"You want us to WHAT?" said Fitzduane incredulously.
"Take out Governor Quintana's supergun," said Jaeger helpfully. "I think that is the military term. Hell, man, you'll be down in the Devil's Footprint anyway. A bit of this and a bit of that, and you'll be outta there with almost no time lost."
Fitzduane looked around the conference table. Lamar was there and so were Cochrane and Maury and Kilmara, but there were also some new faces. General Frampton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was there unofficially, and so was William Martin of the CIA, doubtless equally unofficially.
It was a regular unofficial teddy bear's picnic, and it was beginning to look as if he was the main course. If these yo-yos had their way, he was going to end up unofficially dead.
"I thought you were watching my back," Fitzduane said to Kilmara, "keeping me free of the political shit so I could concentrate on the mission. Terrific job you're doing."
Kilmara looked uncomfortable. "The mission is getting every cooperation," he said. "But in turn, they would like – would appreciate – a certain quid pro quo. They help us and we help them."
Fitzduane stared at General Frampton, William Martin, and Grant Lamar. "Who are ‘they.’ He said.
"I think you know, Hugo," said Lamar quietly. "We're not going to insist on it. It will be your decision. But we'd like to make the case. The fact is that we are faced with a threat to national security which, for various reasons, we cannot officially act against right now. You know the background. You know all about PresidentFalls's Mexican Policy and NSA Slade's influence. Hands off Mexico. That was serious enough when we were talking conventional terrorism. Add in an offensive capability, and we have just got to act. Your mission is jumping off in a couple of weeks. So you, Colonel, are the obvious candidate."
Fitzduane leaned forward to emphasize his point. "According to the latest intelligence, General Luis Barragan has at least two thousand troops equipped with Eastern bloc armor at Madoa Airfield eight kilometers away from the base. At the Devil's Footprint itself, there are fifty hard-core terrorists and a further six hundred mercenary troops, also equipped with all kinds of nasty things and an unfriendly attitude towards good guys like us.
"Now, since you people won't send in air strikes and the kind of sizable force this mission really requires, I'm going in with a total force of fifteen personnel – not to go head-to-head with these vermin, but because I think speed and stealth are our best weapons. Anything that delays us or makes us more likely to be discovered erodes our advantages. They are slim enough. We need to hang on to what we've got."
He looked around the group one by one. "Have I made myself clear?"
Grant Lamar nodded. General Frampton cut in before he had time to speak. "We understand the situation, Colonel Fitzduane. We would not be raising this if we had an alternative."
William Martin spoke. "Colonel Fitzduane, her out Dr. Jaeger and then decide."
"Have you gentlemen ever heard the term ‘mission creep’?" said Fitzduane. "It is something of a U.S. custom. A nice clean mission with a simple objective and a clear chain of command gets truly fucked up with so many additional requirements and idiotic restrictions that no one knows quite what they are supposed to be doing. Add micromanagement and a dose of friendly fire and you've got a recipe for a lot of people dying and your objective lost in a cacophony of sound bites."
General Frampton met Fitzduane's gaze. "Ouch!" he said grimly. He paused for a beat. "But we have learned a few things from our mistakes."
"Maybe," said Fitzduane without conviction. He glanced over at Jaeger. "Go ahead, John. I'm a reasonable man."
Jaeger laughed. "With a hard edge, Colonel. With a very hard edge."
Fitzduane smiled somewhat grimly. "It seems probable, gentlemen, that I'm going to need it."
Jaeger was well into his stride.
"George Bull was a Canadian genius who believed that a gun could do much of what a rocket can do, only more efficiently. He argued that a focused explosion contained within a barrel is inherently more efficient than something like a rocket, which dissipates much of its energy into the general neighborhood.
"So don't think of the supergun as a giant artillery piece. Think instead of it as being the equivalent of a first-stage rocket, with the projectile – the missile – being the second stage. The supergun gives the missile an initial momentum and then, once it is partially released from the gravitational field, the missile's own small motor takes over. The significant point here is that, weight for weight, the supergun can do the same job with a fraction of the energy and at a fraction of the cost."
"Theoretically?" said Fitzduane.
"Actually," said Jaeger. "I told you I'd built a hydrogen-powered gun. Well, we didn’t just screw it together. We carried out a full firing program."
There was silence in the room.
"So you've built a weapon," said Fitzduane slowly, similar to whatever they have built in Mexico."
Jaeger shook his head. "Ours is not a weapon," he said. "Our gizmo is designed to ferry materials into space at about one-twentieth the cost of a rocket. The cost of putting materials into space is currently greater than their weight in gold, which concentrates the mind, does not overly please Congress, and ticks off the electorate. We've tested it. We've fired it, and it works. If fact, it works exceptionally well."
Fitzduane looked dubious. The interchange was giving him time to think.
"Look," continued Jaeger, "rockets were right at the time and continue to have advantages. Human beings are not too well adapted to being fired out of a gun barrel into space. But equipment, supplies, and so one are another matter. They don't care how they get up there. It is just a matter of physics, and the bottom line is that a supergun can do it much cheaper than a rocket. But not with gunpowder. That's where Bull was wrong. Gunpowder works okay, but it is expensive, slow to load, and hell to clean up. No, the way to go is hydrogen."
