The Total Airframe Temperature needle sat on 189 degrees Fahrenheit, closing in on the red-line mark of 198. The operational limits at 62,000 feet were always a matter of temperatures and pressures, reflected Fessler. The Straton transport’s skin was not to exceed its designated limit. If necessary, Fessler would tell the Captain and he would slow the ship down. The environment they operated in was hostile enough. Don’t press it. “What’s the capital of Japan?” he asked without looking up from his paperwork.
McVary glanced over his shoulder. “Mount Fuji?”
“Close,” said Fessler. “But not close enough for you to try to land on it.” Fessler entered the final figures into the computer and looked up at the windshield. Just beyond the glass and the aluminum-and-titanium alloy skin of the 797 was a slipstream of air moving so fast that anything its friction touched was instantly heated to over 175 degrees Fahrenheit. Yet the actual temperature of the atmosphere outside was 67 degrees below zero. The air itself was thin enough to be nonexistent. Less than one pound per square inch—one-fifteenth the normal sea-level amount. The oxygen composition was less than one percent. The mass was unbreathable anyway, since the pressure was too low to force the few oxygen molecules into the lungs. Subspace, reflected Fessler. Subspace was not what he’d been hired for five years before. But here he was.
McVary suddenly sat erect in his seat and put down his coffee. “Skipper, what’s that?” He pointed to his right front. There was a small dot on the horizon— hardly more than a speck against the cockpit glass.
Stuart sat up and put his face closer to the wind-shield.
Fessler put down his coffee and turned in his seat to look.
They watched the dot on the right side of the wind-shield. It was moving across their front, apparently at an oblique angle to their flight path. It was growing slightly, but not alarmingly. It did not—at least for the moment—pose any threat of collision.
McVary relaxed a bit. “Must be a fighter. Some military jet jockey horsing around.”
Stuart nodded. “Right.” He reached into his flight bag and pulled out a pair of binoculars, a good set of Bausch & Lomb that he had bought in Germany many years before. He carried it as an amusement. He used to watch ships, planes, and faraway coastlines when he flew low enough to see something worth looking at. He’d meant to take them out of his bag long ago, but habit and nostalgia—he’d seen a good deal of the world through them—had postponed the retirement of the glasses. He adjusted the focus knob. “Can’t make it out.”
“Maybe it’s a missile,” McVary said. “A cruise missile.” He had been an Air Force pilot, and his mind still worked in that direction.
Fessler half stood near his console. “Would they shoot it up here?”
“They’re not supposed to,” said McVary. “Not near commercial routes.” He paused. “We did deviate pretty far south today.”
Stuart twisted the focus knob again. “Lost it. Wait . . . Got it. . ..”
“Can you make it out, Skipper?” asked McVary, a slight edge to his voice.
“Funny-looking. Never seen anything like it. Some sort of missile, I think. I can’t tell. Here.” He handed the binoculars to McVary. “You look.”
The ex–fighter pilot took the glasses. Even without them he could see that the object had gotten closer. To the naked eye it appeared to be a sliver of dark-colored metal against the blue sky. He raised the glasses and adjusted them. There was something very familiar about that object, but he couldn’t place it. It was hard to get a perspective on its size, but instinctively he knew it was small. “Small,” he said aloud. “And at that speed and these altitudes it could only be military.”
Fessler stepped closer to the front windshield. “Whose military?”
McVary shrugged as he continued to scan. “The Martian Air Force, Carl. How the hell do I know?” He leaned farther forward. For a brief, irrational moment he thought he might be seeing the opening salvo of an atomic war. The end of the world. No. It was too low, too small, and going toward the open Pacific. “It’s got to be a jet fighter . . . but . . .”
