The Minotaur

by Stephen Coonts

  Royce Caplinger began to walk back and forth, lost in thought. “The Soviet Union today is a nation in transition. Their system is against the wall. The Soviet people want good wages and housing and food to eat. The generals want to maintain their privileged positions. The politicians want to stay in power. (That’s human enough. Ours will sell their soul for another term in office.) To do all of this the Soviets need money, vast quantities of it, money that does not exist.

  “So the government is scrambling for money. What the Minotaur did was prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the amount they have been spending for defense was nowhere near enough. The Soviets have spent as much money in real terms as we have for defense over the years, but it’s a much larger percentage of their Gross National Product. Only a dictatorship can maintain that level of defense spending.” He stopped his pacing and spread his arms. “The Minotaur put the spotlight on the Soviet system’s failings. The Soviet economy, if it can be called that, is an abject debacle: food must be purchased from abroad, there is nothing in the stores to buy, the prosperity of the other industrial nations has eluded them. And now the military needs many more billions to replace hardware it has spent billions to obtain which is now obsolete, years and years before the Soviets planned to replace it.”

  He examined the faces of his listeners. “Don’t you read newspapers? Where have you been? Gorbachev has been talking perestroika and glasnost for years. Why? The threat of Star Wars technology was a major impetus. There was no way they could match it. Under no conceivable circumstances could enough rubles be printed or squeezed from the people to fund such a program. The generals lost power. The politicians gained it. Through diplomacy the threat of Star Wars could be blunted, perhaps even eliminated. Soviet foreign policy changed course dramatically; arms reduction treaties were agreed to and signed, mutual verification was at last swallowed with good grace. Then came the Minotaur’s revelations.”

  “I see,” Jake said, rubbing his chin and glancing at Toad.

  “Yes, Captain. We are having a major technological revolution in America just now. The research of the space programs has borne fruit. Ever smaller, ever more powerful computers, lasers, missiles, fiber optics, new manufacturing techniques that allow us to build structures and engines with capabilities undreamed of ten years ago: last year’s cutting-edge designs are obsolete before we can get them into production! It’s like something out of science fiction. This must have struck you these past six months?”

  “Yes.”

  Caplinger nodded as he seated himself behind the desk. He just couldn’t stay still for any length of time, Jake thought. “It struck me five years ago when I became SECDEF. I listened to the briefings in awe. This black magic was real. It’s not just Star Wars; it’s everything. Jet engines with over three times the thrust per pound of Soviet engines are real ready for deployment. Stealth obsoletes their radar systems. America is preparing to deploy a new generation of weaponry that will make obsolete everything the Russian generals have bled the Soviet Union to get for the last forty years. They have reached the end of their string. If this is table stakes, they have bet their last ruble, and we have raised.”

  “The Minotaur,” Jake said slowly, “gave them the awful truth.”

  “Chapter and verse. Imagine the horror in Moscow as the true dimensions of their dilemma sank in. The rumors and hints they had heard were all true! The United States was even farther ahead technologically than the worst pessimists predicted. It was a nightmare.”

  “They could have ordered a first strike,” Tarkington said. “Started World War III before their military situation became hopeless.”

  “Yes. But they didn’t. They are, after all, sane.”

  “Jee-sus!” Tarkington came out of his chair like a coiled spring. He planted himself in front of Caplinger’s desk. “What if they had?”

  “Then none of us would be alive now, would we, Lieutenant? Please sit down.”

  “Who commissioned you to play God with the universe, Caplinger? Where does it say in the Constitution that you have the right to bet the existence of every living thing on this planet, for whatever reason?”

  Caplinger rose from his chair and leaned across the desk, until his face was only a foot from Toad’s. “What ivory tower did you crawl down from? You think we should just strum our banjos and sing folk songs and pray that nuclear war never happens? Sit down and shut the fuck up!”

  Tarkington obeyed. The cords in his neck were plainly visible.

  “What is he, Captain?” Caplinger jerked a thumb at Toad. “Your conscience that you drag around?”

