The Minotaur jg-3 Page 7

Dunedin raised his voice. “Okay, folks. Gather around. I want you to meet Captain Jake Grafton, the new program manager. He’s your new boss.” Dunedin launched into a traditional “wel- come aboard” speech. When he was finished Jake told the attentive faces how pleased he was to be there, then he and the admiral shook hands. After a quick whispered word with Fritsche, Dun- edin left the office.

  Jake invited the commanders and civilian experts into his new cubbyhole. It was a very tight fit. Folding chairs were packed in and the place became stuffy in minutes. They filled him in on the state of the project and their roles in it. Jake said nothing about his visits with the admirals and gave no hint that he knew anything about the project

  He looked over Helmut Fritsche first, the radar expert from Caltech. About fifty, he was heavyset, of medium height, and sported a Hemingway beard which he liked to stroke when he talked. He had alert, intelligent eyes that roamed constantly, even when he was addressing someone. He spoke slowly, carefully, choosing his words. He struck Jake as an intelligent, learned man who had long ago resigned himself to spending most of his life in the company of fools.

  George Wilson was at least five years younger than Fritsche and much leaner. He spoke slowly, in cadenced phrases, automatically allowing his listeners to take notes if they wished. When he used his third pun Jake finally noticed. Listening more carefully, he picked up two double entendres and another pun. At first blush Wilson seemed a man in love with the sound of his own voice, but Jake decided that impression didn’t do justice to the fertile, active mind of the professor of aeronautical engineering.

  The A-6 bombardier, Commander Les Richards, looked as old as Fritsche although he couldn’t have been a day over forty-two or forty-three. Jake had met him years ago at NAS Oceana. They had never been in the same squadron together but had a speaking ac- quaintance. Richards’ tired face contained tired eyes. Jake remem- bered that just a year or so ago Richards had commanded an A-6 squadron, so this assignment was his post-command tour. His eyes told whoever looked that the navy was no longer an adventure, if indeed it ever had been. The navy and perhaps life itself were experiences to be endured on this long, joyless journey toward the grave. If he caught any of Wilson’s wordplay his face gave no hint. In spite of his demeanor, Jake knew, Richards had the reputation of being an aggressive, competent manager, a man who got things done.

  Commander “Smoke” Judy was an F-14 pilot. Like all the com- manders, he had had a squadron command tour. Smoke was short and feisty. He looked like a man who would rather fight than eat The joyous competitive spirit of the fighter pilot seemed incarnate in him. A fire-eater — no doubt that was the origin of his nickname. which had probably ceased to be a nickname long ago. Jake sus- pected that his wife and even his mother now called him Smoke.

  Dalton Harris was an extrovert, a man with a ready smile. He grinned nervously at George Wilson’s humor and glanced at him expectantly every time it seemed Wilson might become inspired. He was a lithe, compact man, as full of nervous energy as Judy. An alumnus of the EA-6B Prowler community, he was an expert in electronic warfare- He even had a master’s in electrical engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School.

  The other two commanders, Aeronautical Engineering Duty Of- ficers, were equally interesting. Technical competence was their stock-in-trade.

  An excellent group, Jake decided as the conversation wound down, good shipmates. Harold Strong and Admiral Dunedin had chosen well. He glanced at his watch with a start; they had been talking about the A-12 for two hours. In parting he told them. “I want a complete inventory of the accountable classified material started tomorrow. Every document will be sighted by two officers and they’ll both sign the list.”

  “We did an inventory after Captain Strong died. Took two weeks.”

  “You’d better hope I don’t kick the bucket any time soon or you’ll be doing it a couple more times.”

  Jake spent five minutes with each of the other officers, saving Moravia and Tarkington for last. He saw them together. After the preliminaries he said, “Miss Moravia, I’m going to be blunt. You don’t seem to have any test-flying experience other than Test Pilot School.”

  “That’s right, sir. But I can do the job. Try me and see.”

  Moravia was of medium height, with- an excellent figure and a face to match. Subtle makeup, every hair in place. Her gold naval aviator wings gleamed above the left breast pocket of her blue uniform. Try me and see — that fierce self-confidence separated those who could from those who never would.

