The Minotaur

17

A woman from the garage called at 10 A.M. and said his car was ready: $119.26. Camacho told her he would stop by after work. She hung up before he could even ask what the problem had been.

Dreyfus gave him a ride and dropped him in front of the show- room.

The new cars gleamed shamelessly and flashed their chrome with wanton abandon as he walked by. Light, easy-listening music sounded everywhere. Two salesmen asked if he needed help.

He paid for the repairs at a window where a harried young woman juggled two phones as she pounded numbers into a com- puter. He surrendered his driver’s license for her scrutiny before she asked. Without even glancing to see if his puss matched the photo, she copied the number onto the check and slid it back at him.

His six-year-old car sat amid twenty or so others of its vintage on a gravel lot out back. Dingy and coated with road grime, it hadn’t seen wax since… not since he gave his son twenty dol- lars that Saturday two years ago and the kid let the wax dry like paint all over the car before he tried to wipe it off.

Camacho unlocked the door, rolled down the windows and tossed the yellow card dangling from the rearview-mirror bracket onto the floor. The car started readily enough and ran sweetly. He examined the invoice. Diagnostic test. Defective spark plug. Defec- tive lead cable? Ouch — they got him there! Labor. How is it a garage can charge $55 per hour for a mechanic’s time?

About two miles from the garage was a shopping center with a large parking lot, most of which was empty except for light poles and a couple of cars that looked as if they had sat in those spots all winter. One even had two flat tires.

He parked near it and got his jack from the trunk. The rear end went up first. He had an old army blanket in the trunk and spread it under the car so he wouldn’t get too filthy.

With coat and tie on the back seat, flashlight in hand, Luis Camacho slid gingerly under the car. He knew exactly what he was looking for, but it might be hard to spot.

Five minutes later he stood beside the car and scratched his head. If Albright had put a bomb in this thing, where was it?

After a thorough scrutiny of the engine compartment and the trunk cavity, he attacked the door panels and rockers with a Phil- lips-head screwdriver. How many possible places were there? The backseats? Could he get them loose and look under them? The odds of a bomb being there were small, of course, but there was a chance. Just how big a chance, Camacho didn’t know. Peter Alek- sandrovich Chistyakov was not a man to take unnecessary risks. That double-agent discussion yesterday had frightened Camacho, coming as it did from a man who owned an assassin’s pistol and had enough gadgets in his attic to blow up half the cops in Wash- ington.

To assess just how likely it was that good ol’ Harlan Albright had decided to eliminate a possible threat, one would need to know just what it was that was being threatened. How many other agents was he running? What kind of information were they getting?

Of course, Albright could slip a bomb under the car any night while Camacho snored in his own bed. Risky, but feasible. But perhaps he had planted a bomb with a radio-actuated device as insurance, hoping he wouldn’t have to use it, but with it already in place should the need arise. A careful man might do something like that, right?

Apparently Albright was a careful man. The bomb was in the driver’s door, behind the panel, below the window glass when it was rolled completely down. It had been carefully taped in place so it wouldn’t rattle.

At a glance it appeared to contain a couple pounds of plastique. One fuse stuck out of the oblong mass. A wire ran from the fuse to a servo and from the servo to a six-volt battery. A little receiver was wired to the servo and four AA batteries were hooked up to power it. A tiny wire attached to the receiver was routed all along the inside of the door. It was a simple, radio-actuated bomb. Sim- ple and effective,

Luis Camacho pulled the fuse from the bomb and used a pen- knife to cut the wire. The plastique and the rest of it he left in place.

Sweating in spite of the fifty-five-degree weather and fifteen-mile- per-hour wind, he replaced the jack in the trunk. The door panel he put in the backseat

Had he figured it right? Was this merely insurance? Or bad Al- bright-Chistyakov already decided to push the button?

Standing there beside the car, he looked around slowly, check- ing. A lot of good that will do you, Luis. Cursing under his breath, be got behind the wheel and started the car.

There was a little hardware store in the shopping center, right between a gourmet food store and a factory fabric outlet. Inside Camacho bought a small flashlight, a coil of insulated wire, and some black electrician’s tape.

Out in the parking lot he used the knife and screwdriver to disassemble the flashlight. The bulb he mounted with tape on a bole he carved in the door panel. Fifteen minutes later he had the last screw back in place and the crank for the window reinstalled.