  “He’s a man who cares,” Jake Grafton said slowly. “He sincerely cares.”

  “We all do,” Caplinger replied, cooling down and taking his seat again. He rubbed his hand across his balding dome several times. “We all care, Tarkington. You think I enjoy this?”

  “Yep. That’s precisely what I think.”

  Caplinger rubbed his face. “Maybe you’re right.” He toyed with a pen on his desk. “Yeah. I guess ‘enjoy’ isn’t the right word. But I do get satisfaction from it. Yes, I do.” He looked at Tarkington. “This is my contribution. Is that so terrible?”

  “That retired woman that Albright killed—I’ll bet she enjoyed her little walk-on role in your drama. Didn’t she have any rights?”

  Caplinger looked away.

  Toad pressed. “You just chopped her like she was nothing. Is that what we are to you? Pawns? Rita—you have the right to stuff my wife through the meat grinder for the greater good? You asshole!”

  After a while Caplinger said, “We took big risks, but the reward was worth it.” He set his jaw. “It was worth it,” he insisted.

  Neither officer replied.

  Caplinger examined both their faces. “Come, gentlemen. Let’s have another cup of coffee.” Toad didn’t get out of his chair. He had the corncob pipe in his hands as the other two men left the room.

  In the kitchen Jake said, “Somebody’s liable to shoot Gorbachev, you know. He’s threatening to break a lot of rice bowls. Revolutions from the top rarely work.”

  “Even if Gorbachev dies, the Soviet Union will never be the same. If the old guard tries to clamp down, sooner or later there’ll be another Russian Revolution, from the bottom next time. There’s going to be another revolution in China, sooner or later. The communists can’t go backwards, though they can sure try.”

  “Why were they so concerned about the Minotaur’s identity?”

  “’They’ is a very broad term. The GRU wanted evidence that the Minotaur’s revelations were false, to discredit them. When Camacho gave them the name of the Secretary of Defense, they were left with an empty bag. The men in the Politburo realized that it was entirely possible the United States government was providing the information as a matter of policy. That possibility had to be weighed.

  “The implications are difficult,” he added, searching for words. “Perhaps the best way to say it is this: Some of the Soviet decision makers saw America, maybe for the first time, as we see ourselves—strong and confident, with excellent reasons for being confident. Frightened men start wars, and we aren’t frightened.”

  Back in the den, Jake asked, “So we still don’t know the identity of the three deep moles, the sleepers?”

  “Let’s say we’re resigned to the fact that, if the agents exist, they will probably not be revealed. But we achieved so much! The changes in the Soviet Union the last three years have been profound.”

  “You play your fucking games,” Toad murmured, “and the little guys get left holding the bag. Like Camacho.”

  “Ah, I hear the voice of the eternal private complaining because the generals are willing to sacrifice him to achieve a military objective.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t read about your little war in the papers. And I didn’t volunteer to fight it.”

  “America was Luis Camacho’s adopted home. He loved this country and he loved its people. He knew exactly what he was doing every
step of the way. Like you and your wife when you fly, he knew the risks. You think his job was easy? Having Albright right next door? Camacho had a wife and kid. You think he had no nerves?”

  Toad sat silently with his arms folded across his chest, staring out the window. Jake and Caplinger talked a while longer. It was almost 4 P.M. when Caplinger said, “By the way, Captain, you did an excellent job presenting the TRX plane and Athena to Congress. I’m looking forward to getting a ride in an A-12 someday.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  Toad picked up the corncob pipe from the pipe stand again and examined it idly. “Why did Camacho admit his past?”

  Caplinger smiled. “Who knows the human heart? His explanation, which I read very carefully after Albright approached him a year or so ago, was that America is a country that cares about people. You see, he was a cop. A cop in J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. But in spite of Hoover’s paranoid insanities, Luis saw that the vast majority of the agents there were trying their best to enforce the laws in an even, fair manner, with due regard to the rights of their fellow citizens. Camacho came from a country where the police have no such mission. The police there are not honest, honorable men.” He shrugged. “Luis Camacho instinctively understood Hoover. He had grown up in a nation ruled by such men. But Camacho came to see himself as a public servant. He became an American.”

