Senator Duquesne has a copy of your service record.”
“What? How’d he get that?”
Commander Rob Knight shrugged. “God only knows, and he won’t tell. What’s in your service record that would do him any good?”
“I don’t know,” Jake Grafton said.
“He may not use any part of it. Probably won’t. But he told some colleague’s aide, figuring you’d hear about it and get worried.”
“What a guy.”
“This is major-league hardball, Grafton. And he’s got that crackpot Samuel Dodgers scheduled to testify before you get on the stand, after SECDEF and Dunedin finish.”
“He’s playing Russian roulette. Dodgers is a genius with the personality of a warthog.”
“His strategy, apparently, is to get the A-12 defeated. The story I hear from a couple aides is that Athena is such a revolutionary new technology, it needs to be produced and evaluated before the navy buys any stealth airplanes—i.e., neither prototype will be purchased. Then Consolidated can participate in another competition for a more conventional design that makes full use of Athena’s capabilities. The argument is that a more conventional airplane that uses Athena exclusively for stealth protection will save the government several billions.”
“Is he going to try this out on Caplinger?”
“Nope. He’s going to let Caplinger and Dunedin testify, then wring the juice out of Dodgers and dump it all in your lap in the hope you’ll blow it.”
“Has he got the votes?”
“Not yet. There are enough fence sitters so that the issue is very much up in the air. We had the A-12 sold to the Senate and the House committees until Athena came along, but with the headlines lately—and the budget deficit—any way they can save money looks better and better.”
Jake knew the headlines Knight was referring to. The Soviets under Mikhail Gorbachev had renounced world domination, and the aftershocks were being felt in capitals around the world. Gorbachev was well on his way to becoming the most popular and overexposed human on the planet, eclipsing rock stars, athletes, and, in some places, even God. The Cold War was over, according to some commentators and politicians with their own agendas. True or not, the perception of great change taking place in the “evil empire” had profound consequences for the foreign and domestic policy of every Western democracy, and none more so than the United States.
The two officers spent the morning going over the cost projections of the A-12, which were based on an optimum purchase schedule. Any proposal that kept the A-6 in service for more years than already planned would also have to include the escalating costs of maintaining and repairing this aging airframe. These costs were also calculated. Finally, any new proposal for another design would incur huge upfront costs, as the A-12 program had, and to kill the A-12 now would mean all the money spent to date would be wasted.
After lunch Knight, an officer from the Office of Legislative Affairs, and Jake’s staff gathered in the conference room and pretended to be a congressional panel. They spent the afternoon grilling him. By five o’clock he was drained and hoarse.
Callie was reading Amy a bedtime story when the telephone rang. The girl leaped for the phone, then held it out to Jake. “Captain Grafton.”
“This is Luis Camacho. Do you have a Robert E. Tarkington working for you?”
“What’s he done now?” Tarkington had been on the mock panel this afternoon and had done a terrible job. His heart had obviously not been in it
“Well, he’s not at home, for one thing. His car is sitting outside an apartment building in Morningside and we think he’s in it. It’s the building that Commander Judy lives in. He’s right smack-dab in the middle of our surveillance.”
“So run him off.”
“Well, that might produce sticky complications. I understand he has reason to bear Judy a grudge concerning his wife’s injuries a couple months ago. He might be armed. If so, he might be arrested on a concealed weapons charge, which I suppose wouldn’t do his navy career much good.”
“It wouldn’t. What if I ran him off?”
“Would you? Here’s the address.” Camacho gave it, said goodbye, then hung up.
Callie looked at Jake with raised eyebrows. “Would you ladies like to go for a ride before bedtime? Maybe get some frozen yogurt?”
After five minutes of furious activity, the females were ready. Jake drove through the heart of monumental Washington and ended up on the Suitland Parkway. Callie gave him directions with the aid of a map. They got lost once but eventually found the right street.
Although it was after 9 P.M., it had been totally dark less than half an hour. Heat still rose from the streets and children still ran through yards. Here and there stickball games were being conducted under streetlights. “This is the best time of the day,” Jake told Callie as they sat at a stoplight listening to pop music pouring from the open windows of a car full of teenagers.
Six blocks later Callie said, “That’s the building, I think, up there on the left.”
