The Minotaur

13

The Naval Weapons Center, China Lake, lies in the desert of southern California east of the range of mountains that form the eastern wall of the San Joaquin Valley. The air at China Lake is clean, hot, and dry. Tuesday after- noon Jake Grafton dragged in lungfuls of it as he walked across the baking concrete toward the air terminal with Helmut Fritsche and Samuel Dodgers. Behind them, still trading quips with the female crew of the T-39 that had flown them here from Andrews AFB in Washington, via NAS Moffett Field where they had collected Dodgers, Toad Tarkington and Rita Moravia supervised the load- ing of the luggage into a navy station wagon.

An hour later Dr. Dodgers lifted his ball cap and scratched his head. He was standing with Grafton and Fritsche in a hangar that was empty except for an A-6E Intruder. Sentries were posted on the outside of the doors with orders to admit no one.

The men were examining grease-pencil marks placed on the plane by Fritsche. These were the locations he recommended for the special antennas of Dodgers’ Athena system. And Sam Dodg- ers was scratching his head as he surveyed Fritsche’s artwork. “Well,” he said unenthusiastically, “I guess these spots will work okay, after we tweak the output of each antenna. But …” His voice trailed off. Jake glanced at him without curiosity. He had already discovered that Dodgers’ enthusiasm came in uneven drib- bles.

“It’s the left side of the airplane only,” Fritsche said firmly. “Fourteen antennas. Side of the tail, fuselage, left outboard pylon, under the cockpit rail, forward on the nose… and one on the left wingtip in place of the position light.”

“You really need one in front of the left intake, where that flat plate is. That plate is probably the biggest single contributor to the plane’s RCS when viewed from this side — makes up maybe half of it.”

“Can’t put one there. Might get broken off by the airflow and go down the intake. It’d destroy the engine.”

“How about in front of that plate?”

They discussed it. Yes.

“This jury rig is just for test purposes,” Fritsche told Jake. “An operational Athena system for an aircraft will have to have con- formal antennas, ’smart skin’ in the jargon of the trade. Literally, the antennas will be part of the aircraft’s skin so they won’t con- tribute to drag or ever be broken off.”

“How much is that going to cost?”

“Won’t be cheap. Conformal antennae are under development, but they’ll be new technology and aren’t here yet.”

“Forget I asked.”

Jake wandered over to where Tarkington and Moravia stood with Commander L. D. Bonnet, the commanding officer of the A-6 Weapons System Support Activity, which owned the airplane. AU three saluted Jake as he approached and he returned the gesture with a grin. “So, L.D., are you going to let these children fly your plane?”

“Yes, sir. They appear sober and reasonably competent.”

“I appreciate your letting us borrow the plane and hangar for a few days.”

“Admiral Dunedin’s very persuasive.”

Jake flashed a grin. L.D. must have hesitated a few seconds before he agreed to the Old Man’s requests. “Here’s what I’d like to do. Fritsche and Dodgers are going to take a day or two to install some little antennas on the left side of the plane. They’ll use glue and drill a few holes, then install a tiny fairing in front of each antenna. They’re going to need the help of a couple of good, capa- ble airframe technicians who can keep their mouths shut.”

Bonnet nodded.

“Then Rita and Toad will fly the plane up to the Electronic Warfare range at Fallen since the EW range here at China Lake is out of service this week. Fritsche and I will fly up there ahead of them. Dodgers will stay here to work on the gear in the plane. Rite, I want you to keep the plane under three hundred knots indicated to minimize the airflow stress on these antennas. They’re gang to be jury-rigged on there with a little bubble gum and Elmer’s glue.”

“Aye aye, sir,” she said.

“L.D., I need you to loan me a couple of young officers with at least ten pounds of tact each. They’ll alternate duty, so that one of them will be with Dodgers day and night. They’re to escort him to work, stay with him all day, escort him to the head, take him back to the BOQ, eat with him, see that he talks to no one but them. And I mean no one.”

After discussing the details. Commander Bonnet departed. Jake Grafton explained to Rita and Toad exactly what he expected of his flight crew. He finished with a caution. “This device, the proj- ect name, everything, is classified to the hilt. Admiral Dunedin tells me he has cells reserved at Leavenworth for anyone who vio- lates the security regs. I don’t want you to even whisper about this in your sleep.”

“I love secrets,” Toad said.

“I know. Just my luck, I get one of the world’s great secret lovers. Keep it zipped. Toad.”

