by Mike Jenne
“Many of you will attend the Army’s Ranger school as well. Most of you will rotate to Vietnam for combat tours with the Combat Security Police Squadrons. There are other opportunities for advanced training as well. Beyond training courses conducted by the military, we send airmen to the Forest Service’s smokejumper school in Montana as well as training conducted by other government agencies. If you prove your mettle in cycle and spend some time with an operational squadron, you’ll leave here with a fairly impressive resume.
“Finally, gentlemen, I am authorized to offer you three other unique incentives. First, once you’re assigned to the 116th Wing, you may remain in the Wing as long as you wish, provided you continue to meet our standards.
“Second, when and if you elect to leave the Wing, you will have your choice of next assignment, provided that your performance has been up to snuff. Third, unless you’ve been promoted in the past year, you will be automatically promoted one grade in rank before transferring to your next assignment. But I should also make you aware that despite these incentives, not one man has ever voluntarily elected to leave the Wing.” Fels paused and then asked, “Gentlemen, what are your questions?”
At that point, Henson had no question. Only moments ago he wasn’t sure if he had come to the right place, but now there was no doubt in his mind.
8
THE SKINNY MATH WHIZ FROM WILBER, NEBRASKA
Atlanta Municipal Airport, Atlanta, Georgia
9:15 a.m., Monday, April 22, 1968
Ourecky dashed up the steps and boarded the plane with just minutes to spare, only to learn that the Delta flight—bound for Dayton, Ohio—would be delayed until two extra carts of luggage could be loaded. Wearing his short-sleeved Air Force khakis, he negotiated the narrow aisle, and took a place next to a large man studying sales brochures for industrial refrigeration.
The man, smelling heavily of Old Spice cologne and last night’s liquor, stuck out an oversized hand. “Bill Jeffers. Dayton Industrial Supplies,” he announced, loud enough for the entire plane—and possibly the airport—to hear. He shook out a cigarette from a pack of Camels, and deftly lit it with an ancient Zippo lighter.
“Uh, Lieutenant Scott Ourecky.” He forgot the salesman’s name almost immediately.
A passing stewardess stopped and leaned over Ourecky. He read her name, “Bea,” engraved deeply in the brass plate pinned to the light blue polyester of her snug-fitting jacket. “You’ll have to put that out,” she said, pointing at the fat man’s cigarette. “No smoking ’til we’re airborne.” She leaned back, smiled at Ourecky, and asked, “Can I bring you anything? Pillow? Magazine? I think we have the latest Life and Look. Maybe Esquire?”
“Uh, no thank you. I’m fine,” answered Ourecky, fastening his lap belt. “Maybe later I might want to read something, but not just now.”
“Sure, honey. So, are you in the Army? Back from overseas?”
“No, ma’am. I’m in the Air Force, stationed at Eglin Air Force Base. That’s in Florida, right on the Panhandle.”
“Really? I’ve just been dying to go down there to the beaches. Is that near Panama City?”
“Very close,” answered Ourecky.
“That’s a very interesting name you’ve got there,” she commented, gazing at the name tag on his tan uniform. “How do you pronounce that?”
“It’s Oh Wreck E, ma’am. Ourecky. It’s Czechoslovakian. My great-great-grandparents immigrated to America in 1864 and settled in Nebraska.”
“Fascinating,” she replied, displaying the most dazzling smile that Ourecky had ever witnessed. It was so bright, he felt like he was looking into the sun.
To Ourecky’s left, the salesman chimed into the conversation. “Darling, you sure look mighty familiar. Haven’t I seen you somewhere? Maybe on television?”
“I don’t think so,” she answered, shaking her head and wrinkling her nose at his overwhelming aftershave.
“Wait, wait, I knew it,” the salesman exclaimed, slapping the armrest. “You’re a dead ringer for that girl who plays the genie . . .”
She held up a palm and shushed him. “I get that all the time. So much so, I think I might invest in a frilly little harem outfit and wear a jewel in my navel.” Smiling again, she turned her attention back to Ourecky. “I should get back to work. I’ll swing by later to check on you.”
