Black Star

by Robert Gandt

  General Wu lay on the floor, killed instantly by Huang’s bullet. Huang was slumped over the arm rest of his chair, his sightless eyes staring at the ceiling.

  A strange sense of calm settled over Charlotte. Kenneth would be proud, she thought. Using the umbrella had not been difficult at all. Killing Franklin Huang had come to her as naturally as launching the war against China.

  <>

  Raymond Lutz stared as the technicians slid the shroud off the buff-colored airframe. The overhead halogen lights flooded the hangar in a harsh yellow light.

  Incredible, he thought. Even though he had been the principal source of the technology that went into its development, he had never actually seen the Chinese product.

  Lutz couldn’t help but be impressed. The Chinese had faithfully reproduced the geometry of the diamond-shaped airframe, even the intricate vaning that guided inlet air to the engines in the front and obscured the exhaust signature in the aft section. Except for the color and the slightly different landing gear design, it could be the same Black Star he had worked on here at Groom Lake these past eight years.

  They had brought the captured Chinese jet here to Hangar 502 in the north complex. Only a handful of senior engineers and technicians had been invited to watch as they unwrapped it. Now they stood in a silent cluster, no one speaking, studying the object that had somehow, incomprehensibly, been copied from their design, built in secret half a world away. Now the technology had come full circle and found its way back to Groom Lake.

  Unbelievable. The engineers were staring at the foreign object, their mouths half open, shaking their heads and muttering expressions of wonder under their breath. Each seemed captivated by this manifestation of his handiwork.

  Each except Lutz.

  He was no longer staring at the captured stealth jet. His eyes were fixed on the small group of men across the hangar floor. He recognized the director of the Calypso Blue Project, a man named Ratchford, with whom Lutz had only a nodding acquaintance. Ratchford was talking to a taller man in khaki slacks and an open collared sport shirt. He had a brown mustache and a straight, military bearing. There was something familiar about him.

  The man seemed to sense Lutz watching him. He peered across the hangar floor, scanning the group clustered around the Black Star. Then his eyes fixed on Lutz. For a long moment the two men locked gazes.

  In a single blinding flash of clarity, Lutz understood. It all came together in his mind like a complicated mosaic. He knew how the Chinese Black Star had been captured. And he knew who had done it.

  Maxwell.

  Lutz felt the rage sweep over him like a sheet of lava. That damned Maxwell. Of course. Maxwell had been in the South China Sea aboard a carrier. It would have been he, of all people, who would have ferreted out the secret of the Chinese stealth jet.

  It was always Maxwell. At every crucial juncture in Lutz’s life, there was Maxwell, showing up like the spoiler from hell.

  Maxwell was saying something to the Director, his eyes still on Lutz. Then he started walking toward Lutz.

  Lutz didn’t wait. He didn’t want to talk to Maxwell. A hatred more intense than anything he had ever felt had taken hold of him. Trembling with rage, he turned his back and walked briskly toward the exit, back toward his lab.

  It was already past four in the afternoon, and most of the lab technicians had gone home. As Lutz rounded the corner of the long hallway that led to his office, he saw someone coming out. The man’s back was still to him as he turned a key in the door. Lutz recognized the man’s shape, the shapeless dark wrinkle-free trousers and white shirt.

  The FBI agent. What the hell was his name?

  It came to him. Swinford.

  Swinford has a key to the lab.

  Lutz ducked back around the corner, his pulse racing. What was Swinford looking for? Had they figured out that Feingold wasn’t the leak? Time was running out. Lutz could sense his world collapsing around him. It was time to conclude this chapter in his life, leave Groom Lake, collect his money and exit the United States.

  First, though, he had business to negotiate. He had to see Tom.

  <>

  Maxwell watched the man walk away, past the security gate at the exit and out of the hangar.

  It had to be Lutz. He was sure of it—that hunched, thick-shouldered shape, the way he walked with a shuffling, bear-like gait.

  And he was sure that Lutz had recognized him. So why did he whirl like that and leave?

