High Flight

by David Hagberg

  “Who would I be meeting with?”

  Again Yamagata hesitated. “It may be premature to name specific names.”

  “But they would like me to come to see them?”

  “At their expense, of course, Mr. McGarvey.”

  “When?”

  “At your convenience.”

  “I’ll telephone you from Portland, Mr. Yamagata,” McGarvey said.

  “Until then,” the Japanese replied.

  “How long will these tests take you?” Reid asked.

  “A few days maybe,” Louis Zerkel said. “This is the actual working mechanism, not some mockup or computer-generated circuit. I have to make sure that my code generator unlocks the final switch on this unit and that my audio pulse fires the circuit.”

  “You’ve already knocked down an airplane.”

  “We might have been lucky. Could have been a fluke. Could be other codes.” Zerkel ran his hand across the monitor. “I need to make a Faraday cage.”

  “What’s that?” Reid asked.

  “It blocks electromagnetic and electrostatic radiation. When I say the word, the spike will show up here, but it won’t go any farther. What do you think about that?”

  “I think you are a brilliant man,” Reid answered. “And I think that you are finally using your head.”

  “Use it or lose it.”

  “Will you need more equipment to build this device?”

  “Yes, but not much. A few square meters of fine-mesh copper screening and maybe a hundred feet of grounding strap. For the rest I think I can make do with what I’ve got here.”

  “Shouldn’t be too difficult to obtain,” Reid said.

  Zerkel turned away without a word, picked up a screwdriver, and began removing the fasteners holding the heat monitor/sensor’s front panel in place.

  Mueller was downstairs in the kitchen making a cup of tea. Reid poured a stiff drink and joined the German at the table.

  “When will he be ready for operation?” Mueller asked.

  “A couple of days. He has some tests to perform.” Reid watched the German’s movements. Everything the man did was precise, with an economy of motion and the same smoothness and grace that a jungle cat on the hunt displayed.

  “How is Glen doing in Portland?”

  “There’s been no word as yet, but he’s competent, and well motivated.”

  “They’re brilliant, but unstable. They’ll both have to be killed.”

  Reid nodded. “We may have additional help,” he said.

  Mueller was at the counter. He turned. “What do you mean?”

  “The man who arranged for you to come here is joining us.”

  “The general is coming here?”

  “Yes,” Reid said. “He called from Paris.”

  Mueller thought about it. “You and Karl go back a long way together, is that correct?”

  “Since the fifties.”

  “You know his situation in Munich? His house, his staff, his … friends?”

  “Yes.”

  “It is a good life.”

  Reid’s eyes narrowed. “What are you driving at?”

  “He would come here only if all of that was gone, or was about to be taken away from him. He would not take the risk otherwise.”

  Reid saw it at once. “Damn.”

  “I don’t think you should stop him from coming here,” Mueller said. He sipped his tea. “But make different arrangements, if that is possible, to get him here in a very roundabout manner.”

  “Do you think he may be followed?”

  “It’s a possibility.”

  “When he gets here, then what?”

  Mueller looked over the rim of his cup at Reid. “I’ll take care of it,” he said, his voice as gentle as a funeral director’s.

  McGarvey packed his single bag, checked out of the hotel, and arrived back at the TWA hangar well before 3:00 P.M. Kennedy, Socrates, and Sir Malcolm O’Toole were in deep conversation on the floor, so without bothering them McGarvey went aboard the company P522 that had been brought around to the ramp. The stewardess stowed his bag and brought him a drink. Three minutes later a subdued Kennedy and Socrates came aboard, and within ten minutes they were airborne, climbing to the west.

  Socrates stretched out on one of the couches in back, and Kennedy sat down beside McGarvey. “Did you finish your business in town?”

  “All of it that was important,” McGarvey said.

  “I tried to call Dominique, but her office said she was out of the city.”

  “I sent her away. I think with what’s been happening, and with what’s likely to happen, she’s better off out of the way.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Kennedy looked toward the open door to the flight deck. “Sir Malcolm is worried that the sabotage might be directed at Rolls. He wants to put a hold on our engine orders.”

  “Even the hydrogen burner?”

  “Especially the new one. That alone would be devastating to us. And he knows it.”