  Tarkington seemed to treat her with deference and respect, Jake noted wryly. “Ever flown an A-6?”

  “About two hours or so at Pax River, sir.” Jake knew how that worked. During the course of his training at Test Pilot School— TPS — each student flew anywhere from twelve to seventeen differ- ent kinds of aircraft. The final examination to qualify for gradua- tion consisted of writing a complete flying qualities and perfor- mance evaluation of an airplane the student had not flown before. The student was handed a manual, and after studying it, was al- lowed to fly the airplane for four flights or six hours’ flight time, whichever came first. On the basis of this short exposure the stu- dent then wrote the report. Rita Moravia was an honors graduate of that program.

  Try me and seel

  “I want you and Tarkington to leave for Whidbey Island tomor- row morning. The folks at VA-128 are expecting you.” VA-128 was the replacement training squadron for A-6 Intruders on the West Coast. “They’re going to give you a crash course on how to fly an A-6. Report directly to the squadron skipper when you get there tomorrow. Mrs. Forsythe in the admiral’s office is getting you or- ders and plane tickets.” He looked again at his watch. “She should have them for you now,”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Moravia said and stood up. “Is there anything else, sir?”

  “Remember that nobody at Whidbey has a need to know any- thing. You’ll be asked no questions by the senior people. The junior ones will be curious, so just say the Pentagon sent you to fly. That’s it. Learn everything you can about the plane and its mission. And don’t crash one.”

  Miss Moravia nodded and left, but Toad lingered.

  “Uh, CAG,” Toad said, “I’m a fighter type and this attack, puke stuff—“

  “The admiral says that anyone I want to get rid of can winter over in Antarctica. You want to go all the way south?”

  “I’ll take Whidbey, sir.”

  “I thought you would.” He picked up some paper on his desk and looked at it, signaling the end of the interview. “Oh,” he added, looking up again, “by the way, you stay the hell away from Moravia. Absolutely no romance. Keep it strictly business. You’d mope around here like a whipped puppy after she ditched you. I haven’t got the stomach for another sorry spectacle like that.”

  The office emptied at 5:30. Jake stayed, sorting through the paper that had accumulated in Strong’s in basket. Most of it he threw in the waste can under his desk. Memos and letters and position pa- pers that looked important he saved for later scrutiny.

  When he finished with the in-basket pile he began rooting through the desk drawers. Unbelievable! Here at the back of the wide, shallow drawer above his knees was an old memo on army stationery, dated 1956. Where had they gotten these desks? And what else was in here? Maybe he would find an announcement from the War Department that Japan had surrendered.

  Alas, nothing so extraordinary. A two-year old date book, most of the pages blank. Some matchbooks from a restaurant — perhaps Strong liked to drop in there for a cup of coffee. Three envelopes addressed to Strong in a feminine hand: empty envelopes with the stamp canceled, no return address. One broken shoelace, a button that didn’t look like it came from a uniform, two rubber bands, a collection of government pens and #2 lead pencils. He tried the pens on scrap paper. Most of them still worked. Some of the eras- ers on the pencils were pretty worn.

  So Harold Strong had been murdered.

  And Admiral Henry had throttled the investigat
ion even before it started. Or so he said.

  He shook his head in annoyance. Those problems were not his concern. His job was to run this project. With the A-12 still in the prototype stage, many major decisions remained to be made. Jake already knew where he would throw his weight, what little he had. For too long, in his opinion, the military had been stuck with airplanes designed to accomplish so many disparate missions that they were unable to do any of them well. If they wanted an attack plane, then by God he would argue like hell for a capable attack plane.

  Every aircraft design involved inevitable trade-offs: fuel capacity was traded for strength and maneuverability, weapons-carrying ca- pacity sacrificed for speed, maneuverability surrendered for stabil- ity, and so on, because every aircraft had to have all of these things, yet it needed these things in degrees that varied with its mission. But with stealth literally everything was being compro- mised in varying degrees to achieve invisibility, or in the jargon of the trade, survivabihty.