“Keep your eyes peeled for Toad,” Jake advised Amy. “He’s sitting in one of these cars.”
“Why?” Amy asked.
“You’ll have to ask him. Now look.”
His car was parked a half block beyond the apartment building. Only the top of his head was visible as Jake drove by with Amy squealing and pointing. Jake turned around again and this time double-parked just past his car. With the engine running and the transmission in park, he got out and walked back.
Toad’s window was down. He stared blankly up at Jake’s face.
“We’re going out for a frozen yogurt. Wanta come?”
“How’d you—”
“Lock your car and climb in with us.”
“Jesus, CAG, I—”
Jake opened the driver’s door and held it. “Come on. That’s an order.”
Toad rolled up the windows and locked the car. “You can ride in back.” Toad obediently slipped in beside Amy. She greeted him like a long-lost friend. “How’s Rita?” she demanded.
“Doing okay,” Toad said. “And how are you, Mrs. Grafton?”
“Just fine, Toad. What kind of frozen yogurt do you like?”
“Any kind,” Tarkington said, still bewildered.
“Why were you parked out here?” Amy asked, hanging her arms around Toad’s neck. “You don’t live here, do you?”
“Waiting on a man. He hasn’t shown up.”
“Oh!” Amy thought about it. “When can we see Rita?”
“Anytime you want.”
“Well, it’s only nine o’clock,” Jake said to Callie. “No school tomorrow for you aristocrats. What say we drive over to Bethesda and see if Rita’s still awake? That okay with you, Toad?”
“Sure, Captain, sure.”
They stopped at a mall near the beltway entrance and bought cones of frozen yogurt. Everyone got one. As Amy skipped back toward the car and the adults followed, Toad asked Jake. “How’d you know where I was?”
“FBI called me. They don’t want you there.”
The younger man bristled. “It’s a public street. And I didn’t see them lurking around waiting on anybody.”
“Oh, they’re there. They saw you, got your license number, ran the plate and called me. They really didn’t want to arrest you on a felony weapons charge.”
Toad’s shoulders sagged.
“You must get on with your life,” Callie said gently, “yours and Rita’s, for you are part of her.”
“Let’s go see her,” Jake suggested, and led the way toward the car.
Tarkington rode silently as Amy chattered between licks on her cone. He put his tongue in motion in the hospital reception room after the woman at the desk said, “It’s after visiting hours, Lieutenant.”
“I know, but I’m her husband. These are my folks, just in from the Coast. We’ll be quiet and not stay long.” Toad winked at her and gave her his most sincere lying smile.
“I don’t suppose a short visit after hours will do any real harm. For such close relatives.”
“Toad,” Amy asked in the elevator, “why did you tell that lady a lie?”
“I didn’t really lie,” Toad explained. “See, I winked at her and she knew you weren’t my relatives, that I was just giving her a good reason to bend the rules a tiny bit. If I tell you a story about fairies and frogs and passionate princesses, you know it isn’t true and so it isn’t a lie, is it? It’s a story.”
“Well…” Amy said as she scrunched up her brows and tried to follow Toad’s logic.
“I knew you’d understand, sis,” Toad said as the elevator door opened. He led them off and along the corridor toward Rita’s room.
Rita was asleep when they tiptoed into the room. “Maybe we should let her sleep,” Callie suggested.
Toad bent over and whispered her name. Her eyes fluttered. Then he kissed her cheek. “You’ve got company, dearest.”
“Oh, Callie! Amy! Captain Grafton. What a pleasant surprise. How nice of you to come by.”
“Toad brought us,” Amy said. “He lied to the lady downstairs. Said we were his family.” She winked hugely while Callie rolled her eyes.
Thirty minutes later Jake insisted they had to go. He led his family down the corridor while Toad said a private goodbye to Rita. Amy was tiring and talking too loud, so Callie tried to hush her, which made her whine. Jake picked her up and carried her.
In the car Callie chided Toad. “You sitting in that car in Morningside while your in-laws are at your house. You should be ashamed.”
“Well…”
“When Rita gets out of the hospital, you must bring her over to the beach some weekend.”
“Sure. You bet, Mrs. Grafton. I will.”
