, that's true. And it's also true that all the years I've spent hobnobbing with you scientific types has made a lot of your attitudes about the free flow of information and knowledge rub off on me. But the fact remains—don't ever doubt it, A.J.—that I'm a professional officer serving in the military forces of the United States of America. Madeline Fathom is the duly-authorized representative of our government in charge of security here, and I would back her up any time she acted in that capacity. Regardless of whether I agreed with her or not."
A.J. shrugged. "Fine. But you think like a soldier. In my experience—thankfully limited—I really don't think security people have the same mentality at all. So whatever you might know you might do, they wouldn't necessarily think you would. If that twisted grammar makes any sense."
It made plenty of sense to Hathaway. A.J.'s analysis, now that Ken thought about it, was a lot more plausible than even the imaging and data expert knew. Unlike the rest of the crew, Brigadier General Hathaway had known General Deiderichs off and on for years. While the general hadn't told him much, the way in which he didn't say certain things was a clear warning: Madeline Fathom carried one hell of a lot of weight, possibly even more than Deiderichs himself.
That meant that whichever intelligence agency Fathom was working for—and Ken suspected it was the HIA, which had more clout than any of them when it wanted to use it—she had what amounted to a direct pipeline to the President. Which, in turn, meant that if the back doors A.J. had discovered did lead back to her, she had the legitimate authority to have them and to use them. That was true regardless of what Brigadier General Ken Hathaway thought personally about the mind-set involved and its readiness to use duplicitous methods.
God forbid the right hand should ever tell the left hand what it's doing. He remembered a wisecrack once made by a fellow Air Force officer: The only difference between the nuts in security and the ones in lunatic asylums is that the security nuts insist their straightjackets have to have clearance and be stamped Top Secret.
"What a mess," he muttered. "All right, A.J. I won't tell Fathom until you do an initial check to see if she's the one who's holding the back doors. If she is, then it's a moot point. You and I know, and we just forget about it. But if she isn't the one, then we've got a real problem with security and I'm bringing her in right away. And in the meantime, we don't tell anyone else. I'm willing to stretch things that far, but I'm not willing to spread this to anyone except Fathom."
A.J. nodded. "No sweat. If for no other reason, I don't want Joe to know. Not from me, anyway. You wanna talk about a mess."
Ken grimaced. To everyone else's surprise—and A.J.'s astonishment—Joe Buckley and Madeline Fathom were often seen together since the voyage had started. By now the two were, if not an item, at least one of the strongest candidates for becoming an item on board Nike. If they were wrong about Madeline, a very nice friendship—or something more—could be torpedoed with no justification. Or, if Joe reacted the other way, A.J. could find his best friend alienated from him.
"Right. In any event, we need to check all the other alternatives— and immediately. If Fathom's the one with the back doors, she has them on official authority. Which someone else wouldn't—and that would be an order of magnitude worse. We need to make sure, if we can, that that's not the case. In the meantime . . . Have you closed off any or all of the back doors?"
"Nary a one. But I've booby-trapped them. When someone activates one of them, I'll be able to catch 'em at it. And of course I can always override them now that I know what's going on. That's why you made me the DP head around here."
Ken gave A.J. a hard look, just short of an outright glare. "Understand something, A.J. If it does turn out that it's Fathom, I'll want you to remove the booby traps. I don't like the idea of her having those back doors, but what I don't like doesn't make any difference. She is in charge of security. But until we know one way or the other, keep them in place. If it's someone else, we do not want those back doors functional."