The Ransom of Black Stealth One

THREE

Ben Ullmer caught most of his cigar before it hit the floor, glaring speechless at NSA’s top cryptographer. He removed a wet mass from his mouth, the part of the stogie he’d bitten off, and crammed the fragments into a pocket. Then his features began to relax. “That is the dirtiest joke I have ever heard,” he said, hoping someone would smile to endorse the idea.

“You understand,” said Sheppard, “that the joke will be on the other side. We will let them have Blue Sky Three, suitably fudged with a dummy flight log. You mentioned that we might be able to spot it? Believe me, Ben: we can. So, they can have it. Instead of having KGB people seeking the real thing, we’d much rather lull them to sleep by letting them steal the sacrifice. If they don’t know what Black Stealth One can do, they won’t know we’re delivering a substitute.”

“This decision is already cast in concrete, I suppose,” Ullmer growled.

Charles Foy: “I’m afraid so. This is damage control, cutting something adrift to save the crucial bits. It would be hard to overstate the tremendous loss this country would suffer if the other side ferreted out the facts of the real Black Stealth One. Their next strategic bomber wouldn’t have to be fast, or heavily armored.”

“No shit,” said Ullmer, whose political sense seemed to have shattered in the shock wave of this thunderbolt his superiors had trained on him. “We couldn’t spot a hellbug any easier than they could.”

“I’m afraid you’re right,” Sheppard admitted, staring away at nothing, “though it can be spotted, Ben.”

“Maybe, but it’d be a two-ton brindle bitch of a job,” Ullmer insisted. He saw Mal Aldrich gazing heavenward at this colorful metaphor and did not give a shit. Might as well dive headlong into matters for which his need to know might be arguable, so he did. “However you work this out, too damn many people in the intelligence community will know about it. One little leak and the Russkis will have Blue Sky Three AND an itch for the hellbug.”

Dar Weston had been leading Greeks near Khalkidiki in ‘forty-four, behind German lines, at the age of nineteen. He had mastered the use of voice tones before he could vote. Ullmer, of course, was not in his agency, so the CIA man’s timbre carried both firm assurance and persuasion. “Mr. Ullmer, eight men on earth know what we intend to do, including you and the President. It will be nine when your pilot is told—or ten if he declines the mission. Without prejudice, I might add. We will simply have one of our people train in the airplanes so that he can steal them.”

Weston stopped because Ben was shaking his head. “Them? He only has to steal Blue Sky Three, you said.”

“The scenario is for that one to be flown to a location near the exchange site, after it’s agreed, and soon. Our man really will take Black Stealth One, when the time comes. He’ll just land and make a switch before he meets the Sovs with their ransom money,” Weston explained.

Ben scuffed one brogan at a hard coin of chewing gum some idiot had dropped on his clean floor. “Why take the hellbug at all?”

Charles Foy, with the abused patience of a man who was justifying something he didn’t like himself, answered brusquely. “Ullmer, this operation has to ring true, else the other side won’t buy it. You know the Sovs listen in to everything, and if they hear every weekend warrior on the hunt, in addition to the Coast Guard, FBI, Air Force, and God knows who else, we think they’ll be persuaded that something genuine—and very big—is going down.”

“But why not just say the thing has been stolen,” Ullmer still protested. “You could press the alarm anyway. If it’s invisible who can tell it’s not up there?”

“Three reasons,” Foy said, and he turned to Sheppard. Foy knew that if Ullmer trusted anyone to have Black Stealth’s best interests at heart, it was Sheppard.

“First, Ben,” said Sheppard, “we have to move her anyway. This whole gambit will expose Snake Pit, so we have to put the craft elsewhere. Second, we don’t think we can fake the theft convincingly if we never actually put her in the air. If she’s actually up there, there wilt be some fleeting sightings, but of course no one will catch her—which will make her seem all the bigger prize to the Sovs. And, third, Ben, what better way to test your handiwork than to see how she does with the whole Air Force after her?”

“Where are you going to bring her?” Ullmer asked grimly.

“Let’s say, the southwest,” Sheppard answered. “Of course she’ll never go anywhere near the border.”

A long moment of silence; then Ben sighed. He began to smile, a hard rictus that was not benign, as he added, “I know how far I am down the scrotum pole, gents, but I can tell you this: if it doesn’t work, you have my resignation. I love the Snake Pit, and I’ll do everything in my power to make this work. But if it doesn’t, gentlemen”—the smile fading as he looked at each of his visitors in turn— “I’m out of here.”

“An emotional decision, Ben,” said Aldrich, with what seemed to be real concern.

“Damn right,” Ben replied. “But if you think I’m emotional now, try me if this operation goes down the tubes.”

“Well”—Dar Weston sighed—“we’ll just have to see that you stay employed.” His hand on Ben’s shoulder was gentle.

“That means you’ll be shuttling back to Meade during the coming weeks,” Sheppard said, nodding at Ben. “Lots of details to work out, beginning with how much we can tell Medina, and when we tell him.”

Ben dry-washed his face and grimaced. “There’s gotta be an extra man in this. The guy who contacts those fuckin’ thieves to make the deal.”

“No extra man,” said Randolph. “It’s got to be the same man who flies the plane.”

“He’s expendable,” said Ben, stating it as a fact, hoping for a denial.

The reply was silence.