Therel Now if Albright pushes the button, instead of a big bang, this flashlight bulb will illuminate and burn continuously until that six-volt ni-cad battery in the door is completely discharged. As- suming be sees the illuminated bulb — and the unsoldered wire con- nections don’t vibrate loose — our saintly hero Luis Camacho, FBI ace spy catcher, will then have time to bend over and kiss his ass goodbye before the bullets from the silenced Ruger.22 send him to a kinder, more gentle world.

What more could any man ask?

He sat behind the wheel staring at the storefronts. After a mo- ment he got out of the car and walked back across the parking lot to the gourmet store, the Bon Vivant The place smelled of herb and flower leaf sachets. The clerk, a woman in her forties with ironed hair, was too engrossed in a book to even nod at him. He wandered through the aisles, looking at cans and jars of stuff imported from all over the world. Nothing from Iowa here. If it’s green or purple and packed in a jar from Europe or the Orient, with an outrageous price, you know it’s got to be good.

He selected a jar of blue French jam, “Bilberry” the label said, paid $4.32 plus tax to the refugee from Berkeley, and walked back across the empty, gray parking lot to his car.

The flight surgeon at the China Lake dispensary pronounced Rita fit to fly on Friday afternoon. Jake Grafton spent Saturday in the hangar with Samuel Dodgers and Helmut Fritsche going over the computer program and modifications to Athena that were needed.

As he worked Jake became even more impressed with Dodgers’ technological achievement and even more disenchanted with Dodgers the human being. Like every fanatic, Dodgers thought in absolutes which left no room for tolerance or dissent. On technical matters his mind was open, inquiring, incisive, leaping to new in- sights regardless of where the leap took him or the hoary prece- dents shattered by the jump. On everything else, however, every aspect of the human condition, Dodgers was bigoted, voluble, and usually wrong. It was as if his maker had increased his scientific talents at the expense of all the others, thus creating a mean little genius who viewed the world as a collection of wicked conspiracies hatched by evil, godless agents of the devil. His opinion of most of his less gifted fellow men was equally bleak. And he did believe in the devil. He waxed long and loud on Satan and his works when- ever he had a half minute that was not devoted to the task at hand- How Fritsche tolerated these diatribes Jake couldn’t fathom. He found himself increasingly irritated, and retreated to the head or the outside of the building when he had had all he could stomach.

“How can you listen to that asshole without choking him?” Jake asked during a brief interlude when nature called Dodgers to the head.

“Whatszat?” Fritsche asked, raising his eyebrows curiously. “These endless scatterbrained rantings,” Jake explained pa- tiently. “In the last hour he’s slandered every racial and ethnic group on the planet and denounced everyone in government as thieves and liars and worse. How can you listen to this?”

“Oh. That. I never listen. I’m too busy thinking about Athena. I shut out all that other stuff.”

“Wish I could.”

“Hmmm,” said Fritsche, obviously not paying much attention to Jake either.

“If he doesn’t cool it some, I’ll probably strangle him by dinner- time. Better learn all you can this afternoon.”

“Uh-huh,” said Fritsche, who was bending and reexamining the cooling unit that kept the computer temperature down. It was certainly a marvel of miniaturization and engineering. “How this man made this in a backyard workshop just boggles the mind. Look here, the craftsmanship of these welds, the way he polished this forging with acid to minimize heat loss. Look here! See how he built this to maximize cooling and shorten the wire runs. And he didn’t even use a computer to design this!”

“Instinct. The troll’s a genius,” Jake Grafton admitted reluc- tantly.

The other shoe fell on Sunday morning, when Jake received a telephone call from Washington. George Ludlow was on the other end of the wire. “Royce Caplinger’s flying out to see you this after- noon. He’s bringing Senator Hiram Duquesne with him. Each of them will have an aide along. Get them rooms in the BOQ.”

“Jesus, Mr. Secretary. This project’s got a security lid tight as a virgin’s twat. We don’t need any godda — any senator—“

“Duquesne had to be told, Captain. He’s the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. I’m not asking your opinion. I’m informing you. Got it?”

“Yessir. I got it. Have you also informed Admiral Dunedin?”

“Yes.” The connection broke. Jake cradled the phone. He soon learned there were but two empty rooms in the BOQ, so he sent the two junior members of his party to a motel off base. Those two were Toad and Rita, neither of whom looked very distressed when they tossed their bags into the back of a navy station wagon and drove away.