Jake went back to watch the installation process, so Toad and Rita set out on foot for base ops to plan their nights to and from Fallen, Nevada. As they walked along, Rita asked, “What was it that Captain Grafton wanted you to keep zipped. Toad? Your mouth or—“

“Never ask a question if you think you might not like the an- swer. That’s Tarkington’s Golden Rule for survival in Uncle Sam’s navy.”

They grinned at each other. Her hand slipped into his for a fleeting squeeze. Instinctively they both knew to play it cool. No hand-holding or huggy-squeezy or deep eye contact during duty hours. No winks or sighs or casual touching. If Captain Grafton saw any of that, the roof would fall in.

As Toad walked his shoulders were back and his head up. He was acutely conscious of how good he felt, how pungently vigorous and healthy. Takes a woman to do that for you, he told himself, and began whistling a lively little tune that seemed appropriate. Life is good.

Toad’s feeling of euphoric bonhomie lasted precisely one hour and thirty-seven minutes, just the length of time it took to plan the flights to and from the Electronic Warfare Range near Fallen, Ne- vada, fill out the flight plans, visit casually with the weather briefer about the long-range forecast for the next three or four days and make a pit stop in the head. On the walk back to the hangar where Grafton and the wizards labored, Rita was quieter, more subdued than she had been the last few days.

“Do you like me?” she asked finally, wearing a gentle semi- serious look that Toad Tarkington, man of the world, recognized as trouble.

His jovial mood returned to earth with an unpleasant splat. Commitment time! It’s their hormones, biology maybe, something to do with genes, ‘Sure, You’re a very nice lady who’s fun to be with.”

“Oh.”

“You know what I mean. You’re not one of those girls who write poetry until two in the morning and read Albert Camus in the cafeteria.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You’re”—and here Toad grinned broadly and arranged his fea- tures in what he always thought was his most sincere, let’s-fuck- tonight look—“you’re the kind of girl a guy likes to be around.”

“I understand,” Rita said, nodding. “You like girls who open zippers with their teeth and wear crotchless panties.”

He didn’t like the way she said that, with lips parted but almost immobile, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

“Rita, I try to avoid discussing serious relationships at midaf- temoon in parking lots.”

“Maybe if I shave my pussy and put four or five earrings in my leftear?’

Oh, so she wanted a little blood, huhl “Right ear. Left ear is for lesbi—“

“You asshole!” She stalked away, her head down, braced against the hurricane.

“Hey, Ginger, .” Ginger was her nickname, what the other aviators called her. She even had it on the name tag of her flight suit

She spun around to face him, her hands clenched at her sides. “Don’t you ever call me that, Tarkington. Not ever. Not you.”

“Hey—” he said, but he was talking to her back. He raised his voice and shouted, “I’d like to get to know you. But I’m not get- ting engaged in a parking lot, not even if you’re the Queen of Sheba.”

When she was fifty feet away, she turned to face him. “I wasn’t asking you to get engaged,” she shouted back.

“Oh yes you were! Crotchless panties, shaved pussies, what the hell is wrong with you?”

She was walking away again. Toad turned back toward base ops. Ten feet away a lieutenant commander stood looking at him, shak- ing his head.

“You know, Lieutenant, when I discuss intimate apparel or per- sonal hygiene with a lady friend, I usually try to find a slightly more private place.”

Toad turned beet red. “Yessir,” he mumbled through clenched teeth and stalked by with his head down.

Samuel Dodgers forked his food without wasting an erg of precious energy. The utensil bit into the mashed potatoes and peas in one swift, brutal motion, then soared aloft by the most direct route to the waiting depository, where it was wiped clean in the blink of an eye and dispatched down for another load. A man working this hard should devote his attention to the job at hand, and Dodgers wisely did so. If he heard the conversation around him, he gave no sign.

Toad Tarkington gave Rita a hopeful wink when her eyes shifted to him from Dodgers and his rapidly emptying plate. Her eyes mapped down to her food. She pressed her lips firmly together and inhaled deeply through her nose, which strained the cloth and buttons on her khaki shirt. Toad sourly noted that the younger Dodgers shared his interest in the physics of Rita’s bust expansion. It wasn’t that she was extraordinarily endowed, but rather that she was so perfectly proportioned. Her gorgeous breasts formed sym- metrical mounds that seemed… just so exactly, perfectly right, with the gentle swelling just visible in the deep V formed by the neckline of her shirt. Toad gave those twin masterpieces yet an- other glance as he sliced more meat from his pork chop and pon- dered the vicissitudes of love.