  “Thanks for your time today, Mr. Secretary.”

  “I’ll walk you to your car.”

  He led them through the kitchen to the door that led to the parking area. As he walked, he asked Jake, “How’d you learn I was the Minotaur?”

  “I didn’t. I guessed. Your seeing us today was the proof.”

  “You guessed?”

  “Yes, sir. My wife suggested that perhaps the Minotaur was a role played by an actor, an intuitive insight which seemed to me to explain a great deal. Then I remembered that comment you made one evening at dinner in China Lake this past summer, something to the effect that the perception of reality is more important than the facts. Camacho had said that the people who had to know about this operation did know. By implication that comment included you. So I decided you were probably the Minotaur.”

  “I thought your notes meant blackmail, until I saw you this afternoon.”

  “I thought you might.”

  Jake stepped to the car ten feet away and opened the door.

  “All our scheming,” Caplinger mused. “So transparent. No wonder Camacho thought Albright saw through it. Albright was no fool.”

  Royce Caplinger stopped at the end of the walk to look at the clouds building above the mountains to the west. He started as something hard dug into his back.

  In his ear Toad said, “You miscalculated once too often, Caplinger.”

  Catching the tone but not the words, Jake Grafton turned with a puzzled look on his face.

  The lieutenant had his arm on Caplinger’s shoulder. He jerked the older man sideways until he was between him and Grafton. “Don’t move, Captain! I swear I’ll shoot him if I have to.”

  “What—?”

  “That’s right, Caplinger,” Toad hissed in the secretary’s ear. “I’ll pull this trigger and blow your spine clean in half. This time it isn’t Matilda Jackson or Rita Moravia or Luis Camacho. It’s you! You thought you had everything figured, didn’t you? Minotaur! You were wrong! The decision has been made. It’s time for you to die.”

  The secretary tried to turn. “Now listen—”

  “Tarkington!” Jake Grafton roared.

  Toad twisted the man’s arm, squeezing as hard as he could. “The decision has been made! They decided. It’s over for you.”

  “Please listen—” Caplinger began as Jake strode toward the two men, his face a mask of livid fury.

  “Tarkington!”

  “So long, asshole!” Toad stepped to one side, raised his arm and pointed right into Caplinger’s face. “Bang,” he said, and let the corncob pipe fall from his hand.

  Caplinger stood staring at it.

  “Tarkington,” Jake said softly, his voice as ominous as a gathering storm.

  Toad walked away down the drive. He stumbled once, caught himself and kept walking. He didn’t look back.

  Caplinger lowered himself into the gravel. He put his head on his knees. After a bit he whispered, “I really…I really thought…”

  “His wife…”

  “He’s right, you know.”

  Jake turned and looked down the long, straight driveway. Tarkington was still going, marching for the road, his head up and shoulders back. “Yeah.”

  “Go. Take him with you. Go.”

  “You going to be okay?”

  “Yes. Just go.”

  Jake started the car, turned it around and went down the driveway. He slowed to a crawl alongside Toad, who kept walking. “Get in.”

  Tarkington ignored him. He was chewing on his lower lip.

  “Get in the car, Lieutenant, or I will court-martial you, so help me God!”

  Tarkington stopped and looked at Grafton behind the wheel. He hesitated, then opened the passenger door and climbed in.

  As Jake started the car rolling again he glanced in the rearview mirror. In front of the huge mansion covered with ivy, Caplinger was still sitting in the gravel with his head down.

  Three miles down the road Toad spoke. “Why did you stay in the navy?”

  “Some things are worth fighting for.”

  Toad sat silently, his eyes on the road, for a long time. Finally he said, “I’m sorry.”