Back in Momingside, Jake double-parked across the street and walked with Toad over to his car. Jake waited until Tarkington had the car unlocked, then said, “You have a beautiful wife, a good job, and all of life before you. Don’t fuck it up by sitting here waiting to kill a man.”
“You saw what he did to Rita.”
“Yeah. And if you get lucky and get a bullet into him, the stuff that will happen to you afterwards will hurt her a lot worse than the airplane crash did. You’ll be the one who twisted the knife. Don’t do that to her.”
“Yessir.” Toad shook Jake’s hand, then climbed into the car and cranked the window down.
“Thanks, CAG…”
“It’s a good life, kid. Don’t throw it away.”
“…for the frozen yogurt.” Tarkington started his car and snapped on the headlights.
“Night, Toad.”
“Good night, sir.”
As soon as Jake got his car rolling, Amy stretched out in the backseat. In a few minutes he checked that she was asleep, then said to Callie, “Admiral Henry had a notebook.” He told her what he had learned from Camacho, that Callie’s psychologist was telling Henry what she said in her therapy sessions.
“Oh, Jake.” She bit her lip. “I’ve half a mind to write a letter to the Medical Board.”
“He was just trying to help Henry.”
“Damn him.” He looked at her. She was rigid, with both fists clenched.
He began to talk. He told her about the Minotaur, about Smoke Judy and Luis Camacho and the Russian spy. Crossing the Anacostia River, going north on South Capitol Street, creeping through the cooling evening along Independence Avenue by the Air and Space Museum, he told her everything he knew.
She listened carefully. They were parked facing the Lincoln Memorial on Twenty-third Street and watching the crowd still going to and from the Wall when she said, “Camacho told the spy about Judy?”
“That Judy was corrupt? Yes. So he says.”
“He wanted something to happen.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was trying to make something happen.”
“Something has happened. Judy tried to steal the Athena file and killed Henry getting away.”
“That wasn’t it,” she said, speaking with conviction. “Henry had ordered the file changed, the documents moved. You knew—everyone with access knew. Camacho must have warned Henry.”
“But if Camacho knows a Soviet spy and talks to him, why doesn’t he arrest him?”
“Something is supposed to happen. Something involving the spy and the Minotaur. And it hasn’t happened yet.”
On Friday morning at 7 A.M. Jake met Rob Knight in a bagel joint on Independence Avenue, two blocks east of the Capitol. As they huddled at a tiny table in a corner munching bagels smeared with cream cheese and sipping coffee, Knight filled Jake in on the testimony of Royce Caplinger and Vice Admiral Dunedin before the joint subcommittee of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees the previous day. Neither had been asked about Vice Admiral Henry’s death or Smoke Judy, perhaps because the Director of the FBI had spent thirty minutes with the committee before Caplinger went on.
“Dodgers will go first this morning. Duquesne will be done with him in an hour or so. He’s going to question him very lightly on just the technical aspects of Athena, then praise him to the skies as the intellectual heir of Edison, Bell, and Einstein. That’s his plan, anyway.” Knight grinned impishly.
“You really enjoy this, don’t you?”
“It’s the ultimate theater. The stakes are money, the mother’s milk of politics, great heaping mountains of it. And the actors are politicians, without a doubt the lowest form of animate life. Charlatans, mountebanks, liars, hypocrites—they’d cut off your nuts for another term in office, or even a favorable article in a hometown newspaper. If you rendered the whole lot of ’em, you couldn’t skim enough scruples to fill a thimble.”
“They’re not all like that,” Jake protested.
Knight made a gesture of frustration. “I suppose not.”
“When do they want me there?”
“Well, you’re going to watch Dodger’s performance. You go after him. Normally these things are closed-door, but I got some members to sign two passes.” He displayed them, then handed one to Jake.
They wandered outside, then across to the Library of Congress. On the second floor of the giant anteroom they found a wooden bench in a corner and reviewed the documents Jake would refer to if necessary during his testimony.
After thirty minutes, Jake announced he was ready and stowed the documents in the briefcase he had chained to his wrist.
“Nervous?”
“Yeah. My stomach feels like…”
“Well, that’s normal. I’ve seen vice admirals preparing for these soirees sweat like they were going to the gallows.”