  “He’s trying to save his company’s skin.”

  “Can’t say as I blame him,” Kennedy admitted. “But all of this will be over, one way or the other, soon, won’t it?”

  “I think so,” McGarvey answered. “I spoke with Yamagata again. He’s invited me to Tokyo to discuss my offer.”

  Kennedy looked at him blankly. “What could you possibly say to them? They’ll realize immediately that you aren’t making a legitimate offer.”

  “That’s the point, David. But let’s wait until we get to Portland so we don’t have to go over the same ground twice.”

  “We should be touching down around six, Pacific time. We’ll meet at my house for dinner. You’ll stay with us.”

  “That’s not a very good idea,” McGarvey said.

  “As you wish.” Kennedy stifled a yawn. “It’s going to be a long night. I’m going to try to get some rest.”

  When Kennedy was gone, McGarvey motioned the stew for another drink. There’d be plenty of time to sleep later. He was too keyed up now. In any event he’d been fearful of sleep for a long time. He’d fought it ever since his parents died, possibly murdered, though there’d never been any proof, or suspects, and he’d inadvertently learned the truth about their lives. It was a revelation that had shaken him to the core; one he’d shared with no one, not his sister, not his wives, and especially not the Company. There was no one left from the old days, so he supposed it didn’t really matter who knew, although Howard Ryan and his type would probably try to use the information against him. If that were ever to happen, he told himself, if Ryan were ever to cross swords with him in that manner, he would almost certainly kill the man.

  “Sir, here’s your drink.”

  McGarvey looked up into the young stew’s pretty face. Her name tag read LINDA. “A few more and I might be able to get some rest, Linda.”

  She smiled. “I know what you mean, Mr. McGarvey. I get nervous flying sometimes too.”

  Chief Signalman Joseph Woodmark punched the five-bell designator and immediately transmitted the FLASH-PRIORITY message that had just been hand delivered from HQ and logged in two minutes ago.

  Z201223ZJAN

  TOP SECRET

  FM: CINC 7TH FLEET

  TO: CINCPACOM

  SUBJECT: STATUS CHRYSANTHEMUM

  1. CHRYSANTHEMUM SAILED, PRESUMABLY WITH FULL CREW AND STORES AT APPROXIMATELY 1900Z. A RELIABLE SOURCE REPORTED SEEING LT. CMDR. SEIJI KIYODA BOARDING WITH HIS XO LT. IKURO MINORI. THE BOAT WAS TRACKED OUT OF TOKYO BAY WHERE SHE SUBMERGED. HER LAST KNOWN COURSE WAS 210-DEGS.

  2. THE 24-HOUR GUARD WAS REMOVED ONE HOUR EARLIER FROM CHRYSANTHEMUM’S BERTH. MSDF ISSUED NO SAILING ANNOUNCEMENT AS IT USUALLY DOES.

  3. REQUEST SOONEST POSSIBLE FLEET DISSEMINATION OF THIS INFORMATION. ALSO REQUEST THAT CHRYSANTHEMUM IS TO BE CONSIDERED HOSTILE XX RPT XX REQUEST THAT CHRYSANTHEMUM BE CONSIDERED HOSTILE. EOM

  That would certainly heat things up, Woodmark thought. The bastards on the other side of the harbo
r were apparently starting to stretch their muscles. Chrysanthemum was the code name for the MSDF submarine Samisho whose captain had been charged with treason. The boat was off and sailing again. This time on a course just west of south … directly toward our forces on Okinawa.

  “I can’t sleep,” Kennedy said, slumping into the seat next to McGarvey. “I don’t know where the hell we’re heading. I no longer have a handle on it, you know what I mean?”

  “That’s why you came to me in the first place.”

  McGarvey felt mean around the edges. It was tiredness, in part. And in part because Dominique had followed his suggestion and had gotten out of the city. It was bothersome, however, that she had not confided in him. McGarvey was beginning to have his fill of amateurs.

  “It’s the crash. It’s taken a lot out of us. We lost some damned fine people.”

  McGarvey thought about Mati who’d died in the Paris Airbus crash. He’d lost some damned fine people in his time too. “I know what you mean.”