“Well, Toad,” he heard Jake Grafton say, “are you satisfied with this tour of duty?”

“Yessir. You bet.” The captain was looking at him with an amused expression on his face. “Just challenging as hell, sir.”

This remark drew a grunt from the gourmet at the other end of the table, who appeared to be finished anyway. Dodgers laid down his fork and used his napkin on his mouth. As far as Toad could see, he hadn’t missed with a single gram. “The road to hell may be challenging, sir, but the road to heaven is more so.”

“Uh-huh,” Toad Tarkington said, and attacked the remnants of his chop.

“The pathway of the righteous is narrow and difficult, and many there are who find the way too treacherous, too steep, too rigor- ous.” Dodgers was rolling, his phrases sonorous and heartfelt. “The pathway of the righteous is strewn with the temptations of the flesh, of the spirit and of the heart, all exits from the difficult, righteous way, all exits to that short, smooth road that leads down straight to hell.”

“A soul freeway for the pink Cadillac. Amen,” Toad muttered, and didn’t even glance at Rita when she kicked him in the shin.

“The pathway of the wicked is that straight, steep ro—“

“I’m sure,” Jake Grafton interrupted firmly. Looking at Rita, he asked, “Have you got the flight to Fallen planned?”

“Yes, sir.” She described the route, mentioning navigation aids, time en route and her estimate of what her fuel state would be when she arrived over the Electronic Warfare range. Jake asked everyone present if they had been to NAS Fallen, and proceeded to tell anecdotes of his many visits there throughout his career. Toad Tarkington knew Grafton was going to monopolize the conversa- tion through dessert just so he wouldn’t have to listen to Dodgers’ preaching. Apparently no one had ever told the physicist that three things were never discussed at a wardroom table — women, politics and religion.

Grafton was going easily from anecdote to anecdote when Rita finished eating and excused herself. Toad lingered, engrossed in the captain’s tales. The younger Dodgers ordered dessert and asked several questions: even his old man seemed somewhat amused by Grafton’s tales of ten-cent craps in Mom’s saloon and midnight motorcycle rides through the desert by half-drunk fliers trying to sober up so they could fly at 5 A.M.

Dr. Fritsche lit a cigar and sighed contentedly. He too seemed to find Grafton’s tales of his younger days very pleasant this warm evening in a navy wardroom a hundred miles from the sea.

Like Jake Grafton, I love this life, Toad found himself thinking. As he listened he recalled his first two-week weapons deployment with his squadron to Fallen, before his first cruise. It was in Fallen that the ties to wives and girlfriends were temporarily broken and the twenty-four-hour-a-day camaraderie began to weld friendships among the junior officers that would last a lifetime. The challenge was to fly the planes as weapons, two or three flights a day, and on liberty to play as hard as they flew. As Jake Grafton described it and Toad remembered it, it was a gay, carefree, exciting life, the perfect existence for a youngster growing into manhood.

When Jake wound down, Toad smiled at everyone and excused himself. Walking toward the BOQ he found himself whistling again. I’m doing a lot of that lately, he thought, and laughed aloud. He was spending his life wisely and well. He liked the thought so much he roared heartily, and then chuckled contentedly at his own foolishness, his animosity toward Rita this afternoon forgotten.

There was no answer when he tapped on Rita’s door. Perhaps she was in the head or down in the laundry room. Oh well, he would try to call her later.

When he opened the door to his room the lights were on and Rita was sitting in the chair by the small desk. Her hair was down over her shoulders and she was wearing only a teddy, a filmy little thing that… Toad gawked.

“Well, close the door before everyone in the building stops by to visit.”

“How’d you get in?” Toad asked, still staring.

“Just asked for a key at the desk.”

He got the door closed and latched and sat down on the end of the bed, close to her. The furniture was early Conrad Hilton, and there wasn’t much of it.

He cleared his throat as she stared straight into his eyes.

“I was writing a letter,” she said, her eyes never wavering from his. “To you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I can finish it later.”

“What’s it going to be about?”

“I’m sorry about the scene today in the parking lot. I just wanted — oh, I — let’s forget it, shall we?”

“Sure,” he said. “It was only a little pothole on the hard, righ- teous road.” His gaze was drifting lower and lower. “Not enough to get us sidetracked onto that short, steep road that leads down — . down straight…” Her nipples were visible through the lace of the teddy, ripe, red…

Rita stood in one smooth, fluid motion. “I want to make love to you.” she murmured as she peeled off the teddy, “but I don’t want to be too forward.”

