by Mike Jenne
Chewing on the end of a pencil, Henson watched the men as he reflected on the day’s activities. Collecting and lugging the soil samples was a labor-intensive ruse, but one well worth the effort since it accomplished several objectives. Besides providing reasonable cover for his own reconnaissance and last night’s supply drop, the sampling operation also afforded ample justification for him to ferry the pair of scouts—posing as survey helpers from Apex—to reconnoiter Biko’s airstrip and the routes to the frontier regions.
Pushing himself out of his chair, he walked to his hammock to grab some shuteye before his labors began anew in the morning. As he passed by the pile of sample bags in the corner, he noticed that one burlap sack had burst open at the seams. Henson knelt down and examined the tag; the sample was from Biko’s property.
Even in the dim light of the warehouse, a sparkle caught Henson’s eye, and he looked more closely; in the midst of the spilled black earth were six miniscule flecks of gold. Apparently, the French had missed something when they so swiftly sold their real estate to the unsuspecting and gullible Biko. He laughed quietly and promised himself that when he and the scouts stopped in Mayela to examine the airstrip, he would quietly tell his friend Biko that his land was probably very, very valuable after all.
Special Security Detachment, Aerospace Support Project
10:15 a.m., Thursday, February 20, 1969
Jimmy Hara looked up from a surveillance report to see one of his counter-intelligence agents, Dean Trask, enter the bullpen. Trask had just come from the weekly multi-agency counter-intelligence coordination meeting hosted by the Wright-Patterson Office of Special Investigations. “Anything new from our OSI brethren?” asked Hara.
“More of the usual crap,” answered Trask, rummaging through his desk. He produced a Baby Ruth candy bar, tore open the wrapper, took a bite, and added, “Soviet spies lurking everywhere. News at eleven.”
“Those paranoid OSI guys never change,” sniffed Hara. “Hey, save me a bite!”
“Buy your own.” Trask tugged a pocket notebook from his jacket and said, “Hey, there was one new wrinkle. The OSI said that a national news magazine was contacted by someone who has “indisputable evidence” that UFOs are being stored and studied at Wright-Patterson.”
“Man, that damned rumor never dies,” said Hara, laughing. “I know you’re new here, Dean, but we hear that one almost like clockwork. Every six months or so, someone claims that they know where the flying saucers and alien corpses are stashed.”
Trask finished his snack, crumpled the wrapper, and threw it into the trashcan on the other side of the office. He nodded and said, “Well, the OSI warned everyone to keep an ear out. They suspect it’s someone on base shooting their mouth off. Probably some disgruntled civil service guy looking for a payday.”
“Obviously,” Hara said. “Let’s be good, obedient spy chasers and mention it at our next counter-intelligence briefing for Blue Gemini personnel. Even though this UFO business doesn’t pertain to our operation, it wouldn’t hurt to keep everyone a little tuned up. It never hurts to pay attention, because sooner or later, there might be someone out there paying a little too much attention to us.”
Aerospace Support Project
10:10 a.m., Saturday, February 22, 1969
Wolcott removed his white Stetson, placed it solemnly on the table, and said, “Okay, folks, this is just like that awkward moment when the blushing bride is standing at the altar and the preacher tells everyone to speak now or forever hold their peace. If this crew ain’t ready, then you need to be forthcoming. As much as we’re all chomping at the bit to launch, we’re not going to place these two gentlemen at risk because there’s been a shortfall in their training. So if you have something to say, then now’s the time to spout. If we need more time to prepare, Mark will pick up the phone and request a stay of execution. Otherwise, amigos, we go to space. Mark, anything to add?”
Tew shook his head.
“Okay,” said Wolcott. “Round the table, it is. Gunter? Do you sign off?”
“They’re ready,” replied Heydrich.
“Russo, do you concur?”
Russo nodded glumly.
Wolcott shifted his gaze to Carson. “Well, pard, do you have anything to add?”
“No, sir, I don’t,” answered Carson. “I wish that we could spend more time with them, but these men are ready.”
“Tom, Pete, are you ready?”