He wore his only clean white uniform and was standing in the sun in front of the terminal when the T-39 taxied up and Royce Caplinger stepped out. The CO of the base was standing beside Jake. Both officers saluted smartly. They also snapped a salute to Senator Duquesne, who was dressed in slacks and pullover shirt and looked like he had had a couple snorts on the trip. As Du- quesne blinked mightily at the bright light, a woman descended the little stair from the plane.

Jake recognized her even as Caplinger said her name. “Ms. DeCrescentis. She’s a guest of Senator Duquesne.”

“Consolidated Technologies. She’s a vice president, isn’t she?”

“Yep,” said Duquesne. “Good to see you again. Captain,” he said in a tone that implied just the opposite.

“Hitchhiking today, Ms. DeCrescentis?”

“She’s here to take the tour with us,” Caplinger said.

“Could I talk to you privately for a moment,” Jake said, not a question, and walked away from the group.

Twenty paces or so away Jake turned around. Caplinger was right behind. Jake let him have it: “Ludlow said you were coming for a briefing with a senator, even though this project is classified to the hilt. But I’m not about to let a vice president of a defense contractor that is going to be bidding on the ATA have a look at Athena or be a party to any conversation on the subject. She has no bona fide need to know at this stage of the game. She doesn’t have access. Not only no, but hell no. Sir.”

“My responsibility,” Caplinger said, then clamped his lips into a thin line.

“No, sir. Ludlow didn’t mention any defense contractors, and even if he had, I’d have to clear this with Admiral Dunedin. I take orders from him. He’d probably have to talk to CNO. Her pres- ence would violate a couple dozen reg—“

“Call him.”

“Now?”

“Yes, goddamnit, right fucking now. We’ll wait in the lounge.” Caplinger stalked for the blue carpet that led inside, followed by Jake Grafton. The base CO led the others inside.

Jake used the phone in the operations officer’s office on the sec- ond deck.

He reached Dunedin at his office in Crystal City on the first try and outlined the situation. “Fuck!” said the admiral.

“Yessir.”

“I’ll call Ludlow. If that goes sour I’ll call CNO.”

“Okay.” Jake gave him the phone number where he could be reached.

“You’re really sticking your neck out, Jake.”

“So fire me.”

“I’ll call you back.”

Thirty minutes went by. Jake stared out the window at the little passenger jet and watched the men with the gas truck refuel it as heat waves rose off the tarmac. Blue mountains lay on the horizon. Not a single airplane stirring this Sunday morning. After a while he examined the photos and mementos the ops boss had arranged on his walls. He recognized some of the names and faces in the group pictures.

He was sitting behind the desk with his feet propped on it and doodling on a scratch pad when the phone rang. “Captain Graf- ton.”

“George Ludlow. Admiral Dunedin tells me there’s a problem.”

“Yessir. Caplinger and Duquesne arrived here a while ago with a vice president of Consolidated Technologies tagging along. They want her to see Athena. It’s classified special access, above top secret, and she’s getting an unfair advantage over the other con- tractors. I said no.”

“What did Caplinger say?”

“He wasn’t happy.”

“Do you understand that Hiram Duquesne is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee? We have to have his support if we’re going to get a replacement aircraft for the A-6. Without it we’re pissing up a rope.”

“I understand that. And I understand that you chose me for this job because I can wear a Medal of Honor on my shirt and because I’m expendable. You’re going to have me make a recommendation on which plane to buy based on a short operational evaluation fly- off, and if you like it, I’ll have to go over to Congress and defend it. You can disavow me anytime. I understand all of that. I took the job anyway. Now I’m telling you, I can’t go over to the Hill and make a recommendation if five or six senators and congressmen are out to cut my balls off with a scalping knife because I let Consoli- dated in on the ground floor in violation of the law and DOD regulations. I won’t be able to hide behind Royce Caplinger over there. That little shit is too goddamn small to hide behind.”

Ludlow chuckled, a dry sound that lasted three or four seconds. “Go get Caplinger. I’ll talk to him.”

Jake left the phone lying on the desk and went downstairs to the VIP lounge. “Mr. Secretary, you have a phone call upstairs.”