‘Too bad about Admiral Henry.”
“Yeah. Think they’ll ever catch Judy?”
“Oh, he’ll turn up, sooner or later.”
“What are you going to say if they ask you about him?”
“The truth. Just watch.”
“Don’t get rattled. If you can’t remember something, just say so. And don’t feel bad about fumbling for a document. I’ll be right there with you, and I’ll help you find it.”
They chatted for another five minutes about this and that, about their careers, about mutual friends, about ships they had been on. Finally Knight announced that it was time.
They crossed the street and walked past the limos and congressmen’s cars parked in the Capitol’s back lot. They went up the marble steps and into the rotunda.
The place was packed with tourists standing in knots of thirty or more, cameras clicking, guides roaring their patter over the hubbub, the noise echoing in the huge open space above. The two naval officers in service-dress blue uniforms threaded their way through and turned right, passing between the statues into the main corridor.
They went up one flight of stairs and stopped finally beside a door manned by armed security guards, where they showed their passes. The guards consulted a list and said they could go in.
“You ready?” Knight asked again.
“Let’s go to the head first.”
“Good idea.” Knight asked a guard for directions to the nearest men’s.
Standing shoulder to shoulder at the urinals, Knight said, “Think of all the great men who have relieved themselves here—senators, congressmen, generals, tycoons, kings. Makes you humble, doesn’t it?”
The hearing room was a disappointment to Jake. He had expected some spacious room richly decorated in a courtroom motif, but what they got was another drab, windowless hearing room that needed paint and more lights. He and Knight took a seat against the back wall and watched the elected persons make their way in. They conferred with one another and found chairs on the dais that dominated the room. Duquesne came in, nodded at Jake and placed his briefcase at the speaker’s stand in the center of the dais. Then he went from political person to political person shaking hands, murmuring softly.
“It never stops, does it?” Knight whispered.
“They’ll be shaking hands and kissing babies at their own funerals,” Jake agreed.
Dodgers didn’t even glance around when he was led in by two men that Jake assumed were senatorial aides. They placed him at the little witness table and sat down on either side of him.
With a glance at the clock, Duquesne took his seat. “By mutual agreement, this is a meeting of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees’ joint subcommittee on stealth projects. Dr. Dodgers, I understand you are here by subpoena. Please pass it to the clerk, and state your full name.”
“Samuel Brooklyn Dodgers.”
“Is that his real name?” one of the congresswomen asked Duquesne, who repeated the question to Dodgers.
“Yes. I had it legally changed some years back.”
“Do you wish to make a statement to the subcommittee?”
“Yes, I do.”
Duquesne looked surprised. “Is it written? Do you have copies with you?”
“No, sir. I just have a few preliminary remarks.”
“Go ahead then. You have five minutes.”
“As you know, I am the inventor of a radar suppression device that the U.S. Navy has licensed and is putting into production under the code name Athena. I have been working closely with the navy on my invention, and I must say, they are very enthusiastic, as I am. My invention renders radar obsolete, makes it useless, which will revolutionize warfare as we know it. I feel my invention is the greatest instrument for God’s peace ever invented. It will give the United States an insurmountable military advantage that will allow us to lead the world to God’s new kingdom here on earth. We can once and for all demand that the heathen nations—”
Senator Duquesne interrupted as his colleagues began whispering among themselves. “Please limit your remarks to the subject at hand, Dr. Dodgers.”
“Yessir. Athena will allow us to convert the Jews and Moslems and pagans to God-fearing, righteous Christians who won’t start wars or—”
“Dr. Dodgers,” Duquesne said, “I must insist. Your invention is not the only matter before this joint subcommittee. We are short of time. We have another witness to follow you.” Duquesne gestured at Jake. For the first time Dodgers turned and saw him. “We could get right to the questions, if you don’t mind.”
“One more point, sir. The naval officer who is in charge of Athena is here today, Captain Jake Grafton. I see him sitting back there against the wall. I wish to say here and now that he is a godless sinner, a mouther of obscene blasphemies, an agent of Satan. I have complained to the navy and various members of Congress to no avail. I am a man of God and a man of peace. I cannot continue to work with this—”
Duquesne whacked his gavel. “Time! Thank you, Dr. Dodgers. We’ll get right to the questions.”
