The Minotaur jg-3

by Stephen Coonts

  “What about a conventional war with the Soviets?”

  “If anyone has figured out a way to keep it from going nuclear, I haven’t heard about it.”

  “How many Maverick missiles are there? A couple thousand?”

  “Twice that.”

  “That’s still no more than a week or two’s supply. It’d better be a damn short war.”

  The admiral grunted. “The basic dilemma: without stealth tech- nology the air force says planes can’t survive over a modern battle- field; with stealth they must use only sophisticated weapons that are too expensive to buy in quantity- And they’re not as reliable as cheap weapons. And if the airplanes truly are a threat, the Soviets have a tremendous stimulus to escalate the war to a nuclear strike to eliminate their bases.” He chopped the air with the cutting edge of his hand. ‘This stuff is grotesquely expensive.”

  “Sounds like we’ve priced ourselves out of the war business.”

  “I fucking wish! But enough philosophy. Stealth technology cer- tainly deserves a lot of thought. It’s basically just techniques to lower an aircraft’s electromagnetic signature in the military wave- lengths: radio — which is radar — and heat — infrared. And they’re trying to minimize the distance the plane can be detected by ear and by eye. Minimizring the RCS — the Radar Cross Section — and the heat signature are the two most important factors and end up driving the design process. But it’s tough. For example, to half the radar detection range you must lower the RCS by a factor of six- teen — the fourth root. To lower the IR signature in any meaningful manner you must give up afterburners for your engines and bury the engines inside the airplane to cool the exhaust gases, the sum total of which is less thrust. Consequently we are led kicking and screaming into the world of design compromises, which is a handy catchall for mission compromises, performance and range and payload compromises, bang-and-buck compromises. That’s where you come in.”

  Admiral Henry rose from the bench and sauntered along the walk discussing the various methods and techniques that lowered, little by little, the radar and heat signatures of an aircraft. He talked about wing and fuselage shape, special materials, paint, en- gine and inlet duct design and placement, every aspect of aircraft construction. Stealth, he said, involved them all. Finally he fell silent and walked along with his shoulders rounded, his hands thrust deep into his pockets.

  Jake spoke. “If the best the air force could get out of their stealth attack plane was A-7 performance, is it a good idea for the navy to spend billions on one? We can’t go buying airplanes to fight just one war. and we need a sufficient quantity of planes to equip the carriers. Five gee-whiz killing machines a year won’t do us any good at all.”

  The admiral stopped dead and scrutinized Jake. Slowly a grin lifted the comers of his mouth. “I knew you were the right guy for this job.”

  He resumed walking, his step firmer, more confident. “The first question is what kind of fights are we going to get into in the future. And the answer, I suspect, is more of the same. I think the likelihood of an all-out war with the Soviets in Western Europe is pretty small — no way to prevent it from going nuclear and the Russians don’t want that any more than we do. But we must pre- pare to fight it, prepare to some degree, or we can’t deter it. I’d say it’s a lot more likely we’ll end up with more limited wars, like Korea or Vietnam or Afghanistan or the Persian Gulf or the Mid- dle East or South Africa. So the capability to fight those wars is critical. We need planes that can fly five hundred miles through a high-density electronic environment, deliver a devastating conven- tional punch, and return to the carrier to fly again, and again and again. Without that capability our carrier battle groups are an ex- pensive liability and not an asset. We need that plane by 1995, at the latest.”

  “You’re implying that our plane can’t rely on pinpoint missiles for weapons.”

  “Precisely. The air force has a lot of concrete to park their spe- cialized planes on; carrier deck space is damn precious. We can’t build planes that can only shoot missiles that cost a million bucks each, then push them into the drink when we run out of missiles. We have to be able to hit hard in any foreseeable conflict with simple, cheap weapons, like laser-guided bombs.”

  “So we can do something the air force couldn’t with the F-117?”

  Henry threw his head back and grinned, obviously enjoying him- self. “We aren’t going to trade away our plane’s performance or mission capability.”

