The Minotaur

5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“And the state police?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Outside the city.”

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

“Harold Strong.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No mention of the Corolla’s fuel tank. But the trooper could certainly testify that the fuel tank, like the car’s frame, was intact. No speculation on or estimate of how fast the Corolla would have had to be going up that mountain to slide all the way across the overlook area. Did he explain that the Corolla was ascending the grade? Yes, on page one.

No speculation about the cause of this single-car accident and no speculation anywhere that another vehicle might be involved.

He took the report into the office beside him and had it copied. They charged him thirty cents. He was tempted to use the car to return the original report but decided the exercise would be good for him. As he approached the police building, a trooper was park- ing his car in a reserved spot.

“Thanks,” he told the girl at the desk. She handed him his driv- er’s license, which had been lying on the counter beside the police radio microphone.

The door behind Jake opened. “Hi, Susie.” Jake turned. The trooper was clad in a green uniform and wore a short green nylon jacket. He was somewhere between thirty and thirty-five years of age, with a tanned, clean-shaven face and short military haircut. He stood several inches taller than Jake and was built heavier. On the left breast of his coat was a silver name tag: Keadle. “Hello,” he said, addressing the greeting to Jake.

“Hi.”

“This is Mr. Jacob L. Grafton of Arlington, Virginia,” the girl said. “He was a friend of Captain Strong’s.”

“Izzatso?” The trooper’s eyes swept him again, more carefully. “Why don’tcha step into this other room here for a minute. Susie, how about getting us both coffee. White or black?” he said to Jake.

“Black.”

“Black it is,” he said, and led the way behind the counter and through a door into an adjoining office. His big revolver swung freely below his jacket in a brown holster that hung halfway down his right leg.

“Captain Strong had a little cabin a few miles east of here for weekends and all,” the trooper said. “I knew him to speak to. Helluva nice guy. Too bad about that wreck.”

Jake nodded and sank onto an old sofa with the stuffing coming through the cracks in the vinyl.

“You in the navy too?” the trooper asked.

Jake took out his wallet and extracted his green ID card. He passed it across. The trooper looked it over, both sides, then handed it back. “Why’d you come up here. Captain Grafton?”

“Were you ever in the service?”

“Marines, four years. Why?”

“Just curious.”

The door opened and Susie came in with coffee in Styrofoam cups. Both men thanked her and she pulled the door shut on her way out.

“Let’s try it again. Why’d you come up here, Captain Grafton?”

“To get a copy of this report.”

Keadle thought about that for a bit, then said, “Well, you got one. What do you think of it?”

“It was a strange accident.”

“How so?”

“Car going up a steep, curvy road on a rainy evening goes skid- ding off the pavement and across a fifty-foot-wide gravel turnout. Right over the edge. Then there’s a furious fire in the passenger compartment.”

“What’s strange about that?”

“He must have been flying low that night. Or else somebody pushed him over the edge. And an interior fire — I thought that stuff only happened in movies. Wrecked cars rarely explode or catch fire.”

“You don’t say. If it wasn’t an accident, who wanted Captain Strong dead?”

“I don’t know. I dropped in to see if you did.”

“I’m just a rural peace officer, not some big-city detective. This county don’t have much real crime. Seems that most of the scum- bags just do their thing over in Washington. I’m not—“

“Let’s cut the bullshit. Why aren’t you investigating an apparent homicide?”

“Who says I’m not? I’m sitting here chinning with you, ain’t I?”

Jake sipped on his coffee. Finally he said, “Well, you got any more questions?”

“Gimme your address and phone number.” Keadle picked up a pad of paper and a pen from the desk. “If I think of any I’ll give you a call.”

Jake told him the number. “Susie already gave you my address from my driver’s license.” He stood and drained his coffee. ‘Thanks for the coffee. I hope you catch him.”

Keadle looked at him with pursed lips.

Jake opened the door and walked out. He nodded at Susie as he went by.