  It was strange, but he remembered now that Raymond Lutz had always been strange. Even when they were at Pensacola together, years ago, Lutz carried a giant-sized chip on his shoulder. He could never hide his resentment of the officers like Maxwell who were lucky enough to possess good vision and thus were handed a ticket to fly fighters. Lutz thought he had been cheated.

  It didn’t stop there. Later, when he didn’t make the cut for NASA, he became hostile and bitter. Soon after that, Maxwell recalled, he had left the Navy and come to work here at Groom Lake.

  On the Black Star.

  For a while Maxwell stood there gazing out at the shimmering desert. Something was scratching at the back of his subconscious—some connection he couldn’t quite make.

  Maxwell and the Chinese Black Star had stayed together. He rode aboard the CH-53 that hauled the shrouded stealth jet from the Reagan to a waiting C 5 in Taiwan. He managed to sleep for most of the seventeen-hour, non-stop flight to Nevada, which included three in-flight refuelings.

  His orders had come directly from the Joint Chiefs: Report to the Director, Groom Lake Test and Research Facility, for extensive debriefing regarding Operation Raven Swoop.

  Dreamland hadn’t changed much, he thought. Still barren and brown, grim as the moon. The runway was even longer than when he had been assigned there several years ago. It was now 27,000 feet, nearly twice as long as the space shuttle runway he’d used at Cape Canaveral.

  Gazing out the window of Hangar 501, Maxwell could see Bald Mountain and the hills of the Groom Range. To the south was Freedom Ridge, where the UFO zealots used to gather to get glimpses of the facility before the Air Force chased them away.

  Dreamland had always attracted strange people, he thought. Both inside and outside the fence. He thought again about Raymond Lutz.

  <>

  “I’m sorry,” said Tom. “No more deposits. The payments have stopped. Those are my orders.”

  “Orders?” Lutz was on his feet, pacing like a tethered animal. He could feel the anger bubbling up inside him. “Orders from whom? You know the terms of our agreement. Five million dollars. It’s supposed to be on deposit in six accounts.”

  Tom sat on the edge of the bed. On the table was an ice bucket with an unopened bottle of Moet Chandon. Twelve floors beneath was the main floor of the casino. “It’s time to be realistic, Ray. Five million was a hypothetical amount. That much would have accumulated only if your services continued to be in demand. The situation has changed. As you know, the project has been. . . ah, interrupted.”

  Lutz struggled to control his temper. Interrupted. That was a bullshit way of saying that some sonofabitch had gotten into China and stolen the stealth jet that he risked his life to develop. And Lutz already had a very good idea who the sonofabitch was.

  “I don’t care what’s changed. I delivered what you wanted, and now I expect to be compensated. Five million, just as we agreed.”

  “You have received half a million, Ray. Five hundred thousand dollars is still a great deal of money. I think it would be in your best interest to be satisfied with that amount. Remember the source of these funds, and then consider. . . the consequences of a misunderstanding.”

  Lutz recognized the not-so-subtle threat. Tom’s lilting voice had taken a nasty edge. Lutz had never met any of his Chinese employers. Just Tom.

  Lutz was too furious to reply. He turned and gazed out the window that overlooked the street. The Las Vegas strip was ablaze with glittering light. Feingold’s favorite banality came to hi
m. Did you know Las Vegas burns more kilowatts than the rest of Nevada combined?

  He still didn’t give a damn. What he wanted was to get out of Las Vegas. Out of the espionage business and out of the United States, and he needed money to do it. A lot more than five hundred fucking thousand dollars.

  He could feel Tom’s eyes on him. As he stood peering down at the blazing lights, he considered his options. He could gather his funds from the half dozen accounts, then go make another life for himself. But it wouldn’t be the life he had dreamed about. Not on half a million.

  An ominous silence had fallen over the room. Tom’s normal patter was missing. Lutz could feel that something had changed.

  He wondered if it was just his paranoia taking off again. He and Tom had disagreed about money before. It was nothing new, just part of the normal bargaining process. But this was different. Consider the consequences of a misunderstanding.

  It wasn’t just paranoia. Tom had threatened him.