“We’ve been ready,” answered Howard.
“General Tew, I certify that this crew is ready for flight,” averred Wolcott, lightly clapping his hand on the table.
Tew nodded. “Then we go.”
31
PACIFIC DEPARTURE
Pacific Departure Facility, Johnston Island
12:12 a.m., Tuesday, February 25, 1969
Carson, Russo, Howard and Riddle had spent the night aboard the LST. The landing ship, built at the height of World War II, had transported the assembled Titan II and Gemini-I from San Diego. It also served as a staging base while the rocket was prepared for launch; the vessel’s troop spaces, designed to accommodate a company of soldiers or Marines, had been converted to living quarters for the Air Force personnel and civilian contractors who stayed aboard during pre-launch preparations. A second LST was configured as a fueling and servicing platform. With the Titan II already fueled, the ship had moved several miles offshore, to be followed by the first LST once the last personnel of the launching party disembarked in less than an hour.
Even when securely lashed to their piers at port, Navy ships rarely slept, but typically hummed with vibrant activity night and day. It was not unusual for hungry sailors to sit down to “mid-rats,” a meal traditionally served at midnight in order to make sure that all hands on all watches were adequately nourished.
With the launch just mere hours away, the four pilots didn’t dine in the officers’ wardroom, opting instead for mid-rats in the regular galley. Incognito in white coveralls, they looked no different than the fifty or so technicians involved in Blue Gemini. Sliding their brown plastic trays down stainless steel runners, they dutifully fell in line behind drowsy sailors trying to grab a quick bite before returning to their nocturnal chores.
Carson checked the time. As the de facto shepherd for the flight crew, he observed that they had less than an hour to eat and make last minute preparations before Howard and Riddle went ashore to don their space suits in a converted travel trailer.
“Want to jump ahead, sir?” asked the sailor ahead of him. “The skipper says that you civilians have important work to do.” Gangly and pimple-faced, the teenager had probably been drafted, or at least was a draft-motivated volunteer seeking to avoid ground combat in Vietnam; on average, approximately thirty of his brethren died there every day.
“Thanks, but no,” answered Carson, selecting silverware from a dispenser. “I appreciate it, but we’ll wait our turn like everyone else.”
“So what’s on that rocket out there?” asked the sailor.
“Not sure. What do you think?”
“The scuttlebutt is that it’s a nuke,” answered the sailor, filling a brown plastic cup with apple juice. “I just hope we’re far enough away when it goes off. I want to have kids someday.”
“Good luck with that,” replied Carson, filling a mug with coffee from a stainless steel urn.
On the bulkhead behind a sullen cook, a hand-lettered sign stated: “Take what you want but don’t bring it back.” After receiving their choices from the limited bill of fare, the four men carried their trays to a table in an isolated corner of the galley.
A half-conscious young sailor passed by, smoking a cigarette and absentmindedly humming Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild” as he swabbed the deck with a nearly new mop. As he moved on, the pilots realized that they had nearly a quarter of the dining area to themselves.
Keeping their voices low, they talked quietly about the mission preparations; a casual observer would probably assume that they were mid-lev
el technicians, trying to resolve a wiring malfunction or deciding where to go drinking during the planned two-day layover in Hawaii. Normally a voracious eater, Howard nibbled on toast and barely touched his eggs. On the other hand, Riddle gobbled down his food like a castaway who’d just been rescued from a desert island.
“Get any sleep?” asked Carson. He used his fork to cut his undercooked bacon and tried a bite. Chewing slowly, he decided that he would forgo the remainder.
“Slept like a log,” noted Riddle. “I’m surprised that you guys were able to rouse me.”
“I didn’t sleep at all,” confided Howard quietly. “Drew, it wasn’t because I’m scared. I guess I’m just anxious to get on with it. We’ve worked so hard to make it here.”
“That we have,” Carson said. “Do you feel confident with everything?”
“Yeah. Really, this flight is just about as simple as they come. It’s very basic stuff that we’ve been practicing for almost a year. To be honest, Drew, I regret that ol’ gunslinger Wolcott didn’t give you the first flight. You earned it, in spades.”