The red flag was up on the Main Street parking meter but no ticket yet. It was almost noon. Perhaps be should stop and see if the prosecutor was in his office. But what good would that do?

There was no way he could make it back to the office before everyone left for the day. Perhaps a hamburger. He fed the meter another quarter and walked down Main Street toward a cafe that he had noticed near the courthouse. Before he got there Trooper Keadle went by in a state police cruiser.

When he finished his lunch Jake drove east on the road back to Washington. Somewhere off one of these side roads, between here and the accident site, Harold Strong had had a cabin. He wished he had thought of finding the cabin and stopping by before he went to town.

Who are you kidding, Jake? What would you look for? A long golden hair on the bedspread? Perhaps a sterling silver cigarette case bearing Mata Hart’s initials? You’re no murder investigator. Keadle has undoubtedly been through that cabin with a fine-tooth comb. If there were clues he has them.

Thoroughly disgruntled, Jake drove at forty miles an hour along the two-lane highway toward Virginia. He didn’t want to see Trooper Keadle in the rearview mirror with his red light flashing. Not too likely, of course. The odds were that Keadle was sitting in his cruiser right now in sight of Strong’s cabin, hoping against hope that Jake would drop by and enter without using a key.

Keadle was no hick cop, even if he liked to play the role- He undoubtedly knew a murder when he tripped over one, and then the very next morning a man appeared — by the Lord Harry a vice admiral in the U.S. Navy — who wanted the investigation of the very recent death of a captain in that very same navy put on the back burner. And Keadle and the prosecutor went along. Or did they? And how did the FBI get involved?

But if it didn’t happen like that, why did Henry tell that fairy story?

He glanced at the map he had jammed over the passenger’s sun visor. The report said the accident happened four miles west of Capon Bridge, that little village Jake had stopped in this morning to get gas. The Shell station.

When he topped the mountain west of Capon Bridge he slowed and looked for the scenic overlook. There. On a whim he parked his car beside the trees so he could examine whatever marks re- mained after two months. As he got out of his car and surveyed the muddy gravel he knew it was hopeless. Two months of rain and snow and traffic pulling off to look at the valley had totally obliter- ated the marks that Keadle’s report said were here after Strong’s wreck.

He walked over to the edge. Some of the guardrails were obvi- ously newer than the others. He looked down the embankment. Beer cans, trash, bare dirt, washed-out furrows. Well, it sure looked like a car might have been dragged up that slope some time back. The ground was soft and no plants had yet had a chance to hide the scars. No sense going down there and getting muddy.

Harold Strong died here. Jake had lied to the office girl — he had never met Strong. He stood now feeling foolishly morbid and half listening to a car laboring up the grade from Capon Bridge. The engine noise carried through the trees budding with spring green and echoed off the mountainside.

Henry had been telling the truth about one thing anyway: Har- old Strong had been murdered. Not even a race car could come up that grade and around that curve fast enough to skid completely across this pullout and go over the edge. Not without help.

Jake glanced up as the car climbing the mountain went by. It was going about thirty miles per hour. The driver was watching the road. And the driver was Smoke Judy.

The commanding officer of Attack Squadron 128 (VA-128) nodded at Rita Moravia and Toad Tarkington, then picked up his phone-. A yeoman appeared almost immediately to collect their orders for processing and a lieutenant commander was right behind. He led them into another office and gave each of them a manual on the A-6E and introduced them to their personal mentors, two lieuten- ants. “These two gentlemen are going to teach you to be credible A-6 crewmen in one week, starting right now. We’ll get your lug- gage over to the BOQ and these guys will drop you there when they get finished tonight.”

Toad’s teacher was a prematurely bald extrovert from New En- gland named Jenks, who began talking about the A-6E’s electronic weapons system — radar, computers, inertial nav, forward-looking infrared and laser ranger-designator — in the car on the three-block trip to the building that housed the simulators. Toad listened si- lently with growing dread.