Duquesne’s face was still red and mottled. DeCrescentis looked like she could chew up all of them and spit hamburger. The base CO was nowhere in sight. He had probably attacked in another direction, maybe toward the golf course.

Jake followed the Defense Secretary back up the stairs.

As soon as Caplinger recognized his son-in-law’s voice, he shooed Jake from the office. Jake could hear his voice booming through the door. It wasn’t just the Advanced Tactical Aircraft he was concerned about — ft was the entire defense budget. As he roared at Ludlow: “… you and I both know that Grafton will probably recommend the TRX plane. With Athena, it’s the obvi- ous choice. But that leaves Duquesne in political trouble at home and we need his support. Jesus fucking Christ, George, you people have an aircraft carrier up for funding, three Aegis cruisers, two boomer boats, the air force wants more F-117s and some B-2s,”the army wants more tanks. SDI is desperate for money. And Con- gress is trying to cut the deficit! Don’t tell me to tell Duquesne to fuck off!”

He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke again his voice was low and Grafton couldn’t hear the words. He knew Ludlow well enough to know how it was going, however. Let Grafton take the heat, the Secretary of the Navy was probably saying. Make Grafton the villain.

And that was how it went. When Caplinger came out of the office he buttonholed Jake. “You’re going downstairs and explain to the senator that you personally must put DeCrescentis back on that plane. You will brief me and the senator this afternoon on Athena and we’ll see it in operation tomorrow. But you are going to insist that woman goes home now, and you are going to make Duquesne like it. Got it?”

“Aye aye, sir.”

The senator didn’t like it, of course, and DeCrescentis liked it even less, but when Grafton made it clear that the law was going to be obeyed regardless and he was the man insisting, both of them gave ground with what grace they could muster. Duquesne had more of it than the corporate vice president did, perhaps because he knew that even Caesar had to retreat occasionally.

After an hour with Samuel Dodgers in the hangar, it appeared Hiram Duquesne wished he had joined DeCrescentis on the plane.

Dodgers gave Athena no more than half his air and used the rest to blast away at Congress, corporations and the communist-Jew- nigger conspiracy. Finally Jake told him to shut up. It didn’t take. Jake told him again in terms and tones that would have stopped a rock band in full screech. Dodgers stormed off, leaving Caplinger and Duquesne gaping foolishly at each other.

Jake Grafton took a deep breath, made his excuses to the two politicians, and left them in the care of a stunned Helmut Fritsche.

In the parking lot, he caught up with Dodgers, trembling with outrage. “You owe me an apology,” the scientist spluttered, hold- ing himself rigid, his fists clenched.

“No, sir,” Grafton said in a normal voice. “You owe me one. And you owe apologies to all three of those men in there.”

Dodgers was speechless.

“You have inflicted yourself on everyone within earshot since the day I met you. Now there’s not going to be any more of that while I’m around. Do you understand?”

“How dare you talk to me like this!” When Dodgers got it out, it came out loud.

Jake lowered his voice still more. “I’m the officer responsible. That’s it as far as you’re concerned. You do your work and keep your personal opinions to yourself, and you and I will get along.”

The scientist spluttered. “I don’t want to get along with you, you…” He couldn’t find the word.

“You’d better reconcile yourself to it if you want this project to go anywhere.”

“… sinner. Agent of Satan.”

“You want money for your church, right? I’m the man.” With that Jake turned his back on Samuel Dodgers.

The little neighborhood bar was fairly well lit and not very fancy, with cheap furniture and oilcloth table covers. A television high in one comer was tuned to a ball game, one of the NCAA tourna- ment semifinals. Smoke Judy slid into an empty booth and ordered a draft. The waitress flirted for a moment when she brought it, then skipped away.

Smoke sipped his beer and watched the body posture of the men leaning against the bar and sitting on the stools. Some were ab- sorbed in the game, some were talking to a buddy. Most of them were doing a little of both.

This was Smoke Judy’s favorite weekend beer spot, only a mile from his place. He knew the bartender casually and they often exchanged pleasantries on slow days. There were a lot worse ways to make a living, Smoke decided, than running a neighborhood bar where the guys could stop in after work or take a break from lawn mowing and garage cleaning. The crowd was nice and the work pleasant, although the money wouldn’t be great.

Maybe he would get a place like this when he retired next year. He had dropped a hint to the bartender — who also owned the place — a few weeks back, trying to find out if he had ever thought of selling, but the man didn’t get his drift, or pretended he didn’t.

