Henry fixed his eyes on Jake. “The A-12 is our follow-on airplane for the A-6.” The A-6 Intruder was the aircraft carriers’ main offensive weapon, an all-weather medium attack plane.
“But I thought the A-6 was going to remain in the inventory into the next century. That was the justification for the A-6G project—new graphite-composite wings and updated avionics.”
“The A-6 had to have the new wings just to stay in the air, and the A-6G avionics are going into the A-12. We were trying the new gee-whiz gizmos out in the A-6G, until they canceled it.” The A-6G had died under the budget cutters’ knives. Henry smiled wickedly. “The A-12 will have something even better. Athena. Do you know Greek mythology?”
“A smattering. Wasn’t Athena the goddess of war, the protector of warriors?”
“Yep, and she had a quality that we are going to give to our new plane.” He paused and raised one finger aloft. When he grinned like that his eyebrows matched the curve of his lips. “She could make herself invisible.”
Jake just stared.
“Stealth technology. The air force built a land-based fighter: that’s first-generation stealth technology. Then came new paint and radar-absorbent materials and the flying-wing shape—that’s second-generation.” His voice dropped conspiratorially. “We’re building an all-weather, go-anywhere anytime carrier-based attack plane that will equal or exceed the A-6 in range, speed and payload, and carry advanced sensors that will make the A-6 look blind as a cornfield scarecrow. These sensors—anyway, they’re a whole new generation beyond the A-6. And the A-12 will have third-generation stealth technology—Athena—which will make it truly invisible to radar. A stealth Super-Intruder, if you will. That’s the A-12.” Henry’s eyebrows danced.
“And that, my friend, is the secret.”
The admiral smacked his hand on the desk. The gold rings encircling his sleeve attracted Jake’s eye. “The Russians don’t know about it. Yet. If we can get this thing to sea before they steal the technology and figure out how to counter it, we’ve pretty well guaranteed that there won’t be a conventional war with the Soviets for at least the next ten years. Their ships would be defenseless against a stealth Intruder.”
Admiral Henry sighed. “We’re trying to build one of these things, anyway. You’re replacing Captain Harold Strong, who was killed in a car wreck a month ago. We had to wait to get you, but now, by God, your ass is ours.”
Jake Grafton sat stunned. “But how—all the weapons will have to be carried externally and they’ll reflect energy—how will you get around that?”
The corners of Henry’s lips turned up until his mouth formed a V and his eyebrows danced. “You’re going to enjoy this job, Captain.”
“A real job,” Jake said, his relief obvious. “And I thought I was just going to be designing fitness report forms.”
“Oh,” Henry boomed. “If you want you can work on that in your spare time. Don’t know when you’d sleep, though.” He turned serious. “Things are really starting to move. We’ve got two prototypes about ready to fly—constructed by two different manufacturers—and we must get them evaluated and award the production contract. We’ve got to quit noodling and get this show on the road. We need airplanes. That’s why you’re here.”
After a glance at his watch, Henry reached for his intercom. His hand hovered near it. “Start checking in,” he said hurriedly. “Go get your paperwork done. They’ve got some orders for you someplace; you’ll have to find them. Maybe at NAVAIR which is over at Crystal City. Then you might go around the corner and introduce yourself to the project coordinator, Commander Rob Knight. He’s here today, I think. I’ll see you at nine tomorrow morning. And then I want to hear all about the attack on United States and how you started El Hakim on the road to Paradise.”
He keyed the intercom and started talking as he shooed Jake out with his left hand. Jake didn’t even get a chance to say thanks.
Crystal City, Jake was informed by Henry’s aide, was across the Pentagon’s south parking lot, on the other side of the highway, southeast of the Pentagon. NAVAIR was in buildings JP-1 and JP-2, in the northern portion of the Crystal City office complex. He wandered out into the corridors and walked along slightly dazed. A real job! A big job!
Although the aide had suggested the shuttle bus, Jake decided to walk. After asking an air force officer in the parking lot which set of tall buildings was which and getting a careful sighting across a pointing finger, Jake began walking. The wind was chilly, but not intolerably so. Under I-395, across a four-lane boulevard dodging traffic, under U.S. Route 1, the hike took about ten minutes. He accosted a pedestrian and building Jefferson Plaza 1 was pointed out. In he went, punched the elevator button and after waiting what seemed to be an inordinately long time, rode to the twelfth floor, the top one.