The aides whispered fervently in Dodgers’ ear. Duquesne gave them the time. When Dodgers seemed to be settled down, Duquesne led him through a set of simple questions about Athena: what it was, how it worked, what Dodgers projected its capabilities as being.
“Dr. Dodgers, does the Athena device have to go on a stealth airplane?”
“No, sir. It would work on any airplane, stealth or not. It would work on a ship, on a building, on a tank, a truck—anything that has a fixed set of radar-reflective properties that the computer can be programmed to nullify.”
When Duquesne had finished, he opened the floor to questions from other members. The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Delman Richardson, from California, went first.
“I take it, Doctor, that you are convinced your device can be put into production cheaply and in a timely manner?”
“Yessir.”
“And it will work? It will do what you and the navy say it will do?”
“Yes. That is correct. It will prevent the object that it is placed upon from being detected by radar.”
“Yet, if I understand your earlier statement correctly, you think we should use this military advantage to convert the peoples of the world to Christianity?”
An uproar ensued as Duquesne tried to rule the question out of order and various members all tried to talk at once. The issue seemed to be whether the members from the House could ask the questions they could have asked had they not agreed to a joint hearing to save time. While all this was going on Rob Knight nudged Jake. “Best show in town,” he whispered.
On the threat of being abandoned by the House subcommittee members, Duquesne caved in. Dodgers was given free rein to state his views on religion, sin, and conspiracies by each and every minority he could readily recall. Duquesne took it like a man, Jake thought. He should have known better. Other committee members took it less well, seeming to take offense that they had to sit through a recitation of Dodgers’ poisonous inanities.
Dodgers was finally silenced by mutual consent and shown the door. After a ten-minute recess, it was Jake’s turn. Gazing upward at the legislators on the dais, he immediately understood the psychological advantage the raised platform conferred on his interrogators.
“Do you have a statement to make?” Duquesne asked him when the preliminaries were completed.
“No, sir.”
A chuckle swept the room. That’s a good start, Jake thought.
A committee staffer passed out copies of Jake’s report and led him through it, page by page, conclusion by conclusion. It took the rest of the morning. When Duquesne announced a lunch break, Jake was surprised at how much time had passed.
He and Knight walked back to the bagel place for a tuna salad sandwich.
“How am I doing?”
“They haven’t even started on you yet. Ask me at five o’clock.”
“Are we going to be here that long?”
“Maybe. Depends on Duquesne.”
After lunch the senator resumed his questioning. “Tell me, Captain, just what were your orders when you were given your present assignment?”
“I was told to evaluate the two prototypes and prepare a recommendation as to which one I believed the navy should select for production as the A-12 medium attack bomber.”
“Did Vice Admiral Henry or Secretary Ludlow tell you—let me rephrase that—did either of them suggest which prototype you should recommend?”
“No. They didn’t.”
“They didn’t even hint at which one they wanted?”
“They discussed the navy’s requirements for a new medium attack bomber on numerous occasions with me, sir, and they did make it clear to me that the plane had to be able to meet the needs of the navy. But they did not tell me which plane they thought would best meet those needs. Determining that was the whole purpose of the fly-off.”
“So the conclusions stated in this report and the recommendations made are yours?”
“Yessir. And the admirals wrote endorsements, and the Secretary of the Navy wrote one when he forwarded the report to SECDEF.”
“Did you tell your superiors what the substance of your report would be before you wrote it?”
“Yessir. I kept them fully informed about my activities and my opinions as I reached them.”
“Did they suggest changes to the draft document.”
“Yessir. That is normal practice. We were under a time crunch, and I circulated a summary of the report and they commented upon it and I made certain changes to the report that I felt were necessary based on their comments. But this is my report. I could have refused to make a suggested change and they could have commented on the matter in their endorsement. That, too, would be normal practice.”
“Did you refuse to make any changes?”
“No, sir.”
“So this report is now the way your superiors in the chain of command want it to be?”
“I believe the endorsements speak for themselves, sir.”
“You recommended the navy purchase the TRX plane in spite of the fact that the prototype crashed during evaluation and you failed to complete all the tests you had planned?”
“That is correct.”
“Why?”