"And that is what you used at Livermore?" said Fitzduane. "Or is it ‘use’?"
"More or less," said Jaeger. He grinned. "To both."
Fitzduane nodded. "My understanding from the media is that a supergun is too unwieldy to be a weapon. We're in the age of maneuver warfare. You can't put one of these things on the back of a Humvee and go and hide under a palm tree. And anyway, a thermal imager will see right through the leaves. Privacy is not what it was."
Jaeger looked at the CIA Deputy Director. William Martin took over. It was Jaeger's job to explain the science. The use to which the end result might be put required a different mind-set.
"What you're saying is the conventional wisdom," said Martin, "but our underlying assumption is that Quintana is an intelligent man and he must have been as aware of the limitations as we were. Yet he proceeded on the endeavor and committed very substantial resources.
"So, what is he up to? Leaving out his political motivations for the moment, why would he consider that the supergun can be made an effective weapon when others have dismissed it?
"The most significant new factor in the equation is the scientist behind Quintana's weapon. He has been identified as Dr. Edgar Rheiman, a very interesting man indeed.
"Rheiman worked for George Bull for some years and was regarded as a major talent, but they fell out over women and science. Bull was attractive to women. Rheiman was not. Rheiman fell deeply for a lab assistant called Gloria Engleman. Unfortunately, Gloria preferred Bull. She slept with Rheiman but worshipped Bull from afar. If she had kept that to herself, it would not have mattered. Unfortunately, she uttered Bull's name during an intimate moment.
"That slight preyed on Rheiman's mind. Two days later, he marched into the rather busy lab – there were eight witnesses – and, after a diatribe, blew Gloria's head off with both barrels of a twelve-gauge from a range of approximately eight inches. The defense argued it was a crime of passion. The prosecution said it showed clear premeditation. Any sane observer would have supported both viewpoints, but the upshot was that Rheiman was sent for psychiatric assessment before sentencing and escaped from the secure facility in the hospital after killing a nurse. By all accounts, he killed twice more before getting out of the country. Each time the victim looked something like Gloria: Brunette, strong-featured, leggy, and in her thirties. Both were strangled."
Fitzduane's mind was focused on dredging up everything he know on the supergun, and for the moment the CIA Deputy Director's words did not register. When they did, a cold chill ran through him. Kathleen! He was describing Kathleen.
"Perhaps more interesting than Rheiman's rather aggressive approach to women," continued Martin, "were his scientific views. He advanced three ideas of particular relevance."
"First, he argued that the use of hydrogen as a propellant was vastly preferable to traditional gunpowder. Second, he said that a hydrogen-based supergun could be used as a weapon if it focused on low-earth satellites which could be brought down on command on the enemy. Third, to offset the intrinsically unwieldy nature of an individual supergun, he advocated the construction of multiple tubes using cheap, readily available raw materials. His point was that since a supergun requires a long slow explosion, traditional gun-barrel materials would not be required. So you could offset the lack of mobility with a high rate of fire – thanks to hydrogen – and multiple installations."
"Concrete!" breathed Fitzduane as understanding hit. "The sample of special concrete brought out by Patricio Nicanor. But then, why make the first gun out of maraging steel when he could have used superhard concrete sewer pipes?"
Jaeger laughed. "His concrete is just a shade more exotic than that – but essentially you've got a point."
"Quintana has a reputation for not suffering fools gladly," said Martin. "Our assumption is that the first supergun – made out of steel – is proof of principle, and in using such a high grade of material, Rheiman is sensibly covering his ass. Concrete barrels are unproven. A split barrel on an initial test firing would be embarrassing for him. Fatally so if Quintana was present."
"Has the supergun been test-fired yet?" said Fitzduane.
The CIA Deputy Director shook his head. "We're pretty sure not," he said. "These things make a big bang. If it had been fired we'd have picked it up on satellite. As it is, what I have said is all based upon our analysis. We could be wrong." He smiled ruefully. "It has been known to happen. We could be looking at some kind of specialized oil-extraction facility, but given the characters involved, we doubt that."
"Guilt by association?" said Fitzduane.
"Damn right," said Cochrane.
"So you want us to check it out and if it looks antisocial, blow it up," said Fitzduane. "How big is this thing?"
Martin looked at Jaeger. "Trust me with your secret, John," he said. "If we are going to waste this thing, it would be nice to know if we need a Swiss Army knife or a two-thousand-pound bomb."
Jaeger took a breath. "The supergun in the Devil's Footprint – if that is what it is – would appear to be two hundred meters long. That is about the height of a sixty-story skyscraper. It weighs, we estimate, just over twenty-one hundred tons."
Fitzduane's face rarely expressed total surprise, but this time it did. "And how the fuck are we going to destroy something that size?" he snarled. "Especially with a brigade of unfriendly troops looking on. We're not talking a weapon here. We're talking about a goddamn monument."
