Special Access

by Mark A. Hewitt

  “That sounds like fun—planes, trains, and automobiles. Be safe, get earplugs, and I’ll see you on Monday, good sir.”

  McGee was confused. “Planes, trains, and automobiles? Did you say earplugs?”

  “You’re going to Horseshoe Curve. I think it was the first horseshoe curve for trains in America. It’ll be fun. And, it’ll be loud.”

  “I had no idea. Anyway, Duncan, that was great. It’s exciting to watch you play.”

  “Thanks, Bill.” He saluted the SEAL as he turned away. Then his eye caught the Middle Eastern man trying to look inconspicuous, as McGee departed. Duncan thought he was imagining things when the man turned away and left the building in another direction.

  Suddenly, he caught strong perfume wafting through his nostrils.

  “That was exciting!” The busty, redheaded Navy Commander walked up to Hunter’s blind side, catching him off guard.

  “Thank you. I got lucky today. I’m sorry. Duncan Hunter.” He held out his hand.

  “Nina Bergman.”

  “Glad to finally meet you, Nina. I’ve seen you in uniform a few times at school.” He wanted to add, That perfume is perfect on you, but it’s not as dramatic as Marwa’s.

  “I’ve seen you and Captain McGee in Connelly. It seems you two always sit together.”

  “I’m told everyone is afraid to sit with him. For a SEAL, he hasn’t bit or killed me yet, so I think we’re almost friends.”

  She laughed and smiled. He asked, “Were you playing a sport?” He tried to place her accent and name the scent. Then he got it. New England and Giorgio.

  She shook her head. “I helped get all the hotel reservations and logistics worked out. I’ve been one of the official cheerleaders. Don’t you have somewhere you need to be, like getting a medal or something?”

  “I think my fellow racquetball guys will pick it up, maybe even Admiral DiFilippo. He was very excited that Navy beat Air Force.”

  “Seems to me it was you who beat Air Force.” She gave a wry grin.

  “Shhh.” He play-acted and looked around. “It wouldn’t be proper to let the Air Force know one of their civilians beat their active-duty ringer.”

  Nina threw back her head, making her red hair wave in slow motion, and laughed. “Oh, yeah. You can’t let that out. That’s good. What are you doing now?” Her red hair fell back around her shoulders.

  “I was going to clean up and hit the hot tub in the men’s locker room to soak my aching body.”

  She thought for two seconds, then inhaled and smiled. “They have a great hot tub at my hotel in Harrisburg.”

  He was momentarily nonplussed. “If that’s an invite, you’re on. Dinner is on me, if you don’t have plans.” I hope that wasn’t too aggressive or pathetic, he thought.

  Without missing a beat, she smiled and said, “No, that sounds great.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  0800 April 21, 2003

  National Maritime Intelligence Center Suitland, Maryland

  “Did I see you with Commander Bergman?”

  “Will be I waterboarded?” Hunter frowned, thinking, Busted.

  “You might get keelhauled.”

  “Sir, the record will reflect that the good commander offered the hot tub at her hotel to some gold-medal winning Air Force civilian puke. Afterward, they had a quiet little dinner in downtown Harrisburg. She’s a great lady, we sat and talked for a good long while and we had a glorious time.”

  McGee rubbed his eyes and yawned. When he finished, he shot Hunter a look and shook his head. “She is an eyeful.”

  Hunter changed the subject. “How was Horseshoe Curve?”

  McGee nearly shouted, “Incredible! We followed the small signs, got there, and didn’t know what to expect. We walked up to the viewing area as one train was going up the hill and one was coming down. We were completely surrounded by screaming railroad cars, and the locomotives were nowhere to be seen. It was one of the most-amazing things I’ve ever seen.”

  “With two trains on the curve, that had to be loud.”

  McGee nodded. “I learned when you tell me to do something, I need to do it. I didn’t get earplugs for my girls, and it was incredibly loud, almost painful. We complained about our ears ringing afterward.”

  “What?” Hunter, feigning deafness, leaned forward.

  “I said….” McGee realized the joke. “You know, Air Force puke, waterboarding is too good for you.”