  Always before he had been afraid of the FBI and the CIA and the Defense Intelligence goons who snooped into his activities at Groom Lake. Now his warning system was sending a different alert. He could sense immediate danger.

  Something alerted him—a rustling noise, a miniscule movement of air. He turned from the window.

  Tom had slid across the bed and was reaching into a leather satchel on the night stand.

  In a flash of understanding, Lutz understood.

  He bolted across the three feet of space that separated them just as Tom’s hand emerged from the satchel. The muzzle of the .38 caliber revolver was just coming up.

  Lutz glimpsed the surprise on Tom’s face. No one could ever believe that someone the size of Raymond Lutz—six-three and a solid 260 pounds—could move with such agility.

  His hand caught Tom’s narrow wrist, snapping it back with such force that he heard the crack. Tom shrieked and kicked out at him.

  With a backhanded slap, Lutz smashed Tom across the face, cutting short the piercing shriek. Tom reeled back from the blow, toppling to the floor beneath the oncoming rush of Lutz’s weight. The pistol dropped to the carpet.

  Lutz clamped his hands on the slender throat.

  “Ray. . . don’t! Please, Ray...”

  He cut off the protest, pressing his thumbs into Tom’s larynx. He let all the animal rage spill out of him. A low guttural noise swelled from his chest. He could feel the fragile bones and gristle and capillaries crackling like matchsticks beneath his fingers.

  Tom fought back, flailing with frantic but ineffective blows. With Lutz’s full weight atop his victim, it was no contest. His powerful hands clamped down like a vise on Tom’s neck.

  For nearly a minute Tom’s hands fluttered in the air like moths, then they relaxed and went limp. Lutz maintained his grip, squeezing hard, the animal growl rising from some dark place within him. Spittle bubbled from his lips.

  Finally he released his grasp and rose to his feet. He was breathing in a hoarse rasp. He could feel his heart pounding like a jackhammer, not from exertion but from the excitement.

  Everything, of course, had changed. The game—this one, anyway—was over. He couldn’t go back to Groom Lake. He was certain that Swinford and his FBI goons were looking for him. The money he’d been promised by the Chinese—five million dollars—would never be paid. He had just murdered his handler, and he sensed that the Chinese would not forgive him for that.

  He was a fugitive.

  For a long moment he gazed down into Tom’s contorted face. The unblinking green eyes still stared at him in fear and panic.

  Tom. It occurred to him that he knew almost nothing about the agent. Throughout their relationship, Tom had remained an enigma, able to change roles like a chameleon, one moment a spymaster, handler of secrets, operative of a foreign power. In the next moment—the one Lutz remembered now—Tom was something else.

  Tom was his lover.

  Her professional name was Thomasina Maitland, and it never bothered Lutz that she was a hooker. She was a professional and so was he. The fact that she received money for her service was irrelevant. It was the quality of the service that counted.

  Of course, she never charged Lutz. That was supposed to be part of the carefully constructed cover—Lutz and his predilection for hookers. Tom wasn’t the wholesome, girl-next-door that mothers and government agencies favored, but at least it didn’t raise undue flags with the FBI. It made you less a security risk than being homosexual or alcoholic or drug dependent.

  It was a good cover, but for Lutz it became more than just a professional cover. He and Tom shared a common danger. And then, after the thrill of the transaction, came the exquisite, high voltage sex. They had something special.

  Or so he had believed.

  The truth hit him like a hammer blow. It was an act. Nothing more. It was her way of handling him—keeping him from becoming too difficult, too contentious. Tom made him think that maybe, just maybe, she was doing it for love.

  The oldest trick of the world’s oldest profession.

  He gazed down at the lovely dead face. A wave of rage consumed him, and he delivered a kick to the inert, tanned figure in the short leather skirt. Bitch. He’d been used again.

  <>

  Maxwell’s debriefing went on for a week.

  In an underground, sound-and-emission-proof chamber, he underwent questioning by specialists from all the intelligence communities, some he had never heard of. They wanted to know not just the details of the raid on Chouzhou, but his recollection of flying the Black Star, of the engagement with Col. Zhang, and how he managed a carrier landing with a hookless stealth fighter.