“Senator, I think the report addresses that point much better than I could orally. I felt that the TRX plane had fewer technical problems than the Consolidated prototype and was a better compromise of mission capability and stealthiness. I also felt it was better suited to carrier operations. I thought that it would require less preproduction modifications to achieve the performance goals. All this is in the report. In short, I thought this plane gave the navy the most bang for its bucks.”
“Did you personally fly either plane?”
“No, sir. A test pilot did.”
“How much experience did this test pilot have?”
“I believe she has about sixteen hundred hours total flight time.”
“That isn’t much, is it?”
“Everything is relative.”
“How much flight time do you have, Captain?”
“About forty-five hundred hours.”
“Do you have any previous experience testing prototypes?”
“No, sir.”
“Did your test pilot have any previous prototype testing experience?”
“No, sir.”
“Yet you used her anyway. Why is that?”
“She had an outstanding record at the Test Pilot School at Patuxent River. She finished first in her class. My predecessor was on the staff at TPS and picked her for this project. I saw no reason to fire her and get someone else.”
“Yet she crashed the TRX prototype?”
“It crashed while she was flying it. The E-PROM chips in the fly-by-wire system were defective.”
“Would the plane have crashed with a more experienced pilot at the controls?”
“Well, that’s impossible to say, really.”
“You, for instance?”
“Senator, any answer I gave to that question would be pure speculation. I feel Lieutenant Moravia did a fine job handling that plane before and after it went out of control. There may be a pilot somewhere on this planet who could have saved it, but I don’t know.”
Duquesne led him into the buy-rate and cost projections for the A-12. “I see here that you recommend a total buy of three hundred sixty planes: a dozen the first year, twenty-four the second, then forty-eight each year subsequently.”
“That’s correct.” Jake went into the cost equations. Before he could get very deep into the subject, Duquesne moved on.
Finally Duquesne got down to it.
“Captain, you have also been in charge of the Athena program, have you not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“This morning Dr. Dodgers testified that this device would be cheap to build”—he gave the figures—“could be in production in a year or fifteen months and could protect any object it was placed upon. In view of that, why does the navy want a stealth attack plane?”
“Athena can be made to work, with enough research, time and money. But it’s not going to be easy. Right now the only way to determine the radar-reflective characteristics of an object is to test the entire object on a specially constructed range. And these characteristics change based on the frequency of the radar doing the looking. So every frequency must be tested. Consequently the data base that the Athena computer must use is very, very large. That’s why we need a superconductive computer to perform all the calculations required in a minimum amount of time. Still, it is impossible to build a system that could effectively counter every conceivable frequency. Athena will counter every frequency the Soviets are known to use. Yet if they shift frequencies quickly enough, with a semi-stealthy aircraft design we would not lose all our airplanes before Athena could be modified.
“Secondly, Athena will not be ready for the fleet in a year. More like three or four. Third, new technology may be developed to counter Athena. We believe, based on what we know now, that we need an attack plane with at least A-6 performance and payload capabilities, state-of-the-art avionics, and stealthy characteristics. That’s the A-12. The TRX plane is the best that American industry can give us now, and now is the time when we need to put this airplane into production.”
“Why not kill the A-12 program and build a conventional attack plane that uses Athena to hide?”
“As I mentioned, Athena is added protection for our aircraft, but not the sole source, due to the limitations inherent in the technology. Quick change is the rule in electronic warfare, not the exception. The Israelis almost lost their 1973 war with Egypt due to advances in electronic warfare made by the Soviets and supplied to Egypt of which the West was not aware. The United States cannot afford to lose a war with the Soviets, Senator.”
Jake reached for his briefcase. Knight had it ready. “My staff has done some calculations. To kill this program now and start all over again on another one, writing off all the development money spent to date and adding the inevitable inflationary factor, I figure it will cost just about the same per plane. Assuming Athena works well enough to become operational. If it doesn’t, we’ll have a brand-new, obsolete airplane. Regardless, in the interim we’ll have to make do with the A-6, which is not aging gracefully. We may even need to fund the A-6G program, just to keep the A-6s in the air until the follow-on airplane arrives.”
An aide passed a copy of Jake’s figures to every member. Jake spent the next hour defending the methodology and the numbers.