Jenks continued his monologue as he led Toad across the park- ing lot, lectured on at the security desk while Toad filled out a form to obtain a temporary visitor’s pass, and didn’t pause for breath as they climbed the stairs and went through a control room and across a catwalk inside a huge room to the simulator, a cockpit mounted on hydraulic rams. “So just make yourself comfortable here in the hot seat,” Jenks said in summary, “and well move right on into the hardware.”

Toad looked slowly around the cavernous room at the three other simulators. Then he looked into the cockpit. Like every mili- tary cockpit in the electronic age, it was filled with display screens, computer controls and information readouts in addition to all the usual gauges, dials, knobs, switches and warning tights. “I have a question,”

“Shoot”

“How long is the normal syllabus to train a bombardier-naviga- tor?”

“Eight months.”

“And you’re going to cram all that info into me in one weekT’

“You look like a bright guy. That captain in Washington said you were motivated as hell.”

“Grafton?”

“I didn’t talk to him. The skipper did. Sit down and let’s get at it” Jenks turned and shouted to the technician in the control room; “Okay, Art, fire it up.”

People were streaming out of Jefferson Plaza at 4:30 when Jake passed through the main entrance on the way in. He was still in civilian clothes. He waited impatiently for the tardy elevator.

The secretary was still in the office along with several officers. What was her name? “Hi. What’s happening?”

“Hello, Captain. Didn’t expect to see you today.”

“Yeah. Didnt think I’d make it back. Seen Commander Judy?”

“Oh, he was in for a little while this morning, then he said he had a meeting. Said he’d probably be gone the rest of the day.”

Jake paused near the woman’s desk. “Did he say where the meeting was?”

“No, sir.”

“Was he here when you arrived this morning?”

She tried to remember. “Yessir, I think so. Oh, by the way, the computer wizard stopped by this afternoon to give you your brief on the office system. He said he was going to be working late, so if you’re going to be around a while. I’ll call him now and see if he can come over and do the brief.”

“Sure. Call him.”

Jake greeted the other officers and walked across the room to his office door. Two of his new subordinates stuck their heads in for a few pleasantries, then shoved off.

A pile of documents lay flat in the in basket. Jake flipped through the stuff listlessly. There was enough work here to keep him chained to this desk for a week, or maybe a month since he didn’t know anything about most of the matters the letters and memos referred to. He would have to use the staff heavily.

The secretary appeared in his door. “The computer man will be here in a little while. His name is Kiemberg- Good night. Captain.”

“Did you lock up everything?”

“No, sir. I thought you might want to took through some files.”

“Sure. Good night”

Jake waited for the door to click shut, then went out into the room. He found Judy’s desk and sat down. He stirred through a small pile of phone messages. Just names and numbers. A thin appointment book with a black cover. He flipped through it slowly.

The days up until now were heavily annotated. Today’s page was blank. He held the book at arm’s length over the desk and dropped it. It fell with a splat.

Damn! He felt so frustrated-

Well, at least he knew most of Henry’s once-upon-a-time story was true, though where that got him he had no idea. And he knew that Judy made a trip to West Virginia today. Why? To see Trooper Keadle or the prosecutor? To search Strong’s cabin? Well, Judy was certainly going to be surprised to hear that Jake knew he was there. Or was he? Maybe he would tell Jake himself in the morning.

Jake turned on the office copy machine and while it was warm- ing up stood and read the entries in Judy’s calendar again care- fully. Smoke seemed to have made a lot of notes about Karen. Karen who? Karen 472-3656, that’s who. Why did he write her phone number down so often? Aha, because she had different phone numbers — at least four of them. And this guy Bob — lunch, tennis on Saturday, reminders that he called, to call Bob. Call DE. Call from RM. Drop car at garage. Commode broke. Smoke Judy seemed to jot down everything out of the ordinary. He was a detail man in a detail business.