He was going to retire next year, with twenty-two years in. By law, as a commander he could stay in the navy until be had com- pleted twenty-six years of service, but he wasn’t going to endure the hassle of staff job after staff job with no chance of promotion.

The end of the line had been a tour in command of a training squadron in Texas. Four of those damn kids had crashed, three fatally. Hard to believe. He had worked hard and flown hard and done it by the book, and still those goddamned kids just kept smashing themselves into the ground like suicidal rats. The acci- dent investigators had never said or even implied he was at fault, Yet every crash had felt like God whacking him on the head, com- pressing another two vertebrae. He had gotten punchy toward the end, a screamer in the cockpit, afraid to certify any student safe for anything. He left that for the lieutenants.

The admiral had been sympathetic, of course, but he had no choice. He said. He had to rate Judy the lowest of all his squadron commanders. After all, four accidents? Nine million dollars’ worth of airplanes and three lives? That had been God’s final whack. Judy would never be promoted or given another command. All that remained was a decision on when to retire.

He had seen it coming, like something from a Greek tragedy, after that second kid augered in on a night instrument solo. A fucking Canoe U. grad no less! Then the third one, that kid punched out of a perfectly good airplane on a solo aero hop after he flew into the only cloud for fifty miles in any direction for ten whole seconds and got the plane into a high-speed spiral and pan- icked. But he stood there in the CO’s office afterwards and said he was sorry! The fourth one, that shithead — Judy had personally given him a down once already — one clear, cloudless day that spas- tic bastard failed to get the nose up to the horizon on a pullout from a simulated strafing run and pancaked in, smearing himself and his airplane across a half mile of cow pasture. The command- ing officer is always responsible. And so it had been, like a judg- ment from the Doomsday book.

Next year. With twenty-two in. That would give him 55 percent of his base pay, and if one or two of these little deals he was working with hungry contractors came through, he would do all right. Not rich, but okay.

He paid for the beer and left two quarters for a tip. His car was parked just fifty feet down the street, but as he walked toward it, the car in front backed right into it!

“Awww…”

The driver got out and walked back to examine the damage.

“Awww, shit!” Smoke Judy exclaimed when he saw the broken grille, the smashed headlight and the bowed-out fender. “Get your goddamn driver’s license yesterday?”

“Jesus, mister, I am sorry! My foot just slipped off the brake. Don’t know how it happened.”

“Awww, damn. The second time this year somebody has smacked it when it was parked. Look at this fender, willya? Those Japs must make these things out of recycled beer cans. Look how this thing’s sprungi And this headlight socket!”

The other driver turned from examining his own bent fender and smashed taillight and surveyed Judy’s damage. He was chunky, fifty or so, flecks of gray in his hair. “Don’t worry. I got insurance. They’ll fix it good as new. But honest, I am really sorry.”

“I suppose.” Smoke Judy shook his head.

“Maybe we’d better exchange information.”

“Yeah.” Judy unlocked his car and fished the registration and insurance certificate from the glove box while the other driver rooted in his.

“Maybe we should go inside and do this,” the chunky man sug- gested. “Can I buy you a beer?”

The Minotaur

“Why not.” Smoke turned and led the way back into the bar he had just come out of. “My name’s Judy. Smoke Judy.”

“Sorry we had to meet like this. I’m Harlan Albright.”

Dodgers kept his opinions to himself at dinner Sunday evening, partially because he was too busy with his food to waste effort on small talk, and partially because he could not have gotten a word in edgewise against Caplinger’s verbal flow. There were just the four of them around a table in an empty dining room — empty because the officers’ club was usually closed on Sunday evening and Secretary Caplinger declined to go off-base to eat — Dodgers, Caplinger, Senator Duquesne, and Jake Grafton. Caplinger dis- cussed the budget deficit. Third World debt, global pollution, and the illegal drug industry with a depth of knowledge and insight that amazed Jake and even quieted the senator, who was the only person at the table who tried to participate in the conversation. It was obvious that Royce Caplinger not only had read widely but had thought deeply about all these issues. Less obvious but equally impressive was the way he wove the strands of these mega-issues into one whole cloth.

After the steward placed a coffeepot in the center of the table and departed, closing the door behind him, Caplinger eyed Jake speculatively. “Well, Captain, it seems to me that now would be a good time to sound you out.”