  “And what makes you think it was this colonel. . .”

  “Zhang.”

  “How did you know he was flying the Black Star you shot down?”

  “From my wizzo, Captain Chen. A PLA defector who had worked in the Black Star unit.”

  The questioner just nodded.

  When the debriefing was complete, Maxwell’s orders and airline tickets were waiting for him. That night he took the facility’s 737 to Las Vegas. The next morning he boarded a Delta jet to Los Angeles, connecting to a China Airlines flight to Taipei.

  No one had told him why he was going to Taipei, nor why he wasn’t returning to the Reagan, which he knew was making a port call in Manila.

  Not until he walked through the jetway into the Chiang Kai-Shek International Airport in Taipei did he begin to understand. At the arrival gate stood a familiar figure. He wore running shoes, wrinkled chinos, and a beat-up old leather flight jacket. He was gnawing the stub of an unlit cigar.

  CHAPTER 27 — MAI TAIS AND A GUITAR

  Taipei, Taiwan

  1430, Monday, 29 September

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the American Institute in Taiwan,” said Boyce, climbing into the taxi with Maxwell. “Formerly known as the United States Embassy before they moved it to China and gave this one a bullshit name. It still operates like an embassy, with all the stuff—a visa section and military attachés and intelligence specialists and a visitors’ quarters, which is where we’re staying tonight.”

  Maxwell was feeling the effects of jet lag and dehydration and, most of all, the endless questioning by teams of unsmiling intelligence specialists.

  To hell with intelligence specialists. “If I’m here for another debriefing, they can get stuffed.”

  “No debriefing. You’re here because the president of Taiwan wants to thank you and some other guys.”

  “I don’t want any thanks. I want a Scotch and a steak and some sleep. In that order.”

  “Tough shit. Nobody said being a hero was going to be easy.”

  They drove down a street that had been devastated by incoming missiles. Debris from shattered buildings was bulldozed onto the side of the road, forming a continuous wall of rubble on either side.

  A commercial district had taken a direct hit. Along a row of store fronts a destroyed building left a jagged g
ap like a missing tooth. Broken windows were taped over. Hulks of ruined automobiles were shoved up on the curb.

  Maxwell stared at the destruction. He shook his head. “I had no idea they were hit this bad.”

  “War sucks,” said Boyce.

  The rubble abruptly disappeared. They drove along a tree-lined street that looked like a scene from a postcard.

  “Tsin Yi Road,” said Boyce, “and that’s the American Institute up there on the left. No bomb craters, no destroyed buildings, no burned-out hulks. Says something about the politics of war.”

  After an ID check by the guards at the main gate, they climbed the broad steps and entered the compound. Boyce led him to the front desk of the visitor’s quarters. “All you have to do is sign in, then we head for the bar. I’ve already put your stuff in your room.”

  “Stuff?”

  “You needed a fresh uniform for the ceremony with the president, so I took the liberty of bringing it from your stateroom on the ship. Also warm civvies because Taipei gets chilly at night.”

  Maxwell looked at Boyce. He had known the CAG long enough to recognize the clues. He was up to something. What?

  In the next moment, he found out.

  “About time you got here,” said a booming voice behind him. “Leave it to you Navy pukes to show up late.”

  Maxwell turned to see a barrel-chested man walking toward them. He had short-cropped, brownish hair and very large teeth. He was wearing an Air Force uniform with two stars and a name tag that read Buckner.

  <>

  The general paused, martini glass halfway to his mouth, and said, “You’ve gotta be shitting me, Maxwell.”

  “No, sir. I’ll put in writing. I think Major Bass deserves a posthumous silver star. Or even higher.”

  Buckner looked at Boyce, who seemed to be studying a spot on the ceiling. “Did you put him up to this, Boyce?”

  “I told him Bass was his problem. He was the guy in charge, and if he thinks Bass deserves a medal, that’s his call.”

  “Commander Maxwell, are you implying that the Air Force doesn’t take care of its own people?”