The Ransom of Black Stealth One

TWENTY

Yevgeni Melnik, whose taste for vodka had faded after his first glass of Kentucky sourmash, was scribbling in a small spiral-bound notebook when he saw two familiar faces in the mirror behind the bar. He put away his pencil slowly, took a slower sip of Jack Daniel’s, and slipped the notebook into his coat pocket. “Fallon, Hendrick,” he said, turning toward the men with a welcoming smile. “Have we all made the same good guess, or the same bad one?”

Tom Fallon, of the Post, had the thick shoulders and flattened nose of a mediocre club fighter twenty years after leaving the ring. He recognized the rumpled little Russian first and made a comical face of surprise to Hendrick, the roly-poly veteran Times reporter. “Jeez, they’ll let almost anybody drink in Atlanta,” Fallon said, but slid onto the stool next to Melnik and clapped him on the shoulder as Hendrick took the next stool. “I’ve noticed you’re a good guesser, Melnik. But are we guessing about the same thing?” He caught the bartender’s eye. “Whatever he’s having,” he added, nodding at Melnik’s glass.

“Sounds right to me,” Hendrick added to the bartender in his lazy Midwest twang. “In the spirit of glasnost, Melnik: you guess first.”

Melnik truly enjoyed the byplay of such men, all of them a bit jaded, all slightly cynical about human affairs—perhaps because he had become one of them. After a few years, hardened professional newsmen learned how to balance their natural love of competition against the virtues of shared information. If they had not both flown into Atlanta International on the trail of Black Stealth One, their editors would doubtless divert them to the story before long. If they had come for that, probably they had already done a bit of sharing. “I would guess,” Melnik said, “that you are both trailing a lead about a stolen airplane, as I am. And because Delta and American have hubs in Atlanta, we will find it easier to catch other flights to—wherever rumor leads,” he finished with an expansive wave.

Quickly, from Fallon: “Why not, say, Dallas?”

“A flip of the coin,” Melnik shrugged charmingly. “You?”

Fallon glanced at Hendrick. “You, uh, probably have some pretty special sources. So do I; so does Hendrick. A quid pro quo might help us all. Sound good?”

“Why not?” Melnik’s openhanded gesture seemed to invite a body search, but it was he who asked the next question. “What do you have so far?”

Fallon hesitated, but glasnost worked both ways and the little Sov had already admitted he was on the Spookplane story. Accepting his drink, Fallon sipped, blew a richly scented exhalation, and said, “There’s a place called Monroe about forty miles east of here that’s popular with glider nuts.”

“Sailplane,” Hendrick put in, without lowering his glass. “High performance glider’s a sailplane.” While he tended to ramble in writing a story, Hendrick seemed to make up for it with telegraphic speech.

“Ah,” Melnik said as though it was important.

“Whatever,” Fallon said. “The Georgia state cops came down on that little field at Monroe like acid rain on pantyhose a few hours ago. They practically ringed it with patrol cars, turned the police channels to mush arguing over what the hell they were after, and snagged a couple of guys out of a glider—awright, sailplane—that had just landed. The sailplane was clean, but it turns out that the cops had got a tip about a hush-hush government plane that’d been stolen up north and positively identified near Monroe by a flying cop. When somebody used the word, ‘stealth,’ the Post got wind of it and pulled me off something else I was bird-dogging in Nashville. When I got on the next flight to Atlanta, guess who was already on it.” He jerked a thumb toward Hendrick.

“Times jerked me off a piece in Memphis, sent me here,” Hendrick said.

“They’re always jerkin’ him off,” Fallon put in. “He loves it.” Sip; sidelong look at Hendrick.

Melnik frowned for a moment, searching his mental file of American idioms, then smiled. “There has to be more to it,” he urged.

“Governors of several states are loaning air guard planes to the feds,” Hendrick went on, unfazed. “Flying search patterns for a stealth plane spotted near here, and the sky’s full of everything they can muster. Plane’s not a Lockheed stealth fighter, or the Northrop stealth bomber; a sailplane, like. May be a hostage onboard.” He saw Melnik’s face change and added, “May be, I said. Times has some people schmoozing weekend warriors in the guard to see what we can learn. But if it’s a sailplane, it’s slow. Could still be someplace near.” He cocked his head, thought about it, then shrugged and sipped. “Now you.”

Melnik saw no reason to explain how his sources might have certain very special information. The American newsmen had been in the business much too long to be naive about Soviet satellites and listening devices. Nevertheless, Yevgeni Melnik lowered his voice and studied his glass, speaking as if to himself. “Your military air arms are searching for an aircraft stolen from the National Security Agency,” he began.

“NSA doesn’t fly spook airplanes,” Fallon objected, sensing a mistake. “They just massage the data from military and CIA.”

“They have been flying this one,” Melnik went on quietly, nodding at his sourmash. Then, quieter still: “They built it.”

“Holy shit,” Hendrick blurted. “A different kind of stealth plane, then. For CIA?”

Melnik remained silent for a moment, then shook his head. “I think you would call it interservice rivalry,” he said, and finished his drink. He saw Fallon’s hand move toward his jacket, then jerk down. You fear I shall quit talking as soon as your pencils come out. And I might, to strengthen my credibility.

“Bartender, hit us again,” Hendrick said, and leaned both elbows on the bar. “This is heavy shit, Yevgeni.”

Fallon, tapping his fingers with newly minted energy: “My God, you don’t suppose the CIA stole it? Nah.” He squinted in a fresh surmise. “More likely your guys, Melnik, I mean, wouldn’t that figure?”

Melnik used his newest Americanism: “Cut me some slack, tovarisch. Why would I be following the story if I already knew the details?”

“Doesn’t mean they didn’t snatch it,” said Hendrick. “Only means they didn’t tell you.”

“Possible,” Melnik agreed equitably. “It would not be the first time I have had a story rewritten. And I have said too much out of friendship. Do not source me, I beg you.”

“I hear you,” Fallon grumbled. “Listen, we’ve got more than one story here, you know that?”

“Not yet we haven’t,” said Hendrick, “unless you’re into filing on something this big with a single, unattributable source.” Still, the Times man was already selecting a quarter from a palmful of change. “I’d better call in, see which way I chase the wild goose next.”

And send others scurrying to ask acutely embarrassing questions of CIA, not to mention NSA, Melnik thought. Long after the stealth aircraft has been forgotten, American spymasters will be busy trying to patch the shreds of their careers. That is the real story—and my real value. Melnik only raised a hand like a Hollywood Indian.

“Yeah, me too. Hold the fort for us, Yevgeni,” said Fallon, in an implied promise of return.

Melnik watched Fallon shuffle away, digging for change in his pocket as he followed Hendrick to the telephones. “Oh yes, you will return to the fort,” Melnik muttered to himself in Russian. Those two were both solid professionals who would want confirmation of every detail by more than one source. But Western news media were strange entities, willing to go far beyond mere glasnost, openness, in search of a story. Fallon and Hendrick were picking, like Pandora, at the lock which would release an administration’s most secret problems.

And if they knew that Melnik had told them for that very reason? Perhaps they did know; what mattered in the West was not the potential damage by the story, but only the story. Fallon and Hendrick saw their duty to the story first, and to their country second.

Melnik drew out his little notebook and began to scribble. If he failed to call in this item about a hostage in Black Stealth One, he would be in— he plucked the phrase from his growing repertoire—deep shit.