“I’m just an 0–6, Mr. Secretary. All I see are the elephant’s feet”

Caplinger poured himself a cup of coffee and used a spoon to stir in cream. He surveyed Samuel Dodgers as if seeing him this eve- ning for the first time. “Good of you to share your Sabbath with us, Doctor. We’re looking forward to seeing your handiwork to- morrow.”

Dodgers wiped his mouth and tossed his napkin beside his plate. “Tomorrow.” He nodded at everyone except Grafton and de- parted.

When the door had firmly closed behind the inventor, Caplinger remarked, “Senator, what will happen on the Hill if it becomes common gossip that the father of Athena is a fascist churl?”

“You’ll be in trouble. That man couldn’t sell water in Death Valley on the Fourth of July.”

“My thought exactly. We’ll have to make sure he stays out of sight and sound. Little difficult to do in America, but not impossi- ble.” He grinned. When he did his face twisted. It didn’t look like he made the effort very often. “So how do the elephant’s feet look, Captain?”

Jake Grafton reached for the coffeepot. “I confess, sir, that I’m baffled. Seems to me that these new weapons systems under devel- opment, with the sole exception of Athena, are going to be too expensive for the nation ever to afford enough of them to do any good.”

All traces of the smile disappeared from Caplinger’s face. “Go on.”

“As the cost goes up, the quantity goes down- And every techni- cal breakthrough seems to double or triple the cost. If anything, Athena will be the exception that proves the rule. Athena should be a fairly cheap system, all things considered, but it’ll be the only one.”

“And., -” prompted the Secretary of Defense.

“Well, if our goal is to maintain forces which deny the Soviets any confidence in a favorable outcome in any probable nuclear war scenario, we seem to have reached the treadmill. We can’t maintain forces if we can’t afford them.”

“You made a rather large assumption.”

“So what is our goal?”

“The general public regards nuclear war as unwinnable. That’s the universal popular wisdom, and like anything that almost every- one believes, it’s wrong. The Soviets have invested heavily in hard- ened bunkers for the top leadership. They’ve built underground cities for the communist elite. Somebody over there thinks they can win! Now their idea of victory and ours are two very different things, but as long as they think they can win, the likelihood of a nuclear war increases. Nuclear war becomes more likely to hap- pen.”

Caplinger glanced at the senator, then turned his attention back to Jake. He seemed to be weighing his words. “Our goal,” he fi- nally said, “is to prevent nuclear war. To do that we must make them think they can’t win.”

“So you are saying that any method of denying the Russians confidence in a favorable outcome — however they define favorable — is acceptable?”

Caplinger tugged at his lower lip. His eyes were unfocused. Jake thought he seemed to be turning it qver in his mind yet again, examining it for flaws, looking… Slowly the chin dipped, then rose again. “We need…” His gaze rose to the ceiling and went slowly around it. “We need … we need forces that can survive the initial strike and respond in a flexible manner, forces that are controllable, programmable, selective. It can’t be all or nothing, Captain. It can’t be just one exchange of broadsides. If all we have is that one broadside, we just lost.”

“Explain,” prompted Senator Duquesne-

“We’ll never shoot our broadside. That’s the dirty little secret that they know and we know and we will never admit. No man elected President of the United States in the nuclear age would order every ICBM fired, every Trident missile launched, every nu- clear weapon in our arsenal detonated on the Soviets. Not even if the Soviets make a massive first strike at us. To massively retaliate would mean the end of life on the planet Earth. No rational man would do it.” Caplinger shrugged. “That’s the flaw in Mutual As- sured Destruction. No sane man would ever push the button.”

Royce Caplinger sipped his coffee, now cold, and made a face.

“We must deny the communists the ability to ever come out of those bunkers. We need the ability to hit pinpoint, mobile targets on a selective, as-needed basis. That’s the mission of the F-117 and the B-2. If we can achieve that, there will never be a first strike. There will never be a nuclear war.”

Caplinger pushed his chair back away from the table. “Life will continue on this planet until pollution ruins the atmosphere and sewage makes the seas a barren, watery desert. Then life on this fragile little pebble orbiting this modest star will come to the end that the Creator must nave intended when he made man. Watching our Japanese televisions, listening to our compact laser disks, wear- ing our designer clothes, we’ll all starve.”