“If it gets closer, we’ll turn,” Stuart said. Altering the course of a supersonic transport was no easy matter, however. At cruise speed it would take him nearly four-and-a-half minutes to turn the 797 around, and during that time the ship would have flown sixty-seven miles. At any greater rate of turn, the passengers would be subjected to an unacceptable level of positive Gs. Those who were standing would be thrown to the floor. Those seated would be unable to move. He flipped on the switch for the cabin seat-belt sign, then turned in his seat and wrapped his hands around the control wheel. His left thumb was poised over the autopilot disengage button. He looked at the object on the horizon, then at his crew. The cockpit had changed quickly. It was always that way. Nothing to do, or too much to do. He glanced at his relief copilot, who was still out of his seat and looking out the window. “Fessler. Who played opposite Cary Grant in North by Northwest?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then get back in your seat and do something you do know. Sit down, strap in, get ready.”
“Yes, sir.”
Small beads of perspiration had begun to form on the Captain’s forehead. “I’m going to turn,” he said, but still did not press the autopilot release button on his control wheel. Alan Stuart—like most commercial pilots—was reluctant to alter course, speed, or altitude unless absolutely necessary. Jumping headlong into an unneeded evasive action was a student pilot’s stunt.
The fourth being in the cockpit—the autopilot— continued to maintain the 797’s heading and altitude.
The object was easily visible now. It was becoming apparent to Stuart that the mysterious missile was not on a collision course with the Straton. If neither of the crafts altered course, the object would pass safely across their front. Captain Stuart relaxed his grip on the control wheel but stayed ready to execute a turn toward the north if the object’s flight path changed. He glanced at his wristwatch, which was still set to San Francisco time. It was exactly eleven o’clock.
McVary saw the object clearly now in the binoculars. “Oh, Christ!” His voice was a mixture of surprise and fear.
Captain Stuart experienced a long-forgotten but familiar sensation in his stomach. “What, what. . .?”
“It’s not a missile,” said McVary. “It’s a drone. A military target drone!”
At 10:44 A.M. San Francisco time, the helmsman of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Chester W. Nimitz made a three-degree course correction to starboard. Positioned 2,000 yards astern of the Nimitz was the cruiser Belknap and the destroyers Coontz and Nicolas. Their helmsmen also made appropriate corrections. The fleet steered a steady course of 135 degrees, making a headway of 18 knots. They rode serenely over the mid-Pacific, their position 900 miles north of Hawaii. The midmorning skies were clear and the air was warm. The weather forecast for the next thirty-six hours called for little change.
Retired Rear Admiral Randolf Hennings stood on the 0-7 deck of the carrier’s superstructure. Hennings’s blue civilian suit stood out among the officers and men dressed in tropical tans. The orange ALL-ACCESS pass pinned to his collar made him more, not less, self-conscious.
From the seven-story-high balcony behind the bridge, Hennings had an unrestricted view of the Nimitz ’s flight deck. Yet his eyes wandered from the operational activities toward the men who stood their stations a dozen feet away inside the glass-enclosed ship’s bridge.
Captain Diehl sat in his leather swivel chair, overseeing the morning’s operation. He was, at that moment, in conversation with Lieutenant Thompson, the Officer of the Deck, and with another lieutenant, whom Hennings had not met. The helmsman stood attentively at the Nimitz ’s steering controls.
The flurry of on-deck activities from the dawn practice maneuvers had subsided. Hennings counted half-a-dozen aircraft on the starboard quarter of the Nimitz ’s flight deck. One by one, they were being taken to the servicing area on the hangar deck
below. The plotting board in the Air-Ops Room had shown only one aircraft yet to be recovered. Navy 347. F-18. Pilot Lt. P. Matos. Launched 1027 hours, 23 June. Special test. Estimated time of return, 1300 hours.
Hennings had not liked that “special test” designation. It was too close to the truth—and the truth was not to be openly discussed. He would have preferred something even more routine, like “extra training.”
Hennings knew too well why the test was a secret, even though no one had actually spoken with him about it. It was, he knew, because of the new Voluntary Arms Limitation Treaty recently approved by Congress and signed by the President. Hennings had read that the agreement specifically prohibited the development of improved tactical missiles, among other things. Today’s secret test would be the first for the updated Phoenix missile. Its range had been doubled to 500 miles, a new self-guiding radar system had been added, and, most importantly, its maneuverability had been vastly increased. All of this was unquestionably outside the limitations of the treaty Congress had decided on. But if the weapon proved workable, it could significantly alter the balance of power in any future air-toair combat scenario.