  “Everyone’s sorry.” We’re born sorry, we spend our life apologizing, and we die sorry. Sorry for all the guys with their names on the Wall. Sorry for the silly bastards who sent them there and stayed home and aren’t sorry themselves. Sorry for the 230 grunts killed in Lebanon by a truck bomb. Sorry for the simple sonuvabitch who wouldn’t let the sentry load his rifle. We’re sorry for them all.

  “Forget it,” Jake added.

  “I should’ve killed the bastard.”

  “Wouldn’t have done any good.”

  “I suppose not.”

  31

  Rita was released from the hospital on a Wednesday in November. She wore a cervical collar and a blue uniform that Toad had had dry-cleaned. He picked her up at noon. “Where to, beautiful?”

  “Straight to the beauty shop, James. I’m going to treat myself to a cut, shampoo and perm, then home to bed.”

  She was very tired when he got her home to their apartment. After a nap, that evening she walked around slowly, looking at this, touching that. Harriet came over for a gabfest and left at nine when Rita visibly wilted.

  On Friday, Rita insisted on going to the office with Toad. The crowd paraded by the desk one at a time to welcome her back. She greeted each of them joyfully, with genuine enthusiasm. Her delightful exhilaration was contagious. She seemed the incarnation of the promise and hope of life. Yet by noon she was tired, so Toad drove her home, then he returned to the office alone.

  Saturday morning arrived crisp and clear. “How do you feel today?” Toad asked as he helped her into the collar.

  “Good. I’ll need a nap this afternoon, though.”

  “Want to go on an expedition? I promise a nap.”

  “Where?”

  He wouldn’t tell. So, suitably dressed, they went down to the car, where Toad announced he had forgotten something upstairs.

  He rode the elevator back up to the third floor and made several quick phone calls, then returned smiling.

  He drove out to a small civilian airport in Reston, all the while refusing to answer questions, parked the car in front of the flying service’s little building, and came around to help her out.

  “’Just as lovely a morning as ever was seen, for a nice little trip in a flying machine,’” quoteth Toad.

  “What is this? Toad! I can’t fly!”

  “I can. You can watch me.”

  “You? You’ve been taking lessons?”

  “Got my license too.
Last weekend. Now we’re both pilots.” He grinned broadly and hugged her gently.

  Toad took her inside and introduced her to the owner of the flying service, who visited with her while Toad preflighted the plane and taxied it to the front, where he killed the engine. The machine was a Cessna 172, white with a red stripe extending horizontally along the fuselage, back from the prop spinner. Toad thought it looked racy.

  Rita was standing in the door, watching him. He couldn’t resist. He bowed deeply from the waist. “Come,” he said. “Come fly with me.”

  He helped her strap into the right seat, then walked around the machine and strapped himself into the left.

  “This feels funny,” she giggled.

  “Come fly with me, darling Rita. We’ll fly the halls of heaven, watch the angel choir. We’ll soar with the eagles and see where the storms are born. Fly with me, Rita, all your life.”

  “Start the engine, Toad-man.”

  With a half inch of throttle, the engine spluttered to life again. He pulled the throttle back to idle and the Lycoming ran smoothly, the propeller a blurred disk. Out they went down the narrow asphalt taxiway with Toad monitoring the Unicom frequency and checking the sky. He paused at the end of the taxiway, ran the engine up to 1,700 RPM and checked the mags, carb heat and mixture control, all the while acutely aware of Rita’s scrutiny.

  He was trying very hard to do everything right and not to laugh at the incongruity of the situation. When he glanced at Rita, she quickly averted her gaze. She was biting her lip, no doubt to keep from smiling. She had that scrunched-up look around her eyes. Trying hard to keep a straight face himself, Toad got back to the business at hand.

  He wiped the controls through a cycle and ran the flaps out and in with an eye on the voltage needle. Satisfied, he announced his intentions on Unicom and took the runway.

  The engine snarled as he smoothly pushed the throttle knob in all the way. With his feet dancing on the rudder pedals, the plane swerved only a little as it accelerated. At fifty-five knots he pulled back on the yoke and the plane came willingly off the runway. He trimmed the plane for a seventy-knot climb and said, “You’ve got it.”