  For two hours this afternoon the commanders and experts had argued that a plane that could not survive over the modern battle- field was not worth having. Yet a plane that did survive but could not fight was equally worthless. Somewhere between these two ex- tremes was a balance.

  The other major consideration that had been tossed around this affternoon was a conundrum that baffled politicians and generals as well as aircraft designers. What war do you build your airplane to fight? World War III nuclear? World War II conventional? Viet- nam? Anti-terrorist raids against Libya? The answer, Jake be- Keved, had to be all of them. Yet achieving survivability over the European battlefield might well mean trading away conventional iron-bomb-carrying capacity that would be essential in future brushfire wars, like Vietnam. Megabuck smart missiles were cur- rently in vogue but the nation could never afford enough of them to fight any war that lasted longer than two weeks.

  This job was not going to be easy, or dull.

  “She-it,” Jake Grafton said aloud, drawing the word out slowly. When you looked at Tyler Henry and listened to him he seemed okay. But if all you did was listen to the words — well, it sure did make you wonder. Spies? Murder investigations put on hold? Was Henry some paranoid wacko, some coconut schizo on the naked edge who ought to be locked in the bowels of St. Elizabeth’s with- out his belt and shoelaces?

  The first thing I ought to do, Jake told himself, before I go see the ultimate war machine manufactured by some greedy Gyro Gearloose in a garage in California, is check out Henry. It would be nice to know that the big boss has all his marbles. It would be damn nice to know if he doesn’t. Dunedin wanted Jake to salute and march.

  “A fellow never gets very far marching in the dark. anyhow,” Jake said aloud. “Too much stuff out there to trip over.”

  He used one of the black government pens from Strong’s hoard to write a note for the senior secretary’s desk. What was her name? Mrs. Pulliam. There were just two secretaries, both civilians.

  The note informed all and sundry he would be in late tomorrow, after lunch. He had a moment of doubt. There was so much to be done here. Yet they had gotten along without a project manager for two months now; they could suffer through another day.

  5

  Toad Tarkington lowered himself into a seat against the window on the left side of the airplane, Boeing 727. Three engines, he noted with satisfaction. Airliners made him aervous these days. He couldn’t see the guys flying or monitor the instruments and he had no ejection seat, so he couldn’t boogy on out if the clowns up front ham-fingered it, which, from what he read in the newspapers, they had been doing lately with distressing frequency. Luckily this flight to Seattle was almost empty, so after the crash there wouldn’t be any unsightly mob ripping out hair and eyeballs scrambling for the emergency exits.

  He glanced across the four empty seats and the aisle at Rita Moravia sitting against the window on the right side. Now there was one cold, cold woman. She hadn’t yet smiled in his presence or given any indication she ever would. The old Tarkington charm rolled right over her as if it had gone bad in the winter of ‘85. turned sour and rotten and gave off an evil odor.

  The plane began to move. Backwards. They were pushing it out. Toad glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes late. They were always late. He tried to get comfortable in his seat. Reluctantly he picked up the copy of The Washington Post he had purchased at a news counter and scanned the headlines. Same old crap — it’s absolutely uncanny how politicians can be relied upon to do or say something every single day that even Charlie Manson would think bizarre.

  He sneaked a glance at Moravia. She was reading a paperback.

  He squinted. My God — it’s a Jackie Collins novell How about that? The ice queen deep into sex among the rich and stupid. Maybe her hormones are okay after all.

  Toad leaned back and closed his eyes. He needed to work out some kind of approach, a line. First he needed to know more about her. This was going to take some time, but she looked like she’d be worth it and Jake Grafton had implied that they were going to be spending plenty of time together. That Grafton, he didn’t just fall off a turnip truck. He knew the score.

  Toad opened one eye and aimed it her way. Yep, a nice tight unit reading a romance novel. Who’d have guessed?

  When the plane was safely airborne he reclined his seat and drifted off to sleep wearing a satisfied little smile.

  Jake Grafton found a place to park the Chevy right on Main Street a block from the courthouse intersection, which sported the only stoplights in town. Actually there were three empty parking places all in a row and he took one on the end. Romney, West Virginia, was not a bustling place on a cold, breezy March morning.