When he had his copies. Jake put the appointment book back on Judy’s desk and went back to his little office. In a few moments he heard a knock on the door, so he heaved himself up and walked across the room to admit the visitor-

The man in civilian clothes who came in was slighty below me- dium height, built like a fireplug and just as bald. “Hi. Name’s Kleinberg. From NSA. Computers.” His voice boomed. Here was a man who could never whisper. In his left hand he carried a leather valise.

“I’m Grafton.”

“Beg pardon,” the man said as he reached out and tilted the bottom of Jake’s security tag. He stared at it a few seconds, then glanced again at Jake’s face. “Yep, you’re Grafton, all right. Can’t be too careful, y’know.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Let’s look at the patient.”

Jake led the way to his desk. “I don’t know much about com- puters.”

“No sweat. I know enough for both of us. When we’re through, you’re going to be able to make this thing sing and dance.” Klein- berg turned on the computer. “See this prompt here? That’s the sign-on prompt and you have to type in your secret password. This is a code that identifies you to the machine, which allows you access to certain files and only certain files- Security, y’know. Here’s your password.” He used a pencil on a sheet of paper and wrote, “Reverberation.”

“How come I can’t pick my own word?”

“We tried that on the second go-around. Everyone wanted to come up with something cute, except for the aviators, who all wanted to use their nicknames. You’d have thought they were or- dering vanity license plates. So … Now type in your password.”

Jake did so. The computer prompt moved from left to right, but the letters failed to appear.

“Now hit ‘enter.’ Uh-oh, the computer won’t take it- So type it again and spell it right.” This time the computer blinked to the next screen. “You only get two tries,” Kleinberg advised. “If you are wrong both times, the computer will lock you out and you’ll have to see me about getting back in.”

“How can it lock me out if I haven’t told it exactly who I am?”

“It locks out everyone who has access from the bank of monitors in this office.” Kleinberg wrote another password on the paper:

“Fallacy.”

‘This is the password that allows you access to files relating to the ATA, which is what I understand you are working on here in this shop. Type it in and hit ‘enter.’ ” Jake obeyed. “Now, to call up the directory of the files you have access to due to your security clearance and job title, you have to type one more password.” He wrote it down. “Matriarch.”

After Jake entered this code, a long list of documents appeared on the screen. “Of course, if you already have the document num- ber, you can type it right in and not bother calling up the directory with the matriarch code word. Got it?”

” ‘Reverberation,’ ‘fallacy’ and ‘matriarch.’ What was the first go-around on the code words?”

Kleinberg laughed. “Well, we used computer-generated random series of letters. They weren’t words, just a series of letters. But people couldn’t remember them and took to writing them down in notebooks, checkbooks and so forth. So we tried plan two. This is plan three.”

Kleinberg took a lighter from his pocket and held the flame under the piece of paper on which he had written the code words.

It flared. Just before the fire reached his fingers, he dropped the paper on the plastic carpet protector under the chair and watched the remnant turn to ash, which he crushed with his shoe. Klein- berg rubbed his hands and smiled. “Now we begin.” He spent the next hour showing Jake how to create, edit and access documents on this list. When he had finished answering Jake’s questions, he flipped the machine off and gave Jake one of his cards. “Call’ me when you have questions, or ask one of the guys here who’s been around a while.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Welcome to Washington.” KIeinberg shook hands, hoisted his leather bag and left.

Jake began to lock away the papers on his desk. While he was here he might as well look again at that two-year-old book of Harold Strong’s.

He opened the upper left drawer. The matohbooks and rubber bands and other stuff were still there, but the book wasn’t. He looked in every drawer in the desk. Nope. It was gone.

Henry Jenks dropped Toad at the BOQ at 11 P.M. After he filled out the paperwork at the desk. Toad went up to his room and crashed.

The following day was a copy of the previous afternoon: an hour in the simulator, an hour at the blackboard, then back to the simu- lator. By noon he was navigating from one large radar-reflective target to another. In midaftenoon he ran his first attack.