As she strolled up the narrow aisle, the salesman elbowed Ourecky and muttered, “Coffee, tea, or me?” He chuckled as he took a furtive draw from his cigarette before stubbing it out in the armrest ashtray.
“What?”
“Oh, man, she’s sweet on you. Can’t you see that?”
“No, she’s just doing her job,” answered Ourecky, reviewing the safety card for the airliner. He looked around the cozy cabin, noting the nearest exits. “She’s supposed to be friendly.”
The corpulent salesman shook his head and laughed. “If you say so, buddy. So, you’re in the Air Force, huh? I was Army, back in the War. Paratrooper. Screaming Eagles, by God,” he declared, holding up his tarnished Zippo, which was emblazoned with the famous shoulder patch of the 101st Airborne Division.
The salesman slipped the lighter into his pocket, and glumly lamented, “Guess you couldn’t know that now, looking at this damned big gut of mine. But I jumped into France on the night before D-Day. I was eighteen years old and scared completely out of my wits. The damned Air Corps scattered us all over Normandy, everywhere but where we were supposed to be.”
“I’m sure that must have been terrifying,” Ourecky said, opening one of the three thick spiral-bound notebooks perched in his lap. Trying to be polite, he focused on a series of equations that had been vexing him. The problem, which he had copied from a college text on orbital mechanics, involved two satellites placed in dissimilar orbits. Specifically, it required him to calculate the means to gradually shift the planes and phases of their orbits to allow them to eventually meet. Glancing up, he noticed the stewardess solemnly presenting a set of junior stewardess wings to a young girl.
“So you’re a pilot?” asked the salesman, derailing Ourecky’s train of thought.
“Uh, no,” replied Ourecky, gazing down at his penciled diagrams in the notebook.
“Really? Since you were an officer, I just figured you for a pilot.” The big man reached in his shirt pocket, pulled out his pack of Camels, and tapped out a cigarette. He started to light it with the Zippo, thought better of it, and stuck the cigarette behind his ear.
“No. I’m an engineer,” explained Ourecky, slipping a slide rule out of a worn leather case. He manipulated the slide rule and then used a pencil stub to jot numbers in his notebook. “I’m involved in ordnance design down at Eglin. It’s interesting work, very challenging.”
Seeming satisfied with Ourecky’s answer, the man pulled an in-flight magazine from the seat pocket in front of him. Toying with his Zippo, he studied a map of Delta’s domestic routes.
As Ourecky verified some of his previous calculations with the slide rule, he had the unsettling feeling that he was being watched. He looked up and saw the stewardess standing motionless in the aisle, staring at him as if she were mesmerized or in some sort of trance. Her mouth was fixed in an odd smile, like she suddenly recognized him from somewhere in the past when they might have shared a brief moment. Painfully self-conscious, he shyly smiled back. The salesman was right: tall, slender, stunningly attractive, with a waterfall of blonde hair that cascaded over her shoulders, she certainly looked like she belonged on television.
Even though she was light-years beyond his grasp, he felt compelled to scribble her name—Bea—in his notebook’s margin, next to a diagram depicting converging orbits of two satellites. His face suddenly felt warm, and he realized that he was blushing. He glanced away, as if to avoid the blinding glare of oncoming headlights. He looked up to see her slowly pivot away and gracefully saunter toward the first class compartment. Probably a case of mistaken identity, he thought, surely she confused me with someone else. Ourecky resolved hims
elf to put the glamorous stewardess out of his thoughts, to focus on more pressing matters, like being prepared for his meeting at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
The salesman spoke, interrupting the awkward moment. “But I guess you’ll be going to flight school soon enough, right? I know you want to earn those wings, don’t you?”
“No. I really like what I’m doing. Now, if you don’t mind, I have to finish this set of problems. They need to be ready before my meeting today.” Ourecky didn’t particularly enjoy lying, especially since he only vaguely knew why he was going to see Virgil Wolcott in Ohio, but the notion of a three-hour gab session with the salesman was not something that he relished.