  The interior of the courthouse was massive and calm. The ceil- ings were at least fifteen high. Even the interior walls were thick, substantial, built to last. He examined the signs on the wooden doors and settled on the circuit clerk’s office. Inside he asked, “Where do I find the prosecuting attorney?”

  “Across the street on the left end of the block. He has an office above the liquor store. Cookman’s his name.” The lady smiled.

  “And the state police?”

  ”Out of the courthouse, turn right and go three blocks, then another right and down about a half mile. The barracks is a nice little brick building. You can’t miss it.”

  Standing in front of the courthouse beside the statue of a World War I doughboy, Jake decided to walk to the state police barracks first. The first three blocks were along the main drag, by stores and empty display windows. The decay of the American Main Street had reached this little community too. When he turned right he left the commercial district and found himself in a quiet residential area. As he passed modest houses with trees in the lawns and pick- ups and motorcycles in the drive, he could hear dogs barking and occasionally a snatch of talk show from an open door.

  The police barracks had American and West Virginia flags flying on large poles in front, beside an empty parking area festooned with signs and plastic barriers for driving tests. Inside there wasn’t a cop in sight. The girl behind the desk looked like she was barely out of high school.

  “Hi, I’d like to get a copy of an accident report from a couple months ago.”

  “Did it happen in the city or out in the county?”

  “Outside the city.”

  “You’ve come to the right place.” She smiled. “I need the names of the parties involved, or at least one of them.”

  “Harold Strong.”

  “Just a moment.” She selected a drawer in a large file cabinet and began looking. “All we have are copies, of course. The origi- nals go to DMV in Charleston. We’re not even required to keep copies but we do because the lawyers and insurance adjusters al- ways want to see them. Are you a lawyer?”

  “Uh, no. I was a friend of Captain Strong’s.”

  “Here it is.” She looked at it as she walked toward the counter. “He was in the navy, wasn’t he.”

  Her comment was a statement, not a
question, but he responded anyway. “Yes, he was.”

  She laid the report on the counter in front of him. “That’s our office copy and our copy machine is out of order. There’s one up in the county clerk’s office, where they keep the deeds and all?” He nodded. “But you need to leave your driver’s license with me.” She smiled apologetically. “So many people forget to bring our copy back.”

  He dug out his wallet and extracted his license. She didn’t even look at it. “Thanks. I’ll be back in a bit.”

  Very nicely done, he thought as he walked the half mile back toward the main street. No doubt before he got out of Romney he would be talking to a state trooper. He looked at the name on the report. Trooper Keadle.

  There was an unpadded bench in the corridor outside the county clerk’s office and he settled there. The report consisted of three pages. The first was a form with blanks to be filled in and a dia- gram where the investigating officer drew little cars and arrows to show what he believed happened. The next two pages were merely handwritten comments of the investigating office. Keadle had a neat hand — he obviously hadn’t ruined his penmanship with years of furious note-taking.

  The report was straightforward, devoid of bureaucratese. Jake read it a second time slowly, studying the words. According to Admiral Henry the prosecuting attorney had had a hand in this report, which “would not preclude a homicide prosecution.” That could only mean that none of the critical facts were omitted. A half-smart defense lawyer would raise holy hell if the prosecutor asked the trooper to testify about facts that he had “forgotten” to put in the official report.

  What was in the report? Marks on the highway where it ap- peared tires may have broken their regular grip with the pavement and spun under power. No skid marks: wet pavement prevented that. Deep trenches in the gravel, some of which went all the way to the edge, presumably from skidding tires. Marks in the earth where the Corolla went over the edge. Wooden guardrails had been chain-sawed several days before the accident, presumably by van- dals or parties unknown; see previous report of sheriff’s deputy. Fire in Corolla passenger compartment very intense, body burned beyond recognition and identified with help of FBI forensic lab.- No mention of why or when the FBI was notified. Dents and scrape marks all over the vehicle. Finally, Corolla still structurally intact but gutted by fire.