He pursed his Ups and nodded. “Uh-huh.” He reached out and she slid into his arms, her skin all silky and smooth.

“Should we turn off the lights?” she suggested as he caressed her breasts with his lips. “‘

“You’re pretty enough for lights,” he said, and pulled her down on the bed beside him.

“I don’t want you to get the idea that I just want you for sex,” she said tentatively.

His mouth was fall of breast, so the best he could manage was a reassuring noise.

“The sex is great, of course, but I want us to have something else.” She ran her fingers through his hair, then smoothed the stray locks. “You’re a pretty terrific guy, and it’s more than sex. That’s what I was trying to get at this afternoon in the parking lot.”

Toad reluctantly took a last lick at that swollen nipple, then shifted his body until his eyes were inches from hers. “Are you trying to tell me you’re in love with me?”

She frowned. “I suppose. It hasn’t happened quite the way I always dreamed it would. Girls have their fantasies.” She took a tiny little nip on her lower lip. “I hope I’m saying this right. You don’t mind, do you?”

“I’m delighted. I’m falling in love with you and I’m glad you feel the same way.”

“I love you,” Rita Moravia said softly, savoring it, then gently pulled his mouth onto hers.

When she was asleep. Toad eased out of bed and peered through the curtain. He was restless. Why had he said that — that falling-in- love stuff? Only a cretin tells a woman that just before he beds her. He sat in a chair and worried a fingernail. He was getting in over his head again and he had his doubts. Was he just scared? Nah, a little frightened maybe, nervous, but not scared. Why is it all women want to fall in love? He wondered what Samuel Dodgers would say on that subject

Dreyfus laid it on Camacho’s desk and sat down to light his pipe. Camacho knew what it was: his boss had called him. It was a copy of a letter. The original was at the lab.

He opened the folder that the lab technicians used for copies and glanced at it. There was no date. The envelope was postmarked Bakersfield, California, three days ago. The message was in florid longhand, yet quite legible.

Dear Sir,

I think it’s my duty to inform you that my daughter’s hus- band, Petty Officer First Class Terry Franklin USN, is a spy. He works at the Pentagon. Computers, or something like that. I don’t know how long he has been a spy, but he is. My daughter Lucy is sure he is and so am I. He got a funny phone call once that Lucy overheard and he got really really mad when he found out Lucy mentioned her suspicions to a neigh- bor. Lucy is afraid of him and so am I. He is crazy. He is a spy like that Walker fellow.

We are good citizens and pay our taxes and know you will do what has to be done. We are sorry for him but he did this himself. Lucy had absolutely nothing to do with this spy thing, and that’s why I am writing this letter. I wanted her to write it but she said she just couldn’t, even though she knows it has to be this way. Please arrest him and keep Lucy and the kids out of it. Please don’t tell the newspapers he is married. His name is Terry Franklin and he works at the Pentagon and he is a spy. And PLEASE, whatever you do, don’t tell Terry we told on him. He is crazy.

Sincerely, Flora May Southworth

“Can you get a divorce in California if your spouse is a spy?”

Dreyfus snorted. “You can get a divorce in California if your spouse farts in bed.”

“Progressive as hell.”

“Right out front.”

“Better call out there and have an agent go interview them. Tell him to stay all afternoon and take lots of notes.”

“You don’t want them going to the press?”

“Do you know what the committee is going to want to do about this?”

“Well, they sure are gonna have to do something. Now we got the mother-in-law writing us letters. They probably talked to their minister and a lawyer and every neighbor in a five-block radius.”

“Not letters. A letter. One letter with no hard facts and a variety of unsubstantiated allegations. We get two dozen letters like this every month from people out to get even with someone in a sensi- tive job. I repeat, do you know what the committee—“

“No.” He spit it out.

“So we had better do our best to convince Mrs. Southworth we are going like gangbusters on this hot tip. Pledge confidentiality. Better send two agents. Tell them to be thorough. Then two days later go back for a follow-up interview with more questions. New questions, not repeats.”

“A major break like this, maybe you want to send me out there to see that they do it right? I could go by bus, get there in a week or so.”

Camacho ignored him. He picked up the letter and read it again. Then he pulled a legal pad around and began making notes. Drey- fus got the message and left in a swirl of smoke, closing the door behind him.

Camacho threw the legal pad at the door.