During all his hours in the simulator the canopy remained open and Jenks stood there beside him talking continuously, prompting him, pointing out errors. Running the system in the simulator wasn’t too difficult with Jenks right there.

Toad wasn’t fooled.

At five hundred feet above hostile terrain on a stormy night with the tracers streaking over the canopy and the missile warning lights flashing, this bombardier-navigator business was going to be a whole different ball game. The pilot would be slamming the plane around, pulling on that stick like it was the lever to open heaven’s gate. And the BN had to sit here delicately tweaking the radar and infrared and nursing the computer and laser while trying not to vomit into his oxygen mask. Toad knew. He bad been there in the backseat of an F-14. The best way to learn this stuff was by repeti- tion. Every task, every adjustment, the correction for every failure

— it all had to be automatic. If you had to think about it you didn’t know it and you sure as hell wouldn’t remember it when you were riding this bucking pig up the devil’s asshole.

At five in the evening Jenks drove him back to the BOQ. ‘To- night you study the NATOPS.” NATOPS — Naval Air Training and Operating Procedures — was the Book on the airplane, the navy equivalent to the air force Dash One manual. “Learn the emergency procedures. Tomorrow you and Moravia will be in the simulator together. We’ll run some attacks and pop some emergen- cies and failures. The next day you fly the real airplane. Study hard.”

“Thanks, sadist”

“You’re all right, Tarkington, even if you are a fighter puke.”

Toad slammed the car door and stomped into the BOQ. He was whipped, drained. Maybe he ought to go jogging to clean the pipes.

In his room he changed into his sweat togs. The wind coming in off Puget Sound had a pronounced bite and the sun was already set- tling, so he added a second heavy sweatshirt.

He was leaning into a post supporting the roof over the walkway leading to the officers’ club when a gray navy pickup pulled up in front of the BOQ and dropped Rita Moravia. She was wearing an olive-drab flight suit and flight boots.

“If you’re going running,” she called, “will you wait for me?”

“Sure.” Toad continued to stretch his right leg, the one with the pins in it. He hopped around and trotted in place a few steps. The leg was ready. On the grass was a bronze bust: Lieutenant Mike McCormick, A-6 pilot killed over North Vietnam. The BOQ and officers’ club were named for him.

Toad was standing beside the bust watching the A-6s in the landing pattern overhead and listening to the throaty roar of their engines when Moravia came out. She had her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. “Which way do you want to run?” she asked. “I dunno. How about north along the beach?” They started off. ‘•Were you flying today?”

“Yes- Twice” She picked up the pace to a fast trot.

“How’d you like it?”

“Old airframe, not as fast and agile as the Hornet, of course, but with better range and more lifting capacity- More complex.” An A-6 went over and she waited for the roar to fade. “It’s a nice plane to fly.”

On the western side of the road was a beach littered with drift- wood and, beyond, the placid surface of the sound. Just visible in the fading glow of the sunset was an island five or six miles away— it was hard to tell. Silhouettes of mountains stood against the sky to the southwest. “It’s pretty here, isn’t it?”

“Oh yes. Wait till you see it from the air.”

“Why’d you get into flying anyway?”‘

She shot him a hard glance and picked up the pace. He stayed with her. She was going too fast for conversation. The paved road ended and they were on gravel when she said, “Four miles be enough?”

“Yep.” Well, he had stepped on it that time, got it out and dragged it in the din and tromped all over it. What’s a pretty girl like you doing in this dirty, sweaty business anyway, sweetie? Ye gods. Toad, next you’ll be asking about her sign.

On the inbound leg they stopped running several blocks short of the BOO and walked to cool down. “I got into flying because I thought it would be a challenge,” Rita said, watching him.

Toad just nodded. In the lobby she asked, “Want to change and get some dinner?”

“Thanks anyway. I gotta study.”

As he showered Toad realized that somewhere on the run he had jettisoned his nascent plan to bed Rita Moravia. The Good Lord just doesn’t have any mercy for you. Toad, my man. Not the tiniest pinch.