Ourecky closed his eyes, pretending to concentrate on a particularly tough problem. He had to admit to himself that the salesman’s infuriating question about pilot training had struck a nerve. His boyhood aspirations of travelling into space had never faded completely from his thoughts. But some men were meant to fly, and some weren’t; the harsh reality was that the arcane equations in these notebooks were as close as he would ever come to orbit.
Aerospace Support Project
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio
3:30 p.m., Monday, April 22, 1968
Even though he had visited Wright-Patterson several times in the past, it took Ourecky almost an hour of diligent searching to locate the offices of the Aerospace Support Project. He was finally directed to a three-story brick building of World War II vintage, not very far from the flight line, adjacent to a row of equally old hangars.
He expended another twenty minutes filling out paperwork before being issued a temporary badge that granted limited access to the building. Accompanied by an airman assigned as his escort, he strolled down several corridors before entering an outer office that served as a holding area for the offices and workspaces for Tew and Wolcott. Punching a button on a desk intercom, a sergeant announced his entrance and asked him to take a seat while he waited.
Ourecky adjusted his uniform before taking a seat in a stiff-backed metal frame chair. His stomach growled audibly; he wished he hadn’t skipped lunch, but he’d just been too nervous to eat. Quietly tapping his left foot, he was anxious to discover why he had been summoned by the generals. What on earth could they possibly want him to do?
He had looked for clues on the way in, but there were none. It definitely wasn’t what he had imagined. There was no evidence of any unusual activities. While the people in the hallways weren’t exactly chatty, no one seemed the least bit furtive or guarded. The Project’s headquarters could have been any government office building on any Monday afternoon.
After a few minutes, the intercom buzzed. “Lieutenant, you can go right in,” stated the sergeant, looking up from his typewriter. “The generals will be right with you.”
Ourecky rapped lightly on the door and then stepped inside to find a spacious but relatively bare room. There were two small windows and two doors, aside from the one to the waiting room, apparently opening to separate offices for each general.
The austere space was devoid of plants, pictures or frivolous decoration. From the green linoleum floor to the bland white ceiling tiles, the appointments were strictly government issue. At one side of the room were two battleship gray metal desks. One was adorned with a plain wooden nameplate that read “Virgil Wolcott” and the other held a nameplate that stated “MG Marcus Tew, USAF.” A large conference table, surrounded by matching chairs, took up most the floor space in front of the desks. Several large gray metal cabinets occupied the wall behind the desks; the cabinets were completely jammed with black leatherette binders. All other available wall space was covered with large blackboards. The room smelled of pine oil cleaner, cigarettes, and chalk dust.
Ourecky had imagined that Wolcott would dress more formally for the office, but he was mistaken; with the exception of a bolo string tie, Wolcott’s attire was scarcely different than what he had worn when they first met at Eglin. The two generals were engrossed with their work, and seemingly didn’t notice his entrance. He quietly cleared his throat to draw their attention.
Briefly looking up, Tew motioned for Ourecky to take a seat at a conference table. As the two men leafed through their stacks of paperwork, he studied two meticulously detailed spacecraft models at the center of the table. He recognized one as the two-man Gemini spacecraft and the other was a Titan II rocket topped by a Gemini. The Gemini model appeared slightly different than the NASA version; the nose was slightly longer and wider. Additionally, “USAF” was emblazoned in white letters above an American flag. He assumed that it was a special variant that would be flown as a return vehicle on the upcoming MOL missions.
Tew finally paused long enough to introduce himself. “I’m General Mark Tew,” he said, taking a seat at the table across from Ourecky. As the general sat down, Ourecky clumsily jumped to attention. His chair, equipped with rollers, skittered off in the opposite direction. “I understand that you’ve already met my deputy, Virgil Wolcott.”
“Good to see you again, Ourecky,” said Wolcott, joining them at the table. “Let’s get right down to brass tacks. We’ve been on the hunt for someone with some unique skills, and you might be just the man we’re lookin’ for. Now, you need to bear in mind that what I’m goin’ to describe is classified well beyond your current security clearance.”
Ourecky grinned. “General, I hold a Top Secret clearance,” he said smugly.