  “But how—“

  “Better design — we learned a lot from the F-117—plus Athena. Active stealth technology.” His mood was gloomy again. “I think the fucking Russians have gotten everything there was to get out of the F-117 and B-2. Every single technical breakthrough, they’ve stolen it. They don’t appear to be using that knowledge and they may not ever be able to do so. This stuff involves manufacturing capabilities they don’t have and costs they can’t afford to incur. But what they can do is figure out defenses to a stealthed-up air- plane, and you can bet your left nut they’re working their asses off on that right this very minute.”

  He looked carefully around. ‘There’s a Russian mole in the Pentagon.” His voice was almost a whisper, although the nearest pedestrian was a hundred yards away. “He gave them the stealth secrets. The son of a bitch is buried in there someplace and he’s ripping us off. He’s even been given a top secret code name— Minotaur.” He scuffed his toe at a pebble on the sidewalk. “I’m not supposed to know this. It goes without saying that if I’m not, you sure as hell aren’t.”

  “How’d—“

  “Don’t ask. I don’t want you to know. But if I know the Mi- notaur’s there, you can lay money he knows we know he’s there. So the bastard is dug in with his defenses up. We may never get him. Probably won’t.”

  “How do we know he gave them stealth?”

  “We know. Trust me. We know,”

  “So we have a mole in the Kremlin.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Henry said fiercely, “and you had damn well better not. No shit, Grafton, don’t even whisper that to a living fucking soul.”

  They walked along in silence, each man occupied with his own thoughts. Finally Jake said, “So how are we gonna do it?”

  “Huh?”

  “How are we going to build a stealth Intruder and keep the technology in our pocket?”

  “I haven’t figured that one out yet,” Henry said slowly. “You see, everything the Russians have gotten so far is passive — tech- niques to minimize the radar cross section and heat signature. To build a mission-capable airplane like we want we’re going to have to use active techniques. Project Athena. They haven’t stolen Athena yet and we don’t want them to get it.”

  “Active techniques?” Jake prompted, unable to contain his curi- osity.

  “Wre going to cancel the bad guys’ radar signal when it reaches our plane. We’ll automatically generate a signal that nulli- fies the echo, mutes it, cancels it out. The plane will then be truly invisible to the enemy. They’ll never see it on their scope. They’ll never receive the echo.” He thought about it “It’s the biggest technological breakthrough since the Manhattan Project. Biggest by a mile.”

  “I’ve heard speculation about canceling radar signals for years. The guys who were supposed to know all laughed. Can it be done?”

  “The party line is no. Impossible. But there’s a crazed genius who wants to be filthy rich that has done it. That technology is the living, beating heart of the ATA. Now all we have to do is get an airplane built and keep them from stealing the secret.”

  Jake whistled. “Can’t we put this on all our ships?”

  “No doubt we will,” Henry said sourly, “and the Russians will steal it before our first ship gets out of the harbor. For now let’s just see if we can get it in one airplane without someone stealing it. That’ll be plenty for you and Roger Dunedin to chew.”

  “Existing aircraft? How about retrofitting them?”

  “Right now, as the
technology exists, the best approach is to design the plane for it. The power output required to hide a stealthy plane would be very small. The device would be easy enough to put on a ship, when we get the bugs worked out. As usual there are bugs. Expensive, though.”

  Admiral Henry glanced at his watch. “Our work’s cut out for us. The air force will want this technology when they get wind of it, and right now everything they see winds up in the Kremlin. It’s not their fault, of course, but that’s the way it is. The manufacturer of our plane will see it and from there it may end up in the Mi- notaur’s clutches. Ditto the ship drivers. And the politicians who have been trick-fucked on the F-117 won’t sit still for more stealth hocus-pocus; they’re gonna want justification for the four or five billion dollars the ATA will require just to develop, and there it goes again. So right now I’m sitting on a volcano that’s about to erupt and my ass is getting damn warm. You see why I wanted you on board.”