Duquesne opened the floor to questions from other members, who had a variety of concerns. One of them asked, “I understand you were awarded the Medal of Honor by this Congress, Captain?”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“Why aren’t you wearing it now?”
“It’s a little gaudy, don’t you think?”
Another congressman asked, “Why is the navy going to name the A-12 the Avenger?” The propeller-driven Grumman TBF Avenger was the plane the President flew during World War II.
“In a survey of A-6 flight crews conducted navy-wide, that was the most popular suggestion. The people in the navy are very proud of the navy’s tradition and history.”
“The choice of that name looks a little like bootlicking, don’t you think?”
“Sir, I happen to like that name. The Avenger torpedo-bomber was a fine airplane in its day, with a proud name and a great combat record. We’ve named other jets after prop planes—Phantom and Corsair are two—so it’s a choice popular with the people in naval aviation. Should Avenger get derailed somewhere along the way, my personal second choice would be Hellcat, another good old navy name.”
“That choice wouldn’t be popular with Dr. Dodgers,” the congressman said dryly.
“I doubt if it would,” Jake agreed.
And then it was over. He was excused. It was 4 P.M. Out on the steps Knight said, “One down, two to go.”
That was right. Assuming the Armed Services Committees authorized some airplanes and the full House and Senate agreed, then the battle would begin to convince the appropriations committees to provide the dollars to pay for them.
Jake groaned.
“Relax. You did very well.”
“C’mon. Let’s go get a beer somewhere. I’m dying of thirst.”
On Sunday morning as they walked on the beach and Amy played in the surf, Jake and Callie talked again about the Minotaur. “As I understand it,” Jake said, “he’s not a mole in the usual sense of the word. He’s not a Russian who slipped in years ago and worked his way into a position of trust. He’s an American. A traitor.”
“This world of espionage and counterespionage,” Callie said, “it reminds me of Alice in Wonderland. Nothing is ever as it seems.”
“What made you think of that?”
“If you lose something and look for it in all the usual places and you don’t find it, what conclusion do you reach?”
“It isn’t in a usual place.”
“Precisely. And if the FBI has been looking for a mole for three years, then the mole is not in the usual place.”
“But the usual places are positions where a person would have access to the information being passed.”
“Perhaps the mole was never there at all.”
Jake stared at her.
“How do you know the FBI has been looking?” she asked.
“Henry said so. Camacho said so.”
“Henry merely repeated what he was told. Camacho told you what he wanted you to hear. What if there is no mole at all? What if the Minotaur is merely a character, an actor assigned to play a part?”
Amy called her to look at something that had washed up on the beach during the night, and she went. Jake stood and watched them. The surf broke and swirled around their ankles as the sea-birds circled and called.
“You are a very smart woman,” he told her when she rejoined him.
“Oh, I’m glad you noticed. What did I say that was smart?”
On Monday morning at the office Jake stopped by the copy machine and helped himself to twenty or so sheets of paper. In his office he closed the door and pulled on a pair of gloves he had brought from home. Spreading the pile of paper gingerly, he selected a sheet from the middle of the pile and slid it away from the others. It should be free of fingerprints. From his pocket he took a black government pen. He clicked the point in and out a few times as he stared thoughtfully at the paper.
In block letters in the center of the page he wrote: “I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.” He put the words all on one line.
He inspected it carefully, then folded the sheet and placed it in a blank letter-sized envelope he had removed from a box at home this morning.
There was a pair of tweezers in his desk, in that vanity case Callie got him for Christmas a year or so ago. He found them and dropped them in his pocket.
He took the gloves off. With the envelope inside his shirt, he went to the men’s head. There he used the tweezers to put the envelope on the counter. Holding his shirt pocket open, he used the tweezers again to fish a stamp from the interior. He moistened it on a damp place on the sink, then affixed it to the envelope.
Back in the office, trying very hard not to touch the envelope at all, he dug through the classified Department of Defense directory until he found the address he wanted. This he copied onto the face of the envelope in block letters.
He put the envelope back into his shirt, put on his hat and told the secretary in the outer office he would be back in ten minutes.
He dropped the envelope in a mailbox on the plaza near the entrance to his building, then retraced his steps back to the office.