Frowning, Tew’s temperament seemed to change in an instant. “Lieutenant, we know precisely what type of clearance you have. Virgil was being polite, but I’m not so predisposed. You are not to discuss this Project, ever, with anyone outside of this office, regardless of whether you work on it or not. If you do, then you will serve out the remainder of your Air Force tour in a very unpleasant place. Do you understand?”
Swallowing, Ourecky nodded meekly.
Wolcott laughed, trying to dispel the awkwardness. “Now that we’ve exchanged pleasantries, pard, let’s talk business. So we don’t squander a lot of valuable time, I’m going to cut right to the chase. For starters, while the sign outside says ‘Aerospace Support Project,’ the true name of our operation is ‘Blue Gemini,’ but we only use that name under this roof.”
Wolcott leaned forward. “Why are we here? Way up at the stratospheric levels of our government there are folks gravely concerned about what kind of hardware the Soviets are shootin’ into orbit. While we’re sincerely hopin’ that they’re abiding by the treaties they’ve signed not to militarize space, we have to assume the worst. With all that said, Ourecky, Blue Gemini’s mission is to develop contingency plans to intercept and destroy hostile satellites, specifically those that might carry nukes.”
“Of course, this is all purely theoretical at this point,” Tew interjected. “As it stands, this country already maintains an unmanned capability to destroy enemy satellites, but it’s a scattergun approach that leaves a lot to be desired. We’ve been tasked to develop a more surgical approach using a manned platform.”
Wolcott brandished the Gemini spacecraft model, turning it slowly in his wizened hands, and said, “We’ve been handed a tough mission, but we have this critter to make it happen. The Gemini is an operational space vehicle. It’s been proven in orbit, and it’s as capable as any machine we’re flyin’ closer to the ground.”
Wolcott continued. “Our theoretical missions would require a Gemini spacecraft and crew capable of executing the intercept scenarios autonomously, without relying on extensive assistance from the ground. That’s a mighty tall order, but we have MIT and some contractors developin’ an onboard computer to pull it off.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but doesn’t the Gemini spacecraft already have an onboard computer?” asked Ourecky.
“Correct,” replied Wolcott. “But that computer is based on NASA’s specifications. You might recollect that all of their rendezvous missions involved a cooperative target in a pre-fixed stable orbit. To support those missions, NASA cob
bled together a worldwide data and tracking network. So even though they had an onboard computer, virtually all of the NASA’s rendezvous missions were assisted with big tracking radars on the ground. But in our theoretical scenarios, it ain’t highly likely that NASA’s tracking system will be available for our use, and it’s almost a sure bet that the radars ain’t going to be positioned where we would need them.”
“So we’re working on an improved onboard computer for the Gemini,” explained Tew. “We call it the Block Two. It’s going to be a much more robust computer than what the Gemini has now. Ultimately, we want a guidance computer like the one MIT is building for the Apollo lunar flights, one that constantly tracks its position in three-dimensional space, as well as the intercept target’s position. Our crews will be able to extract maneuvering guidance from the computer, as well as instructions for star sightings so that they can verify the computer’s fix at any time.”
“There’s another reason that the Block Two computer is necessary,” noted Wolcott. “When and if we do launch, our boys won’t be flyin’ a standard Gemini. They’ll fly a hot rod version that we call the Gemini-Interceptor, or Gemini-I. We’re reducing the weight in some areas, like removing the fuel cells and other hardware specific to NASA’s missions, so we can add other capabilities. The stock Gemini spacecraft was equipped with two rear-facing hundred-pound maneuvering thrusters; the Gemini-I will have four, so it can make more radical orbital corrections.”
“See how the nose of this Gemini is larger than NASA’s version?” asked Tew, gesturing at the model.
“I noticed that, sir,” replied Ourecky. He also noticed that Tew’s demeanor had softened considerably in the past few minutes.
Tew explained. “It’s bigger because our Gemini-I will also have a much more powerful acquisition and rendezvous radar to detect and track targets at longer ranges. It will also have an instrumentation package that will allow the pilots to photograph and collect readings on target vehicles. Consequently, we need the Block Two computer so we can take full advantage of these new capabilities.”