  “Not really,” Jake said, wondering how far he should push this. After all, who the hell was Jake Grafton? What could an over-the- hill attack pilot in glasses with four stripes on his sleeve do for a three-star admiral? Bomb the Pentagon? “So what’s your plan? How are you going to do this?”

  Henry was so nervous he couldn’t hold still. “I’m going to hold the cards real close to my chest and catch peeking over my shoulder. Or that’s what I’m going to try to do, anyway.”

  “Admiral, with all respect, sir, what does CNO say about all this?” CNO was the Chief of Naval Operations, the senior uni- formed naval officer.

  Henry squared off in front of Jake. “I’m not stupid enough to try to run my own private navy, Captain. CNO knows exactly what I’m doing. So does SECNAV and SECDEF. But you sure as hell didn’t get it all in this little conversation.”

  “Admiral, I’ll lay it on the line for you. I’m not going to do anything illegal or tell even one solitary little lie. I’m not a very good liar.”

  Admiral Henry grinned. “You just haven’t had the experience it takes. I’ve been single for ten years, so I’ve done a good bit of it. Seriously, all I want you to do is play it straight. Do your job for NAVAIR. Just keep it under your hat that we have an active sys- tem we’re going to put into this bird. Roger will tell you the same.”

  “How many people know about this active system?”

  “Here in Washington? Eight now — The Secretary of the Navy, CNO, SECDEF. NAVAIR, OP-50—which is Rear Admiral Cos- tello — me, you and Helmut Fritsche. And let’s keep it that way for a while.”

  “Have you tested this system? Does it work?”

  Henry made a face. “Fritsche’s seen it work on a test bench. Your first job, after you look at the prototypes, is to put part of it into an A-6 and test it on the ground and in flight.”

  Jake eyed the older man. He had this sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. There was a hell of a lot he wasn’t being told. “So how do you know Fritsche?”

  “He was a professor at Caltech when I was there for a master’s. We became good friends. He did some consulting work for the inventor on some theoretical problems. He saw what the guy had and came to help. That was three years ago. It was coincidence that there was a deputy project manager job opening in the ATA’pro- gram. I talked Fritsche into taking it. He wants to be a part of Athena. The theoretical problems intrigue him.”

  The Minotaur

  “You said you didn’t know all the players.”

  Henry took this opportunity to look around again. “Yeah. I don’t. Your predecessor, Harold Strong? Great guy, knew naval aviation from catapult to tailhook, everything there is to know, but he wasn’t a politician, not a diplomat. He was a blunt, brilliant, take-no-prisoners kind of guy. Somebody killed him.”

  “Why?”

  “I wish I knew.” Henry described how he personally drove to West Virginia on Saturday morning after the Friday-night automo- bile accident. He summarized the conversation he had had with the West Virginia state trooper who investigated the accident. The trooper had served four years in the marine corps and by a stroke of fortune Henry bad been in uniform. The trooper had been good; he knew murder when he saw it. He had taken the admiral to see the local prosecuting attorney, who had been splitting firewood in his backyard when the two of them arrived in the police cruiser. After two hours of talking. Henry induced the prosecutor and the trooper to agree to a wording of the accident report that did not mention homicide and yet would not preclude a homicide prosecu- tion if the identity of the murderer could ever be established.

  “My theory”—Henry shrugged—“I got no evidence, you under- stand — my theory is Harold found out something, teamed some- thing somebody didn’t want him to know — so he got rubbed out.”

  The navy Ford pulled up to the curb, but Henry put a hand on Jake’s arm. “This is big, Jake. Real big. You don’t understand how big. The Russians will figure out we’re going to do something dif- ferent and wonderful with the A-12 and they’ll pull out all the stops to get Athena. And five billion dollars in development money is on the line, plus twenty to thirty billion in production money— that much shit will draw every blowfly and bloodsucker in the country. A lot of these people would kill for this technology.”

  “Maybe someone already has.”

  “Just don’t trust anybody.”