He rose abruptly and made for the door. Jake Grafton also got to his feet. When the door closed behind Caplinger, Jake shook the senator’s hand and wished him good night.

“He’s a great man,” the senator said, trying to read Jake’s thoughts.

“Yes.”

“But he is not sanguine. The political give-and-take — it de- presses him.”

“Yes,” Jake Grafton said, and nodded his farewell. Suddenly he too needed to be alone.

On Monday morning Jake put Secretary Caplinger, Senator Du- quesne, and their aides on a plane to Fallen with Helmut Fritsche and Harold Dodgers. He had decided to stay at China Lake and supervise the good doctor.

Sam Dodgers was in a foul mood, muttering darkly about money and conspiracies. Jake managed to keep his mouth shut. When the Athena device was ready and installed in the A-6, he helped strap Rita Moravia and Toad Tarkington into the cockpit. Toad was whistling some tune Jake didn’t recognize.

“No birds today. Okay?”

“Whatever you say, boss.” Toad was in high spirits. Higher than usual. He must be screwing Moravia, Jake decided, trying to catch some hint between them. The pilot was all business.

“Work the long distances today- Start at thirty miles and let Fritsche call you closer when he has the info he wants. Just keep the radar he’s using on your left side.”

“Sure, CAG. We understand.” He resumed his whistling as Jake helped him latch his Koch fittings.

“You know who whistles in the navy. Toad?”

“No, sir,”

“Bosun’s mates and damn fools.”

Toad grinned. “I’m in that second category, sir. Enjoy your day with Dr. Dodgers.”

Jake punched him on the shoulder and climbed down the board- ing ladder.

As the Intruder taxied out, Jake climbed into the yellow ramp truck that the base ops people had loaned him. He had no desire to return to the hangar and watch Dodgers tinker with a computer.

He drove down a taxiway and parked near the duty runway. He got out and sat on the hood. Already the morning was warm, growing hotter by the minute as the sun climbed higher and higher into the deep blue sky. Singing birds were audible here, away from the hustle and bustle of the ramp. A large jackrabbit watched him from the safety of a clump of brush.

He could hear the faint murmur of engines in the distance, and assumed that was Rita and Toad. The minutes passed as he sat there in the sun with the breeze in his hair. He had joined the navy those many years ago to fly, and now he was reduced to sitting beside a runway waiting for younger people to take off. Yet this was the world he knew. The world Royce Caplinger had spoken of last night — nuclear deterrence, global strategy — that was an alien environment, as foreign to him as the concerns of headhunters in the jungles of the Amazon.

He saw the tiny tail of the warplane moving above the swell in the runway. It turned and became a knife edge. Still at least a mile away, the visible tail came to a stop and remained motionless for several minutes.

Caplinger’s pessimism troubled him. Sure, the world had its problems, but every generation had faced problems: problems were the stuff life was made of. A man as brilliant as Caplinger, he shouldn’t be so … so bitter.

He heard the engines snarl, yet the tiny white speck of tail did not move. No doubt Rita was standing on the brakes, letting the engines wind up to full power and the temps stabilize before she let it roll. Now… now the tail began to move, slowly at first, then faster and faster.

The Intruder came over the swell in the runway accelerating quickly. A river of hot, shimmering air poured down and away behind the bird.

He pressed his fingers in his ears as the sound swelled in volume and intensity. The nose wheel rose a foot or so above the concrete. With a delicate wiggle the bird of prey lifted itself free of the earth and continued toward him in a gentle climb as the wheels retracted into the body of the beast. The howl of the engines grew until it was intolerable.

Now the machine was passing just overhead, roaring a thunder- ous song that enveloped him with an intensity beyond imagination. He glimpsed the helmeted figure of Rita Moravia in the cockpit with her left hand on the throttles, looking forward, toward the open sky.

He buried his face in his shoulder as the plane swept past and waves of hot jet exhaust and disturbed air cascaded over him.

When the gale subsided the noise was fading too, so he looked again for the Intruder. It was climbing steeply into the blue ocean above, its engine noise now a deep, resonant, subsiding roar.

He got down from the truck hood and seated himself behind the wheel. The birds in the scrub were still singing and the jackrabbit was still watching suspiciously.

Grinning to himself, Jake Grafton started the engine of the pickup and drove away.