Hennings became aware that a young ensign was holding a salute, speaking to him. He glanced at the woman’s blue and white name tag. “What is it, Ms. Phillips?”
The ensign dropped her salute. “Excuse me, Admiral. Commander Sloan requests that you join him in E-334.”
Hennings nodded. “Very well. Lead on.”
Hennings followed the ensign through the hatchway and down the metal stairs. They walked in silence. Hennings had entered the Navy at a time when female personnel did not serve on warships. By the time he left the Navy, it was not uncommon. While in the Navy, Hennings had towed the official line and outwardly approved of women serving with men aboard ship. In reality, Hennings thought the whole social experiment had been and was a disaster. But the Navy and the Pentagon had covered up most of the problems so that the public was never aware of the high pregnancy rate among unmarried female personnel, the sexual harassment, abuse, and even rapes, and the general lowering of morale and discipline. In short, it was a nightmare for the ship’s commanders, but it wasn’t his problem.
On the 0-2 deck of the conning tower, they stepped into a long gray corridor similar to the thousands that Hennings had walked through in his shipboard career. There had been an incredible amount of technological innovation aboardship since his day, but the old architectural adage that form should follow function was never more true than on a warship. There was a familiarity about naval architecture that was comforting. Yet, deep down, he knew that nothing was the same. “Did you ever serve on an older ship, Ms. Phillips?”
The ensign glanced back over her shoulder. “No, sir. The Nimitz is my first ship.”
“Could you imagine what these corridors were like before air-conditioning?”
“I can imagine, sir.” The ensign stopped abruptly and opened a door marked “E-334.” She was relieved to be rid of her charge, relieved not to have to hear a story about wooden ships and iron men. “Admiral Hennings, Commander.”
Hennings stepped into the small gray-painted room packed with electronics gear. The door closed behind him.
An enlisted man sat in front of a console. Standing behind the man and looking over his shoulder was Commander James Sloan. Sloan looked up as Hennings entered the room. “Hello, Admiral. Did you see the launch?”
“Yes. The F-18 was being strapped to the catapult when I arrived on the bridge. Quite impressive.”
“That machine really moves. Excuse me for just one minute, Admiral.” Sloan leaned over and said something to the electronics specialist, Petty Officer Kyle Loomis, in a voice just a bit too low for Hennings to hear.
Hennings could see that Sloan was unhappy. They were apparently having some technical difficulty. Still,
Hennings had the feeling that he was not being shown all the military courtesy possible, but decided not to make an issue of it. Retired, after all, meant retired. He had one mission aboard the Nimitz, and that was to carry back the results of the “special test” to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to carry on his person untitled and unsigned test results, and to commit to memory everything that could not be written. He was a messenger. The execution of the test was not an area he cared to get involved with.
His old friends in Washington threw him these consulting plums as a favor. He had little else to do. This time, however, he was beginning to wish he hadn’t been home when the phone rang. Hennings had the feeling that all those soft jobs to exotic places and those generous “consulting fees” had been a setup for the time when his friends might need a special favor. Could this be that special time? Hennings shrugged. It didn’t matter. His friends had earned his loyalty, and he would provide it.
Commander Sloan was pointing to a panel of gauges above the console. Loomis mumbled something. Sloan shook his head. He was clearly not happy.
“Problem, Commander?”
Sloan looked up and forced a smile. “Only the usual . . . Admiral.” He paused and considered for a second. “One of our high-frequency channels to San Diego isn’t working. Can’t figure out why.” He glanced at the equipment panel as though it were an enlisted man who had jumped ship.
“Will it delay things?”
Sloan thought it might, but that wasn’t the proper answer. “No. It shouldn’t. We can go through Pearl. Just a procedural step.” He paused again. He wondered how much of this Hennings was taking in. “We could eliminate the step anyway. The things we need are working.”