They did have a set of orders. It took the civilian secretary five minutes to find them, and in the interim Jake visited with three officers he knew from his shipboard days. With the orders in his hand, the secretary called a yeoman, who put the captain to work filling out forms.
Jake was eating lunch in Gus’s Place, a commercial cafeteria on the ground floor of the complex, when Toad Tarkington spotted him. Toad came over, tray in hand. “Saw you sitting over here by yourself, CAG. May I join you?”
Jake moved his tray and Toad off-loaded his food onto the table.
A group of junior officers twenty feet away began to whisper and glance in their direction.
“How has your morning gone?”
“Same old stuff,” Toad announced as he placed his large brown manila envelope full of orders and forms on his chair and carefully sat on it. “Got my picture taken for my permanent building pass, which I’m supposed to pick up this afternoon. I must have signed my name fifty times this morning. Every naval activity between here and Diego Garcia will soon receive notification in triplicate that I can be found sitting on the bull’s-eye at this critical nerve center of the nation’s defenses, ready to save the free world from the forces of evil.” Toad made a gesture of modesty and slowly unfolded his napkin.
“I hear we’re going to be putting that new officer fitness report form together, though just why the heck they got the two greatest aerial warriors of the age over here at NAVAIR to do that sort of beats me. Ours not to reason why…” He glanced at Jake to get his reaction as he smoothed the napkin on his lap.
Grafton sipped his coffee, then took another bite of tuna salad.
“But what the hey,” Toad continued cheerfully. “Flying, walking, or sitting on my ass, they pay me just the same. Do you know there are 3.4 women in Washington for every man? This is the place. Bachelor city. Sodom on the Potomac. A studly young lad ought to be able to do pretty well with all these lonely females seeking to satisfy their social and sexual needs. Mr. Accommodation, that’s me. I figure with my salary—”
“The sexual revolution is over,” Jake muttered as he forked more tuna salad. “You missed it.”
“I’m carrying on a guerrilla campaign, sir. Indomitable and unconquerable, that’s the ol’ Horny Toad, even in the age of latex. I just dress up like the Michelin man and go for it. A fellow could always spring a leak, I guess, but the bee must go from flower to flower. That’s the natural order of things.” He chewed thoughtfully. “Have you noticed how those people over there keep sneaking looks at us?”
“Yeah.” Jake didn’t look around. Although the room was filled with civilians and uniformed men and women eating and carrying trays and visiting over coffee, the four junior officers two tables away had been glancing over and speaking softly since Jake sat down.
“It’s been like that all day with me,” Toad said with a hint of despair in his voice, then sent another mouthful of food down behind his belt buckle. “At first I thought I had forgotten my pants, but now I think it’s the hero bit. Asked two admirers for dates this morning and got two yeses. Not bad for a Monday.”
“It’ll pass. Next week you’ll have to spell your name twice
just to get into the men’s head. How’s your leg?”
“Got a couple girders in it, sir. One of them is a metal rod about a foot long. But I passed my flight physical. Those Israeli doctors did a good job. Aches some occasionally.”
“We were damned lucky.”
“That’s an understatement,” Toad said, and proceeded to fill Jake in on how he had spent the last five months.
After lunch Jake hiked back across the streets and parking lots to the Pentagon. His temporary pass so excited the security cop that he nodded his head a quarter inch as Jake walked by.
Commander Rob Knight was several years younger than Jake and had more hair, although it was salt-and-pepper. He wore steel-rimmed glasses and beamed when Jake introduced himself.
“Heard about your little adventure in the Med last year, Captain. It’s been pretty dull without El Hakim to kick around.” Knight grinned easily. He had an air of quiet confidence that Jake found reassuring. Like all career officers getting acquainted, Knight and Jake told each other in broad terms of their past tours. Knight had spent most of his operational career in A-6 outfits, and had been ordered to this billet after a tour as commanding officer of an A-6 squadron.
“I came by to find out everything you know about the A-12,” Jake said lightly.