  Kennedy looked at him. “It’s different than I thought it would be. You’re different.”

  “I don’t build airplanes.”

  “And I’ve never killed a person. I have no idea how to relate to you. What to say.”

  “Are you firing me?”

  Kennedy shook his head and looked away momentarily. “We’re in too deep now. It’s too late. Maybe it was too late even before we came to you, I don’t know. But I’m fairly certain that whether Guerin survives or not will depend upon whether or not you succeed.”

  “Not too late to step away from the plate, David,” McGarvey said, giving the airline executive a way out. “You use Rolls-Royce engines. You’re going to subcontract wing panels to the Russians. So make a deal with the Japanese. Boeing has had success with them.”

  “They’re murderers.”

  “You might save lives.”

  “Never,” Kennedy said with feeling. “Not now, not after what they’ve done to us.”

  “Do you want me to kill them for you? Fight fire with fire?”

  “You told Dominique that your job was saving lives, not taking them. She believes you, and so do I.”

  McGarvey looked out the window. It would be getting dark in Washington, but they were flying west, chasing the sun, so they would have a few hours reprieve from the night. He’d once asked Phil Carrara if anything they had done in the past ten years had had any effect on how the world had turned out. Carrara’s reply had been bothersome. The DDO had told McGarvey that he hoped they’d made a difference, because if he believed for one minute that they had not, it would mean their lives had been terrible wastes. McGarvey had hoped for a little more assurance and a little less sincerity.

  “You tell me, Mac. You’re the expert. Do we back away from this one? Do we give you severance pay, and then kiss and make up with the Japanese? Do we say fuck those people in ’90, and poor goddamned Jeff Soderstrom and the others?”

  Kennedy was a good man, McGarvey thought. He had the right stuff. His sense of justice was as clearly defined as the edge on a razor. No mistaking his loyalties.

  “Well, I’m not turning my back on them. Neither is Al Vasilanti nor anyone else in this company. What about you? Are you still with us?”

  “For the duration,” McGarvey said. What other choice did he have?

  Newton Kilbourne was the kid born on the wrong side of the tracks who made good. He stood on the engineers’ gallery gazing at the P/C2622 on the prototype assembly floor. Building airplanes had been nearly the same as building automobiles, until this one. Time magazine said that this airplane was the most sophisticated and most complicated machine ever built. She was on this week’s cover, her variable geometry wings fully extended, hanging in space, nose high, the curvature of the earth visible beneath her sonic nose baffles that looked like drooping walrus moustaches. Even on the floor, surrounded by scaffolding and platforms, workers scrambling in, around, and over her like ants at a picnic feast, she looked as if she were flying at supersonic speeds, and Kilbourne was proud. But they were trying to kill her, and it was as if someone were trying to rip out his heart. The pain could have been no worse.

  He was a large man, with a thick torso, a massive head set on a twenty-one-inch neck, and huge, rock-hard fists. As a young man he’d been a street scrapper. In the navy, he’d held the fleet boxing championship. Middle age and a desk job had done little to diminish his powers. But this time there was no clear target to hit, no ugly face to smash, no kidneys to punch. Only sneaking around and spying. And sabotaging, he thought sadly. The bastards.

  Al Vasilanti came onto the hangar floor, walked around to the front of the futuristic-looking airplane, and stood gazing up at her.

  Kilbourne walked to the end of the gallery and took the stairs down. The bulk of the engineering was completed. Only the flight-readiness people were left on the project. The gallery seemed empty.

  “When did you get back, Al?” Kilbourne asked as he approached, but he was stopped in his tracks when he got close enough to see what condition Vasilanti was in. The old man looked old. His body seemed to have shrunk inward, and his face had sagged and wrinkled. The sparkle had faded from his eyes.

  “She’s a beautiful machine, Newt. You’ve done a magnificent job. The board didn’t want me to hire you, but I told them to go to hell.” Vasilanti chuckled, the sound dry, like corn stalks rustling in a breeze.

  “There’s more to be done.”

  “You’ll do it.”

  “If they’ll leave us alone.”

  Vasilanti tore his eyes away from the airplane and looked bleakly at Kilbourne. His expression was cold, his entire posture changed, as if he were an animal about to strike. “It’ll be their mistake if they don’t back away.”