“We’ve got ours,” interjected Russo. He sipped his orange juice. “Yeah, maybe you guys are going up first, but ours is the shot everyone will be watching. First operational mission.”
Picking up his fork, Russo continued. “When this stuff finally hits the history books, it’ll be sort of like the relationship between Shepard and Glenn. Sure, Shepard was the first American to fly in space, but it seemed like everyone forgot who he was as soon as Glenn went into orbit. And poor ol’ Gus Grissom, he went up between Shepard and Glenn, but no one remembered . . .”
Russo immediately fell quiet as he recognized that the other men were scowling at him. Test pilots had their own unique traditions and superstitions, and one steadfast and inviolable rule was that no one spoke of the dead—in any manner—on the day of a new aircraft’s inaugural flight. “Sorry,” he noted. “My mouth was moving faster than my brain.”
“You seem to be rather stricken by that malady, Ed,” quipped Riddle. “Maybe you should just stick your foot in your mouth and leave it there. It would be a lot more convenient.”
“It’s not ‘Ed,’ Major. You can either call me Colonel or sir,” snapped Russo, reverting quickly from momentary embarrassment to his normal insufferable self. “I’ve earned that.”
“No, Ed, you haven’t earned crap.” Riddle doused his hash browns with hot sauce. “The problem is that you believe that this is some kind of contest that you’re destined to win. Well, despite your superior rank and obvious brilliance, you’re no different than the rest of us. The only reason you’re here, Ed, is that a good man couldn’t handle the pressure and flaked out.”
“Okay,” said Carson, looking up from his tray. “That’s enough, Pete.”
“No, Drew, it’s not. I’ve had enough of this guy trying to lord over us, and on this morning, I am going to have my say.” Riddle forked the last bit of scrambled eggs into his mouth and then pointed the utensil at Russo. “If Ed here wants to cry to Virgil, that’s his prerogative, but only if he’s willing to suit up and take my place on that firecracker out there.” Riddle dropped the fork on his tray. “Oops, I’m sorry, Ed . . . I forgot, you don’t have a suit yet.”
Seething, Russo was silent.
Leaning over the table, Riddle quietly added, “Virgil may be saving you for the first operational mission, Ed, but here’s something for you to mull over: In a few hours, when those hold-down bolts blow, Tom and I will ride our little chariot into orbit, and you’ll be stuck on the ground. This stuff will never hit the history books, so even though I’ll rise into the heavens on a blaze of obscurity, at least I will have gone there. So you may fly in a few months, but you can warmly bask in the knowledge that you will fly after me.”
“Okay,” said Howard. “That is enough, Pete.”
“As you wish, boss. You are the mission commander, and I am obligated to listen to you.” Looking at Howard’s plate, he asked, “Are you eating the rest of that toast, Big Head?”
Howard shook his head, and Riddle flipped the cold bread slices onto his plate before slathering them with a dollop of apple butter.
“Aren’t you a little concerned about accumulating too much residue in your gut?” asked Carson, trying to dispel some of the lingering awkwardness. “You guys will be up there for two days, remember? And with the rendezvous schedule as it is, you may not have time to yank out a waste bag and climb out of the suit to take a crap.”
“Yeah,” answered Riddle. “I figure we won’t have that luxury, but I would rather have a full diaper than be hungry up there. I don’t function well on an empty stomach, and those dainty little tea sandwiches and squirt tubes just don’t do it for me. So I’m stoking up now, courtesy of our seafaring brethren.” He devoured the toast in short order and then finished his coffee.
“Ready?” asked Howard. The four men rose together, carrying their trays to the dishwasher’s window. Looking at the unfinished bacon on Carson’s tray, a Filipino dishwasher glowered and pointed at a sign that declared “Scrape all food waste off tray.”
Carson obediently emptied the tray, placed it in the rack, and then spoke to Howard. “We have to go ashore in twenty minutes. That gives you just enough time to brush your teeth and hit the head. You had better enjoy that while you can, because you won’t be seeing any porcelain for a couple of days.”