Knight chuckled. “A real kidder, you are. I’ve been soaking up info for a year and a half and I haven’t even scratched the surface. And you see I’m only one guy. The A-6 coordinator sits here beside me, and on the other side of the room we have the F-14 and F/A-18 guys. One for each airplane. We don’t have a secretary or a yeoman. We do our own mail. We make our own coffee. I spend about a third of my time in this office, which is where I do the unclass stuff and confidential. Another third of my time is spent upstairs in the vault working on classified stuff. I have a desk up there with another computer and safes. The rest of my time is spent over at NAVAIR, in your shop, trying to see what you guys are up to.”
“Just one guy.” Jake was disappointed, and it showed. He felt a little like the kid who met Santa for the first time and found he was old and fat and smelled of reindeer shit. “One guy! Just exactly what is your job?”
“I’m the man with the money. I get it from Rear Admiral Costello. He’s the Aviation Plans and Programs honcho. He tells me what we want the plane to do. We draw up the requirements. You build the plane we say we want, you sell it to me, and I write the checks. That’s it in a nutshell.”
“Sounds simple enough.”
“Simple as brain surgery. There’s an auditor that comes around from time to time, and he’s going to cuff me and take me away one of these days. I can see it in his eyes.”
They talked for an hour, or rather Knight talked and Jake listened, with his hands on his thighs. Knight had a habit of tapping aimlessly on the computer terminal on his desk, striking keys at random. When Jake wasn’t looking at Knight he was looking at the Sports Illustrated swimsuit girl over Knight’s desk (April 1988 was a very good month), or the three airplane pictures, or the Farrah Fawcett pinup over the A-6 guru’s desk. Between the two desks sat a filing cabinet with combination locks on every drawer. Similar cabinets filled the room. Twice Knight rooted through an open cabinet drawer and handed Jake classified memos to read, but not to keep. Each was replaced in its proper file as soon as Jake handed it back.
Then Knight took Jake up a floor to the vault, where he signed a special form acknowledging the security regulations associated with black programs. In this chamber, surrounded by safes and locks and steel doors, Commander Knight briefed him on the technical details of the prototypes, the program schedules and so on.
At three o’clock Jake was back on the twelfth floor of the Crystal City complex to meet with Vice Admiral Dunedin. His office was not quite as plush as Henry’s but it was every bit as large. Out the large windows airliners were landing and taking off from National airport.
“Do you have any idea what you’re getting into?” Dunedin asked. He was soft-spoken, with short gray hair and workman’s hands, thick, strong fingers that even now showed traces of oil and grease. Jake remembered hearing that his hobby was restoring old cars.
“In a vague, hazy way.”
“Normally we assign Aeronautical Engineering Duty Officers, AEDOs, to be program managers. By definition, an AEDO’s specialty is the procurement business. Harold Strong was an AEDO. But, considering the status of the A-12, we figured that we needed a war fighter with credibility on the Hill.” The Hill, Jake knew, was Capitol Hill, Congress. But who, he wondered, were the “we” of whom the admiral spoke? “You’re our warrior. There’s not enough time to send you to the five-month program manager school, so we’ve waived it. You’re going to have to hit the ground running. Your deputy is a GS-15 civilian, Dr. Helmut Fritsche. He’s only been here three years or so but he knows the ropes. And you’ve got some AEDOs on your staff. Use them, but remember, you’re in charge.”
“I won’t forget,” Jake Grafton said.
Dunedin’s secretary, Mrs. Forsythe, gave him a list of the officers who would be under his supervision. She was a warm, motherly lady with silver-gray hair and pictures of children on her desk. Jake asked. Her grandchildren. She offered him a brownie she had baked last night, which he accepted and munched with approving comments while she placed a call to the Personnel Support Detachment. She gave him detailed directions on how to find PSD, which was, she explained, six buildings south. When Jake arrived fifteen minutes later a secretary was busy pulling the service records for him to examine.
He found an empty desk and settled in.
The civilian files stood out from the others. Helmut Fritsche, Ph.D. in electrical engineering, formerly professor at Caltech, before that on the research staff of NASA. Publications; wow! Thirty or forty scientific papers. Jake ran his eye down the list. All were about radar: wave propagation, Doppler effect, numerical determination of three-dimensional electromagnetic scattering, and so on.