“Good. I’m to be at a conference tomorrow morning.”
Sloan already knew that. The famous breakfast meetings of the Joint Chiefs, where bleary-eyed old men turned the talk from golf scores to nuclear holocaust with the ease of a piano player going through a familiar medley.
“I’m set up on a commercial flight out of Los Angeles late tonight. I need to be off the carrier by 1600 hours.”
“The mission should be completed shortly.”
“Good. Now, do you mind telling me why you summoned me here, Commander?” His tone was as gentlemanly as always, so the words were more, not less, terse.
Sloan was taken aback for a second. “I didn’t summon . . . I mean, I thought you would want to be here.”
“This . . .” Hennings waved his hand around the room, “. . . this means very little to me. I would rather have just gotten an oral and written report from you at the completion of the test. But if you want me here, I’ll stay.” He sat in a small swivel chair.
“Thank you, sir, I would.” Sloan didn’t trust himself to say any more. He had treated Hennings in an offhand manner since he’d come aboard, but now he was reminded, in case he had forgotten, that Randolf Hennings had friends. More than that, though, the old saying, “Once an admiral, always an S.O.B.”, was brought home.
As Hennings watched Sloan shuffle through some papers, he realized for the first time how much Sloan wanted him to be here, as an actual accomplice in the missile test. They were, Hennings now realized, doing something criminal. But it was too late to turn back. Hennings pushed those disquieting notions out of his mind and forced himself to think of other things.
Sloan turned to the electronics. He peered at the panel intently, but he was trying to recall all that he knew about Randolf Hennings. Action in and around Vietnam. He was considered a likable man by his peers, but you never knew about admirals, retired or otherwise. They could change as quickly as the North Atlantic weather. Hennings was known for having enough perseverance to get his job done but not enough to be a threat to his seniors. Those very seniors who had made it to the top had now picked Hennings to carry out a most sensitive mission. Hennings was known to be the epitome of dependability and discretion. Like a dinghy caught in the suction of a battleship’s wake, thought Sloan, retired Rear Admiral Hennings had followed at a speed and course set by others. Yet Sloan had to reckon with him. He glanced back at Hennings. “Coffee, Admiral?”
/> “No, thank you.”
Sloan’s mind was still not on the electronics problem but on the politics of the test. He thought about asking Hennings for some information, but decided that would be a mistake. At any rate, Hennings wouldn’t know much more than he, Sloan, did.
“Sir, the patch to Pearl isn’t carrying.”
Sloan looked at the electronics man. “What?”
“The problem might be on their end.”
“Right. Probably is.” Sloan glanced at Hennings. Hennings was drumming his fingers restlessly on the arm of his chair. His attention seemed to be focused on the video screen that was displaying routine weather data.
Petty Officer Loomis glanced back over his shoulder. “Sir? Should I keep trying?”
Sloan tapped his foot. Time for a command decision. He felt acid in his stomach and knew why officers had more ulcers than enlisted men. He considered. The test elements were nearly all in position. A delay could disrupt things for hours. Hennings had to be at the Pentagon the next morning with the report. If the report said only “Special test delayed,” Commander James Sloan would look bad. The men behind the test might lose their nerve and cancel it for good. Worse, they might think he had lost his nerve. He considered asking Hennings for advice, but that would have been a tactical blunder.
“Sir,” the electronics man said, his hand poised over a set of switches on the console.
Sloan shook his head. “Get back to the mission profile. We can’t spend any more time on routine procedures. Send the approval for the release, then get another update from Lieutenant Matos.”
Petty Officer Kyle Loomis returned to his equipment. He had begun to suspect that all was not routine here, but as a former submariner, his knowledge of fighters and missiles was too limited to allow him to piece together what was not routine about this test. Without anyone telling him, he knew that his ignorance had gotten him out of the submarine that he’d come to hate and onto the Nimitz, which he found more tolerable. He also knew that his transfer request to the Mediterranean Fleet was secure as long as he kept his mouth shut.