  Hunter was the first person McGee found it easy to be around. Hunter wasn’t impressed or afraid of him, he didn’t ask for favors, and he was so levelheaded that McGee could call him a friend. His fellow SEALs were as close as could be, but they trained as a team and had to be. All SEALs had personality quirks, which gave them character. Sometimes, over time, it wasn’t good character.

  Hunter was one of those rare individuals to whom people naturally gravitated. McGee knew he could ask Hunter anything, and Duncan would do it without thinking anything of it. McGee knew the same worked in reverse.

  “Are we ready?” Hunter asked.

  “One minute. I have to say this has been fun no matter what happens in there. I learned much about airplanes and especially what quiet airplanes can do for a spec-ops warfighter. I really thought I’d just come up to Newport, be a vegetable, enjoy my wife and kids, and take it easy for once in my life. You opened my eyes and breathed new life into this old guy.”

  “Thanks, Bill. Teamwork—Hooyah!”

  “It’s more than teamwork. You didn’t have to team with me to do this, and you didn’t even blink about who got credit. I just want you to know I appreciate you and want to thank you again.”

  “Who’s your buddy? Who’s your pal?” Smiling, Hunter offered his hand, then he led the way into the room and opened the door for the SEAL.

  Climbing the stairs to the executive suite, they found the conference room. Uniformed men and women waved the duo inside. Place cards on the conference table directed Captain McGee and Hunter to seats beside the CO. They barely had time to sit down when the room was called to attention.

  Hunter wore a black suit as a civilian, but the retired Marine in him was obvious to all. Vice Admiral Jerry Lane, Intelligence Officer and Commanding Officer of ONI, entered and went directly to McGee to shake his hand and exchange a few quiet words.

  Admiral Lane turned to Hunter next and shook his head, saying loudly enough for all to hear, “Admiral DiFilippo said you brought Navy a gold medal in racquetball during Jim Thorpe Days. That’s fantastic. Well done.” He patted Hunter’s back and turned to the standing troops before waving them to their seats.

  “Captain McGee, Mr. Hunter, I have to say your ideas on quiet aircraft have shaken up some of the old salts here. There’s a group that thinks that unmanned vehicles are the wave of the future of Naval Aviation. You argue, quite persuasively, that being unmanned for unmanned’s sake shouldn’t be the governing factor. Costs and mission should dictate.”

  Hunter added, “Sir, there’s been little research done on quieting aircraft. The most recent is from the sixties.”

  “And Sir,” McGee said, “fielded DEVGRU units supported by a single quiet aircraft have resulted in unprecedented mission success.”

  “I’ve heard. The intel from JSOC confirmed, and General Jones was emphatic that we need to get more of those aircraft into theatre. Your research opened our eyes for SOCOM units such as DEVGRU, and now we have work to do. Great work, gentlemen.”

  “Thank you, Sir,” Duncan and McGee said simultaneously. “Do you have any more ideas for us to work on?” the admiral asked half-jokingly.

  Hunter took a deep breath. “Sir, I do. It’s really a simple concept but not classified. It involves delivering cargo via an unmanned helicopter. It’s not sexy stuff, but it would save untold lives and provide the Navy and Marine Corps with a capability they can’t appreciate.”

  Lane, McGee, and the others looked at him quizzically. A slow smile came to McGee’s lips. He realized Lynche was right about Hunter�
��s immediate ability to think outside the box.

  “Sir, we’re having Marines and soldiers getting blown up right now by IEDs while delivering beans, bullets, Band-Aids, and blankets by truck. The roads are horrible. The environment is a saboteur’s heaven. The service that gets the right helicopter platform and converts it into a robot will save untold lives and limbs. The best helo for such a demo is the K-Max. If ONI or NAVAIR would take a look and fund a demo, building an unmanned K-Max, I think you’ll see that work will set the bar for the next generation of unmanned rotorcraft.”

  “K-Max?” the admiral asked.