George Wilson was a professor of aeronautical engineering at MIT on a one-year sabbatical. He had apparently been recruited by Admiral Henry and came aboard the first of the year. He would be leaving at the end of December. Like Fritsche’s, Wilson’s list of professional publications was long and complicated. He had co-authored at least one textbook, but the title that caught Jake’s eye was an article for a scientific journal: “Aerodynamic Challenges in Low Radar Cross Section Platforms.”
Jake laid the civilians’ files aside and began to flip through the naval officers’. Halfway through he found one that he slowed down to examine with care. Lieutenant Rita Moravia, Naval Academy Class of ’82. Second in her class at the Academy, first in her class in flight school and winner of an outstanding achievement award. Went through A-7 training, then transferred to F/A-18s, where she became an instructor pilot in the West Coast replacement squadron. Next came a year at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, for a master’s in aeronautical engineering, and another year at Test Pilot School at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, where she graduated first in her class.
There were three line commanders: an A-6 bombardier-navigator, an F-14 pilot and an EA-6B Electronic Countermeasures Officer—ECMO. Jake knew the A-6 BN and the Prowler ECMO. There was an aircraft maintenance specialist, whom Jake knew, and five AEDOs, all of whom wore pilot or naval flight officer wings. Except for the A-6 BN and the Prowler ECMO, the rest had fighter backgrounds, including Tarkington, who was one of only two lieutenants. The rest were commanders and lieutenant commanders.
If the navy wanted a stealth attack plane, why so many fighter types? The air force called all their tactical drivers fighter pilots, but the navy had long ago divided the tactical fraternity into attack and fighter. The missions and the aircraft were completely different, so the training and tactics were also different. And according to the amateur psychologists in uniform who thought about these things and announced their conclusions at Happy Hour, the men were different too. Either their personalities were altered by
the training or the missions attracted men of certain types. According to the attack community, fighter pukes were devil-may-care, kiss-tomorrow-goodbye romantics who lived and lusted for the dubious glory of individual combat in the skies. The fighter crowd said the attack pukes were phlegmatic plodders with brass balls—and no imaginations—who dropped bombs because they didn’t know any better. Most of it was good, clean fun, but with a tinge of truth.
When Jake finished going through the records he stacked them carefully and stared thoughtfully at the pile. Dunedin and Strong had assembled a good group, he concluded, officers with excellent though varied backgrounds, from all over tactical naval aviation. The test pilot was the only real question mark. Moravia certainly had her tickets punched and was probably smarter than Einstein, but she had no actual experience in flight-testing new designs. He would ask Dunedin about her.
Tomorrow he would meet them. That was soon enough. First he had to find out what was really happening from Henry or Dunedin.
Henry spoke of minefields—a grotesque understatement. The problems inherent in overcoming the inertia of the bureaucracy to produce a new state-of-the-art weapons system were nothing short of mind-boggling. Dunedin must feel like he’s been ordered to build the Great Pyramid armed with nothing but a used condom and a flyswatter. And for God’s sake, do it quietly, top secret and all. Aye aye, sir.
In the Crystal City underground mall he found a toy store and purchased a plastic model of the air force’s new stealth fighter, the F-117. He also bought a tube of glue. Then he boarded the Metro blue train for the ride to Rosslyn.
When the subway surfaced near the Key Bridge, Jake stared gloomily at the raindrops smearing the dirt on the windows as the train rocked along under a dark gray sky, then it raced noisily back into another hole in the ground and like his fellow passengers, he refocused his eyes vacantly on nothing as he instinctively created his own little private space.
He felt relieved when the doors finally opened and he joined the other passengers surging across the platform, through the turnstiles, then onto the world’s longest escalator. The moving stair ascended slowly up the gloomy, slanting shaft bearing its veterans of purgatory. Amid the jostling, pushing, hustling throng, he was carried along as part of the flow. This morning he had been a tourist. Now he was as much a part of this human river as any of them. Morning and evening he would be an anonymous face in the mob: hurry along, hurry, push and shove gently, persistently, insistently, demanding equal vigor and speed from every set of legs, equal privacy from every set of blank, unfocused eyes. Hurry, hurry along.
The Minotaur Page 4