  “Maybe we need help from Washington.”

  “Fuck them,” Vasilanti said. “This airplane will fly, Newton. Any man gets in my way will die. If need be I’ll kill him myself.”

  “Whatever it takes, I’m with you, Al.”

  “Of course you are,” Vasilanti said. “McGarvey will do it for us.”

  “I don’t trust him,” Kilbourne said, but Vasilanti turned away and looked up at the airplane again.

  “There’s never been anything like this. Never.”

  “No, sir.”

  “We’ll call her ‘America,’” Vasilanti said. “And screw all the sonsabitches who’ll think that’s corny. I want the name painted on both sides of her fuselage, and the flag painted on her tail feathers.”

  Kilbourne didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “At least it’s better than ‘Savior.’”

  “She’ll be that, too,” Vasilanti said. “But she’s ‘America,’ and everything that means. Hope, promise for the future, fair play, honesty.”

  Vasilanti was of another era, Kilbourne thought sadly. But maybe it was time, after all, to bring back a little of the old to mix with the new. America. He smiled, the first time in weeks. “I’ll have it done by morning, Al.”

  “See that you do,” Vasilanti said.

  “By going to Japan I’ll be stirring up a hornet’s nest,” McGarvey said.

  “Al Vasilanti did the same thing by showing off the P/C2622,” Kennedy replied.

  “They’ll react. You’ll have to handle it.”

  “I’m not sure that we’re up to it. But as I said we don’t have the choice.”

  “More airplanes could fall out of the sky. Maybe it’d be better if you did give up.”

  “We’ve covered that, Mac. Now, if you’re going to work for me I don’t want to hear that kind of shit again. Clear?”

  “Clear,” McGarvey said, and he felt like a heel for maneuvering the man the way he had.

  Technically their patrol should have been on the homeward stretch, Commander Michael Hanrahan told himself. By now the USS Thorn should have been heading for the barn at Yokosuka for some much needed R&R, although with the trouble up there he figured he’d have to wrangle transportation for his people to Seoul or m
aybe even down to Taipei. Yokosuka wasn’t safe.

  After this one he was due to be rotated stateside for Pentagon duty. Rumor had it that he was being looked at for his eagle, which, considering how little time in grade he had as commander, would put him on the fast track for his first star. Maybe three years, tops four or five. Not bad for a thirty-eight-year-old mick who’d graduated from the Academy at the bottom of the heap. But in the ensuing sixteen years he had busted his hump. Except for flattops, there wasn’t a ship or boat in the navy that he didn’t know inside and out. From submarines to captain’s gigs, Hanrahan had gone to school on design, construction, and operational techniques so that he could recite page and verse from just about every manual in current use. His friends sometimes called him “Professor,” and so far as he knew his men liked and trusted him, which in itself wasn’t bad in the modern navy.

  The only problem was he’d never fired a shot in anger in his career. He’d missed Vietnam, and he’d not participated in the Gulf War. And frankly he didn’t know how he would react under fire. Well, he hoped.

  You couldn’t ask for a better ship under you than the Thorn, he assured himself for the tenth time this morning. She was a Spruance-class destroyer laid down in the late seventies and retrofitted with new weapons and electronics systems numerous times in her eighteen-year life. At a little over 560 feet, her four General Electric LM2500 gas turbine engines could push her 7,800 tons through the water at speeds in excess of thirty knots.

  In addition to the Sea Sparrow Improved Point Defense Management System (IPDMS) and Harpoon antiship missiles, the Thorn carried Phalanx Close In Weapons Systems (CIWS) cannons that fired radar-aimed 20 mm Mk 149 depleted-uranium sub-caliber ammunition at burst rates of over four thousand rounds a minute, five-inch deck mounted guns, Mk32 torpedoes, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and the Mk41 Vertical Launch Anti-submarine Rocket System. Some of her ASW rounds were loaded with one kiloton nuclear warheads. Combined with the sophisticated SOS-53C bow sonar system, towed arrays, numerous radars, and a pair of SH-60F LAMPS III ASW helicopters, no submarine currently operated by any navy in the world was completely safe from the Thorn and her crew of two hundred ninety-six men and officers.