“Drew,” said Riddle sheepishly. “You mind holding on to something for me?”
“Sure,” replied Carson, watching Howard disappear down a ladderwell. “What is it?”
Riddle handed him a white envelope. “Nothing. Just give it back to me when I get back to Wright-Patt. Uh, otherwise I want you to open it if . . .”
“That’s not going to happen,” Carson said, taking the envelope. “You guys are going to be celebrating back in Ohio by the weekend, so don’t act so damned morose, Pete.”
As the four pilots walked down the LST’s narrow gangway, Carson looked toward the gantry where the Titan II was poised to launch. Small work lights illuminated those parts undergoing a final “once-over” inspection, but otherwise the rocket was a dark monolith, barely visible in the pale light of the moon, jutting up from the hardscrabble landscape of the coral reef island.
Designed as an ICBM to heave thermonuclear warheads at the Soviet Union, the Titan II could be launched at a moment’s notice—less than a minute, actually—with minimal preparation. Unlike the massive Saturn moon rockets charged with highly refined kerosene and liquid oxygen, the Titan II required no igniter to spark its fuels into combustion. Its hypergolic fuels were relatively docile, so long as they were kept separated, but all they had to do was meet and the result was furious and instantaneous combustion. Additionally, the oxidizer component of the mix—nitrogen tetroxide—did not require cryogenic storage, like liquid oxygen.
Thus, unlike the previous generation of ICBMs, the Titan II could be maintained in a launch-ready state with its fuel stored on board. For such an exceptionally complex and capable piece of military hardware, the Titan II was remarkably “shelf-stable,” mostly by virtue of its unique propellants and exquisite design. It was perfectly suited as an ICBM that could linger dormant in a silo, patiently awaiting a call to action. But it wasn’t a perfect design. The hypergolic fuels—hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide—were costly, toxic, corrosive, and dangerous to handle.
The PDF pad workers servicing the Titan II rocket had been carefully screened and selected from the Strategic Air Command ICBM crews. Although the work was hard, working with Blue Gemini was a plum assignment, since the workers labored above ground, instead of living a mole-like existence in cramped silos. Additionally, their normal duty station was at the HAF in San Diego, where they also participated in the launch vehicle assembly and pre-shipment preparations, far removed from the windswept and lonely plains of the Midwest.
Two hours later, Howard and Riddle emerged from the Airstream suit-up trailer and boarded the van that would tra
nsport them to the pad. The pad workers had already removed the fiberglass shroud that concealed the Gemini-I spacecraft, so all was in readiness for the crew to board. As the men arrived at the gantry, the handful of remaining workers paused momentarily to wish them a safe flight. Then they returned to their hectic labors, diligently checking off the last items on their pre-flight countdown checklists.
The gantry supporting the Titan II was not large enough to support an elaborate “white room” boarding structure, so an open-air platform, accessible by a painfully slow elevator, had to suffice. The precarious platform could only accommodate one pilot at a time, along with the three pad workers who would insert the men into the spacecraft and strap them in for the bone-shaking ride to orbit. Howard, as the command pilot, would board first.
Carson borrowed an intercom headset to speak to Howard as he entered the elevator cab. “See you back at Wright-Patt, Big Head,” he said, shaking Howard’s gloved hand. “It’s funny, but you’ll be landing at Edwards long before I make it back to California. You two do good up there. I envy you. Sure you don’t want to swap out? It’s not too late, you know.”
Picking up his portable cooling unit, which was about the size and shape of a large briefcase, Howard laughed. “No, Drew, I’m riding this ticket all the way.”
7:00 a.m.
Except for a short hold to verify some key communications links, the countdown had progressed smoothly. As Howard had asserted, the mission was a straightforward replication of tasks proven time and again during the ten manned flights of NASA’s Gemini program. The first major objective was an “m=4” rendezvous with an Agena-D target vehicle left over from a NASA flight. The rendezvous, so named because the interception would be accomplished within the first four orbits or roughly six hours into the mission, would be assisted with radar tracking and calculations provided from the ground, tracking ships at sea, and EC-135E ARIA aircraft.