  “I’ve figured that out, sir. I think there’s a hell of a lot here you haven’t told me. So I don’t trust you.”

  Henry threw back his head and guffawed. “I knew you were the right man for this job.” He became instantly serious. “I don’t give a damn whether you trust me or not. Just do your job and keep your mouth shut and we’ll get the navy a good airplane.”

  “By the way, did Strong know about the active system?”

  “Yes.”

  The admiral’s driver dropped Jake at his office building. One of the few benefits of working a black program was that he could come to work in civilian clothes.

  Vice Admiral Dunedin was finishing a conference, so Jake vis- ited with Mrs. Forsythe. In fifteen minutes the door opened and people streamed out, in a hurry.

  “Good morning. Admiral,” Jake said.

  “How’d your talk go with Admiral Henry?”

  “Very well, sir.”

  “Don’t lie to me. Captain. I’m your boss.”

  “Yessir.” Jake found a seat and looked straight at the blue-eyed Scotsman behind the desk. “He told me what he wanted me to know and that was that”

  “How long you been in the navy?”

  Long enough to know how to take orders, Jake thought. “Yes- sir.”

  “Let’s talk about the A-12. It’s now your baby.”

  An hour later the admiral rose from his chair. “Let’s go meet the crew.”

  Jake mentioned to the admiral that he had been looking at the personnel folders. “Lieutenant Moravia. She’s got platinum cre- dentials but no experience. How’d she get on the team?”

  “Strong wanted her. He was down at Pax River when she went through as a student. He said she’s one of a kind. Since he was a test pilot himself, I figured he had the experience even if she didn’t, so I said okay.”

  “I’m not a test pilot,” Jake said.

  “I know. These people work for you. If you want someone else, just say so. That goes for any of them, except for Fritsche. If they stay it’s because you think they can do the job and you trust them.”

  “I read you loud and clear, sir.”

  “Anybody doesn’t pull his weight, or you get goosey about any of them, I’ll have them sitting on the ice cap in the Antarctic so quick they wont have time to pack their long johns,”

  The office in Crystal City where the A-12 program team worked was a square space with twenty metal desks jammed in. Five- drawer filing cabinets with combination locks on the drawers had been arranged to divide the room into work areas. The scarred tops and askew drawers of the desks proclaimed them veterans of other offices, other bureaucratic struggles now forgotten. Office equi
p- ment was scattered all over the room: a dozen computer terminals, four printers, a copy machine, a paper shredder, and a fax machine linked to an encryption device. Jake’s office would be one of the two small private offices. These two small offices each had an out- side window and a blackboard, plus the usual filing cabinets with combination locks on the drawers.

  But the security — wow! There were two entry doors, each with cipher locks, and a closed-circuit television that monitored the dead space between the doors. An armed security team was on duty inside twenty-four hours a day. Their business was to check each person entering the space against a master list and log them in and out. The windows had the music sound vibrators and could not be opened. The shades were permanently closed. The fire extin- guisher system in the ceiling had plastic cutouts installed in the pipes so that they would not conduct sound.

  “Every sheet of paper is numbered and accounted for,” the ad- miral told Jake. “The phone numbers are unlisted and changed monthly. I can never find my number sheet, so I end up walking down here.”

  After a quick tour, Jake stood in the middle of the room with the admiral. “Where’d they get this carpet?”

  “Stole it someplace. I never asked.”

  “Sure would be nice to get a little bigger space. Thirty people?”

  ‘This is all the space I have to give you. It takes the signature of an Assistant Secretary of the Navy to get space not assigned to NAVAIR, I haven’t had time to kiss his ass. But if you can get his scrawl, go for it”

  “Nothing’s too good for the boys in navy blue,” Toad Tarking- ton chirped cheerfully from his little desk against one wall, loud enough to draw a frosty glance from the admiral.

  “You’re Tarkington?” Dunedin said.

  “Yessir.”

  “I hear you suffer from a mouth problem from time to time- If it’s incurable your naval career is about to hit the wall. You read me?”

  “Yessir.”