  “Sorry, Sir. The manufacturer of the H-2 Sea Sprite, Kaman, builds synchromesh rotor system helicopters, the Husky and the single-seat K-Max. Those designs solve the antitorque problems of trying to convert conventional tail-rotor helicopters into robots. The K-Max could easily be turned into a robot. It’s inherently stable, and some smart guy could build a multiple sling delivery system so what my good friend Greg Lynche, the real brains behind this concept, would call an unmanned cargo delivery system.

  “The integrated aerosystem could drop off thousands of pounds of supplies at multiple locations autonomously. You can program it. It’s optimized for high-altitude work and is built like a tank. You’d get those logistics troops off the roads. The technology could be used for other pinpoint cargo drops, like dumping concrete into the bowels of the Chernobyl reactor instead of sending pilots to a slow, painful death.”

  Vice Admiral Terry Lane leaned back in his chair. “That’s an intriguing concept. How about letting me talk with the NAVAIR commander about what’s in the art of the possible? Commander Lance, did you get that?” He looked at the commander with the brilliant gold Naval Aviator wings on her dark uniform, who nodded back.

  “Well, Gents, you know we have a war to support. We’d better get back to work.” As the admiral stood, so did everyone else. “Again, thank you for your ideas and service. Fair winds.”

  After the admiral left, McGee and Hunter were detained for several minutes by the others, who wished them well and asked questions. The pretty, short Commander Lance made a beeline to Hunter and asked if he had a business card. They discussed the unmanned cargo-delivery system as he fished a card from his suit pocket.

  She was the last member of the admiral’s staff to leave when McGee heard her say, “I’ll be in touch.”

  As the two men left the building, McGee shook his head and said in mock scorn, “I can’t take you anywhere.”

  “What?” Hunter asked innocently. “Did I violate some obscure Navy rule?”

  “Commander Lance.”

  “She’s a helicopter pilot. She said she and her husband helo pilot have been wrestling with the torque problems for unmanned helos. Hearing about a synchromesh system was an epiphany for her, and she added that my analysis was spot on.”

  “Oh.”

  When they reached their vehicles, Hunter removed his overcoat, coat, and tie. He was ready to go and run the I-95 gauntlet back to Newport.

  “Well, Sir, see you on the road?”

  “Be safe,” McGee said.

  “Aye, aye.” He smiled and saluted.

  “You, too Apex.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  0715 May 5, 2003

  Connelly Hall, Naval War College

  The lady barber shaved the back of Hunter’s neck when McGee entered the shop and stopped in front of Duncan, arms akimbo. Having a pissed off SEAL standing in front of you was not good.

  “Have you seen the assignments?” McGee meant the Joint Military Operations War Game, the culminating course at NWC.

  “No, Sir. You?”

  “I did. I’m JCS, and you’re chief of station.”

  “Chief of station? Don’t we have someone from that…office attending? That makes no sense. Are you sure?”

  “Oh, I’m sure. It gets better. I checked the script, and there’s nothing for the COS to do. I’m busy, and you’re vacationing.”

  “If I’m not doing anything, why bother having the position?”

  “Maybe it will all be clear when we get an e-mail about our assignments. I’m off to pick up my books. I also wanted to share something with you, if you have a couple minutes.”

  “Eccles?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Well, Captain McGee, if you could wait until I pay for this masterpiece of a haircut, I’ll walk with you to Eccles.”

  The barber smiled, as she unclipped the sheet and brushed hair from Hunter’s neck.

  The two men walked the eighty feet to the library.

  “Do you know you’re being watched?” Duncan asked quietly.

  “Uh-huh. I don’t think anything of it. At first, I did. I wondered if they had a reason other than they think I killed one of their brothers or cousins or something. Not many sailors in AQ. Ever hear of the al-Qaeda Navy? There are a couple shitheads watching you, too.”

  Hunter cocked his head in surprise.

  They rounded the corner, dropped their Blackberries into the basket on the table near the door, and went straight to their seats in the SCIF.

  “Since we debriefed the admiral,” McGee began, “your paper….”

  “Our paper.”

  “Our paper went straight to SECDEF, who, I understand, blew a fuse. Not at us but the Air Force. Usually, it’s a bad thing for the Old Man to know your name.”

  “I hear a but.”

