Tom Clancy's HAWX

Chapter 37

"Can't believe we're airborne," Troy said as he felt the Shakuru lift lightly from the Cactus Flat runway.

When you're used to flying Mach 1—plus jet fighters, an aircraft with a takeoff speed below that of a highway speed limit can be a bit disconcerting. So too was the turn radius. Although a highly maneuverable F-16 couldn't exactly turn on a dime, the expansive wingspan of the Shakuru meant that it took the contents of a sizable number of piggy banks to make a left turn.

"Damn, this turn is slow," Aron Arnold said.

"This is Shakuru control… you can't bank Shakuru like a fighter and maintain stability on a wing that size and that light." The impatient voice of Dr. Elisa Meyers crackled in the headsets of Shakuru's two crewmen. "But check your altitude."

"Shakuru flight here, we're already at fifteen thousand."

"That's what that big, oversize wing is good for, Shakuru flight."

Shakuru spiraled quickly upward. The radius of their spiral was about eight miles, but for an aircraft so slow, the rate of climb amazed the two veteran pilots.

Outside the canopy, the darkening of the sky above them was perceptible as the atmosphere thinned. They passed effortlessly through forty thousand feet, higher than most airliners routinely travel — not that there were any airliners in the controlled skies over the Nellis Air Force Base Test Range.

"This is a real astronaut view from up here," Troy said. "Level out at eighty thousand and set a course due west," Dr. Meyers ordered.

As they emerged from the spiral, both pilots were at an altitude higher than either of them, or most pilots, had ever experienced. The sky above was black, and the curvature of the earth below was clearly visible. The Pacific Ocean could be seen in the distance, even though the California coast was more than three hundred miles away.

"I feel like an old man," Troy said to the crew chief as he emerged from the Shakuru. It was nearly dark as they touched down after the long flight. "Guess I'm not used to sitting in one place for eleven hours."

"That's part of what we're evaluating in these flights," Dr. Meyers said as she approached the aircraft.

"You're evaluating joint pain?" Arnold said calmly.

"We're evaluating the exposure of long-duration flights on the human body. With its solar power, Shakuru can stay aloft for a week. Pilots have a greater fatigue factor than the aircraft."

"Weakest link?" Troy quipped.

"I didn't say that," Dr. Meyers replied.

"How was the flight?" Mike Dehnland said, arriving at the base of the ladder as Dr. Meyers began her walk-around of the big aircraft, studying each of the solar-powered engines with her halogen flashlight.

"Totally awesome," Troy said as a ground crewman began helping him out of the super-high-altitude "space suit" such as both pilots had worn for the flight. "Except for sitting in one place for half a day in this cocoon. It was a great view from up there."

"How did Shakuru handle?"

"Seems pretty slow and sluggish at first," Arnold told Dehnland. "But it sure can climb."

"That because it's light as a feather… comparatively…. and all wing." Dehnland smiled. "Even in thin air up at eighty thousand, you have enough wing to keep you going."

"Very stable up there," Troy interjected. "Although I gotta admit, I kept thinking about Helios and that wing mangling into an unstoppable dihedral."

"There's a lot of wind under the old airfoil since that happened," Dehnland said as the three men began walking toward the building where Shakuru briefings were held. "Preventing that was one of the first mandates handed to the Shakuru design team."

"Not to change the subject, but what's going on down there?" Arnold interjected, nodding in the direction of the hangar with the razor-wire perimeter. For the first time since he and Troy had been at the Flat, the doors were open, albeit just a few feet. Light was streaming out, and people were coming and going.

"Where?" Dehnland asked.

"There," Arnold said, this time pointing at the hangar. "That building doesn't exist," he said, turning away from the mystery hangar.

"Then Raymond Harris doesn't exist," Troy added. "I see him down there."

"You're welcome to ask him about it, then," Dehnland said. "In the meantime, we have a Shakuru flight to debrief."

"Are you enjoying beautiful Cactus Flat?"

Raymond Harris grinned as he turned from the enormous coffee urn in the Cactus Flat officers' mess. It was the first time since Troy had arrived in Nevada that the two men had come face-to-face. Harris was his usual gregarious self, but the stress lines on his face were noticeably more pronounced.

"It's excellent," Troy said sarcastically. "Can't get enough of it… but we had a good view from Shakuru yesterday."

"Isn't that Shakuru something?"

"Yes, sir." Troy nodded, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "It's slow on the uptake, but it sure takes you up there eventually."

"It's the near future of manned recon," Harris said. "And it's the long-term future of clandestine strike missions."

"I had no idea that it was being planned for offensive ops. I didn't see any provisions for weapons."

"Not yet, but that's where we're headed… eventually."

"Maybe that's why I didn't see anything about weapons in the briefing papers that Dr. Meyers handed us." "There are briefing papers and there are briefing papers."

"How so?"

"It's all need-to-know, but there are a lot of things that Dr. Meyers isn't cleared on," Harris said, lowering his voice.

"I thought she designed Shakuru? How is it that she doesn't know…?"

"There are two levels of need-to-know," Harris said, as though explaining gravity to a schoolboy. "There is the official level, the one that the government knows about — and the level that only Firehawk knows about."

"If the government is the customer, and Firehawk is running the HAWX Programs for the government, why are there aspects of these programs that they don't know about?"

"Remember why the U. S. Air Force transferred HAWX to Firehawk in the first place?" Harris asked. "To avoid nitpicking from Congress?"

"Right. And just as there are things that the bluesuiters want obscured from the pointy heads on the Hill, there are things that Firehawk needs to keep…. ummm… proprietary."

"Secrets from the government?"

"If you want to put it that way. In business, you never tell your clients everything. It makes you seem more useful if you're able to get things done that they don't know exactly how you got them done."

"When were you planning to tell them that Shakuru is going to be used as a strike aircraft?"

"You always have to hold some of your cards close to your vest," Harris explained. "It's a fluid world. Situations change. Remember Guatemala? Remember how we were at war with Svartvand BV one day, and sitting around the table with those guys the next? One day back then, you and Arnold were shooting at each other. Yesterday, you were flying as his copilot."

"What does that have to do with—"

"Not all the changes swing like they did in Guatemala. Sometimes your friends yesterday aren't your friends tomorrow."

"But you're holding back from the United States government," Troy reminded him. "You don't expect to be `not friends' with them."

"The problem is that the United States government and the United States of America aren't the same thing. Ideally, the United States government has in mind the best for the United States of America. Sometimes they don't."

"I see," Troy said. His head was spinning. Maybe the two spooks from the CIA had been right about Harris on that awkward morning back at the Marriott Courtyard in Arlington. This was probably not a good time to change the subject to the mystery hangar.

"I figured you did," Harris said. "You're a quick study."