"It is a problem," admitted Jaeger. "But we have some of the best people at Livermore looking at it. We'll have an answer…"
"…real soon now," completed Fitzduane. He got to his feet. "Unreal," he said, and left the room.
Calvin Wellbourne saluted. "Colonel," he said.
Fitzduane looked around. No one saluted on the team. Either Calvin had been out in the sun too long or some conventional green army type had sneaked in. Bad news either way. This was supposed to be a restricted area, and just because you had rank did not entitle you to access.
There was no one there. He turned back to face Calvin. He was still saluting.
"Are you feeling all right, Calvin?" said Fitzduane, concerned. He did not want to lose the man.
"You put your hand up to your forehead and bring it down again, Colonel," said Calvin, "otherwise I'm stuck like this indefinitely."
Fitzduane acknowledged the salute.
He smiled. "Calvin, you're up to something. You never salute."
"This is a historic day, Colonel. I'm going to fly."
"Well, of course you are, Calvin," said Fitzduane benevolently. "I can see your wingtips sprouting as we speak."
"This way, Colonel," Calvin beckoned.
He followed Calvin.
A long U-shaped tube stood outside. Under the tube was a ruggedized wheeled suspension. If Fitzduane had been told it was a car trailer specially designed to carry something long and thin like a canoe, he would have believed it. As it was, the damn thing looked extremely unlikely to fly. There was nothing around that looked remotely like a pair of wings.
"Hop in, boss," said Calvin, climbing into the passenger seat of the Guntrack that was linked to the tube. Fitzduane climbed in beside him and Calvin took off in the aggressive style that had become normal for many mobile operations in the Guntracks. Either you were creeping along silently in stealth mode or else it was foot to the floor and taking the concept of maneuver warfare all too literally.
"We've got to put a sick bag in these things," said Fitzduane as they hit a bump and Guntrack and trailer rocketed into the air and then crashed to the ground.
The ride continued, and then Calvin slewed to a halt in open space.
"The point," said Calvin, "is that the aircraft and trailer are robust. They are designed for this kind of unfriendly treatment. But would you believe me? No sir! So I had to demonstrate it. Believe me, boss, these things are tough! MilSpec is not in it. This aircraft is designed for the real world where shit happens. Bang them, bash them, shoot holes in them, and they still fly. Outstanding aircraft, wouldn't you say, sir?"
Fitzduane tried to catch his breath. "Possibly," he said, "if I could see an aircraft."
"Ah!" said Calvin. He leaped out of the vehicle and ran around behind the long trailer. The process was rather like assembling a frame tent, only faster. The entire happening took only about five minutes. At the end, there was a rigid fabric wing kept taut by stiffeners, and slung below it on poles a two-person open cockpit with a triangular suspension. A pusher propeller – which meant that the propeller was behind the occupants – provided power.
"Hop in," said Calvin.
"I don't like aircraft," said Fitzduane. "I'll jump out of them no problem, but I fly in them as little as possible. Further, Calvin, I'm far from sure this even qualifies as an aircraft. It looks like something your grandmother knitted. Jesus, the wings are scarcely tied to the superstructure. This thing is full of holes. It's a horrible device."
Calvin looked hurt. "Colonel, it works. It has a wing, something to sit in, and an engine. What more can you want?"
To stay on the ground, Fitzduane thought firmly. But then he weakened. Calvin looked depressed.
Fitzduane climbed gingerly into the pointed baby bath that passed as a cockpit. The side came up to his lower hip. If he sneezed, he was going to fall out. Why did people invent these things! He looked for a safety harness and found one with relief and clipped it on. This maniac was probably going to loop the loop. He thought about parachutes, but it was too late.
"Tally-ho!" shouted Calvin. Fitzduane flinched as the propeller cut in behind them, and seconds later they were airborne. They had needed minimal runway. It was remarkable. Up they climbed like a rocket in slow motion.
"This thing is all wing," said Calvin into the boom microphone attached to his helmet. "Phenomenal lift – but because the wing is made of fabric coated with radar-absorbent material, there is almost no radar signature."
"Speed?" said Fitzduane.
"Well, it's not exactly an F-16," admitted Calvin. "Say, eighty kliks flat out. But speed and acceleration are not the idea. This is an aerial advantage you can carry with you. Open the trailer, clunk-click, and you are airborne. Simplicity itself. Better yet, there is a miniature FLIR, and if you want to fly solo, you can carry some firepower."
"Can you silence the engine?" said Fitzduane.
"Sure," said Calvin. He flicked a switch and the decibel level dropped dramatically. "You lose some power, but if we were flying at night, we would be inaudible – and invisible – above a thousand feet."
Fitzduane was silent. This beast was terrifying, but it was interesting. It would be more interesting still if they could land in one piece.
"Let's head for the floor," he said.
"In a few minutes," said Calvin. "First, Colonel, I've just got to show you what this baby can really do." He sideslipped and then put the baby aircraft into a steep dive. Seconds later they were flying upside down.
"This is horrible," shouted Fitzduane. "And what the fuck use is it being upside down?"
There was a long pause, and then suddenly they were the right way up again. "I never thought about that," said Calvin.