  “But when someone does something clearly meritorious that impresses the SECDEF, then it’s usually OK. Anyway, OSD is conducting another background check on you. I got asked, because we’ve been seen together a lot. I have no idea what for, but I thought you should know they’re interested in you. What kind of tickets do you have?”

  “I thought you had all that info. The usual—SSBI, TS/SCI, SI, TK, full scope, yada, yada, yada.”

  McGee’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not usual. I mean, for an Air Force civilian in aircraft maintenance.”

  “Agreed, Sir. I think most folks here were given my range of accesses because of the material we’re studying. I could be wrong. In my real job back in Texas, I have no need to know or have access to imagery, but before coming here, I had to have my clearance updated, presumably because of the materials we’d be exposed to.”

  He didn’t tell McGee about his activities with Lynche, which required being read in on several programs as required by Lynche's old place. Hunter started to wonder if SECDEF had been told of Wraith, the name of the highly compartmentalized TS “DCI eyesonly Special-Access Program.”

  The DCI liked to call them Batman and Robin when they were in Lynche's highly modified YO-3A, with Hunter as Batman, the pilot, and Lynche as Robin, the sensor operator.

  McGee watched Hunter, who was clearly thinking fast to resolve a problem. “Nobody needs full scope to come here. Besides, you have one of those fancy TS clearances. That’s CIA, Dude.” Suddenly, he said loudly, “You’re running an Op! Now it all makes sense!”

  “What all are you talking about, Sir?” Hunter made quotation marks in the air with his fingers. He’d known the day was coming, and he didn't know how the SEAL would react. They hadn’t shared many war stories. Those they discussed were unclassified or came under the heading of need to know. They knew the game but something changed.

  “Why are you really here?” McGee had been around a long time and had seen the high and mighty come and go. He recognized Hunter’s unusual talent from day one and couldn’t rationalize why someone like him was keeping himself under the radar and hiding out at NWC—especially when that person made over a million dollars a year.

  “Why are you really here?” Hunter asked, deflecting the question.

  “You’re avoiding the question.”

  “Bill, before you go off chasing a rabbit down a hole, like you, I’m sworn to secrecy for some things. If SECDEF is interested in me, he may have been briefed on something, but he wasn’t supposed to be, and I can’t imagine any circumstances where he would be. I’m a little gove
rnment civil servant. I’m supposed to run in the clear, and, until I get a call, I’m a graduate student here like you. What I really think is this is a coincidence, and maybe you’ll get an award or something.”

  McGee showed newfound respect for Duncan. “So that’s how the spook knows you? Why do you think SECDEF is interested in you?”

  Duncan shook his head at the first question and shrugged at the latter. “I think it’s a ricochet from our joint paper. I can see with some Fruit Loops up the food chain it doesn’t make sense having a SEAL on a quiet aircraft paper. It’s incongruous and probably suspicious. I really didn’t think it would be an issue. It was old research, and ONI wasn’t even looking in that direction, nor was NAVAIR. Since we pulled strings to get everyone to Elmira to check out the Schweizer, generals may have talked and that may have raised more than a few eyebrows. I should call the Grinch and let him know there’s DOD interest in me. Maybe he can find out.”

  “If I can help, you can count on me, Duncan. I’m serious.”

  “Thank you, Sir. Please know the feeling’s mutual. It goes, without saying, if I can help you in any way…anytime. Call me.”

  “Thanks, Apex. I will”

  “What’s with that Apex thing? I used an apex when trying to pull out a stripped screw head in my old maintenance days.”

  “Dude, you’re an apex predator, top of the food chain—fighter pilot, smart, educated….Have you seen yourself play racquetball? You hit that ball once, and it’s a kill shot. You’re a killer in pinstripes and nylon shorts.”

  Duncan smiled and patted McGee’s rock-hard shoulder. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Thank you, Sir.”

  “You should’ve been a SEAL. One of these days, you have to tell me.”

  “One of these days, I will, but not today. Sir.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  1100 May 6, 2003

  Marriott Hotel Carlsbad, California

  “What kind of religion could make people do this?” Sam Miller asked. Like many others shocked by the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Miller continually asked himself that question every time the burning towers flashed on TV, even two years after the national scar.