“That’s correct.” Jake went into the cost equations. Before he could get very deep into the subject, Duquesne moved on.
Finally Duquesne got down to it.
“Captain, you have also been in charge of the Athena program, have you not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“This morning Dr. Dodgers testified that this device would be cheap to build”—he gave the figures—“could be in production in a year or fifteen months and could protect any object it was placed upon. In view of that, why does the navy want a stealth attack plane?”
“Athena can be made to work, with enough research, time and money. But it’s not going to be easy. Right now the only way to determine the radar-reflective characteristics of an object is to test the entire object on a specially constructed range. And these char- acteristics change based on the frequency of the radar doing the looking- So every frequency must be tested. Consequently the data base that the Athena computer must use is very, very large. That’s why we need a superconductive computer to perform all the calcu- lations required in a minimum amount of time. Still, it is impossi- ble to build a system that could effectively counter every conceiv- able frequency. Athena will counter every frequency the Soviets are known to use. Yet if they shift frequencies quickly enough, with a semi-stealthy aircraft design we would not lose all our airplanes before Athena could be modified.
“Secondly, Athena will not be ready for the fleet in a year. More like three or four. Third, new technology may be developed to counter Athena. We believe, based on what we know now, that we need an attack plane with at least A-6 performance and payload capabilities, state-of-the-art avionics, and stealthy characteristics. That’s the A-12. The TRX plane is the best that American indus- try can give us now, and now is the time when we need to put this airplane into production.”
“Why not kill the A-12 program and build a conventional attack plane that uses Athena to hide?”
“As I mentioned, Athena is added protection for our aircraft. but not the sole source, due to the limitations inherent in the tech- nology. Quick change is the rule in electronic warfare, not the exception. The Israelis almost lost their 1973 war with Egypt due to advances in electronic warfare made by the Soviets and supplied to Egypt of which the West was not aware. The United States cannot afford to lose a war with the Soviets, Senator.”
Jake reached for his briefcase. Knight had it ready. “My staff has done some calculations. To kill this program now and start all over again on another one, writing off all the development money spent to date and adding the inevitable inflationary factor, I figure it will cost just about the same per plane. Assuming Athena works well enough to become operational. If it doesn’t, we’ll have a brand-new, obsolete airplane. Regardless, in the interim we’ll have to make do with the A-6, which is not aging gracefully. We may even need to fund the A-6G program, just to keep the A-6s in the air until the follow-on airplane arrives.”
An aide passed a copy of Jake’s figures to every member. Jake spent the next hour defending the methodology and the numbers.
Duquesne opened the floor to questions from other members, who had a variety of concerns. One of them asked, “I understand you were awarded the Medal of Honor by this Congress, Captain?”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“Why aren’t you wearing it now?”
“It’s a little gaudy, don’t you think?”
Another congressman asked, “Why is the navy going to name the A-12 the Avenger?” The propeller-driven Grumman TBF Avenger was the plane the President flew during World War II.
“In a survey of A-6 flight crews conducted navy-wide, that was the most popular suggestion. The people in the navy are very proud of the navy’s tradition and history.”
“The choice of that name looks a little like bootlicking, don’t you think?”
“Sir, I happen to like that name. The Avenger torpedo-bomber was a fine airplane in its day, with a proud name and a great combat record. We’ve named other jets after prop planes — Phan- tom and Corsair are two — so it’s a choice popular with the people in naval aviation. Should Avenger get derailed somewhere along the way, my personal second choice would be Hellcat, another good old navy name.”
“That choice wouldn’t be popular with Dr. Dodgers,” the con- gressman said dryly.
“I doubt if it would,” Jake agreed.
And then it was over. He was excused. It was 4 P.M. Out on the steps Knight said, “One down. two to go.”
That was right. Assuming the Armed Services Committees au- thorized some airplanes and the full House and Senate agreed, then the battle would begin to convince the appropriations committees to provide the dollars to pay for them.
Jake groaned.
“Relax. You did very well.”
“C’mon. Let’s go get a beer somewhere. I’m dying of thirst.”
On Sunday morning as they walked on the beach and Amy played in the surf, Jake and Caltie talked again about X. “As I understand it,” Jake said, “he’s not a mole in the usual sense of the word. He’s not a Russian who slipped in years ago and worked his way into a position of trust. He’s an American. A traitor.”
‘This world of espionage and counterespionage,” Callie said, “it reminds me of Alice in Wonderland. Nothing is ever as it seems.”
“What made you think of that?”
“Ifyou lose something and look for it in all the usual places and you don’t find it, what conclusion do you reach?”
“It isn’t in a usual place.”
“Precisely. And if the FBI has been looking for a mole for three years, then the mole is not in the usual place.”
“But the usual places are positions where a person would have access to the information being passed.”
“Perhaps the mole was never there at all.”
Jake stared at her.
“How do you know the FBI has been looking?” she asked.
“Henry said so. Camacho said so.”-
“Henry merely repeated what he was told. Camacho told you what he wanted you to hear. What if there is no mole at all? What if X is merely a character, an actor assigned to play a part?”
Amy called her to look at something that had washed up on the beach during the night, and she went. Jake stood and watched them. The surf broke and swirled around their ankles as the sea- birds circled and called.
“You are a very smart woman,” he told her when she rejoined him,
“Oh, I’m glad you noticed. What did I say that was smart?”
On Monday morning at the office Jake stopped by the copy ma- chine and helped himself to twenty or so sheets of paper. In his office he closed the door and pulled on a pair of gloves he had brought from home. Spreading the pile of paper gingerly, he se- lected a sheet from the middle of the pile and slid it away from the others. It should be free of fingerprints. From his pocket he took a black government pen. He clicked the point in and out a few times as he stared thoughtfully at the paper.
In block letters in the center of the page he wrote: “I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.” He put the words all on one line.
He inspected it carefully, then folded the sheet and placed it in a blank letter-sized envelope he had removed from a box at home this morning.
There was a pair of tweezers in his desk, in that vanity case Callie got him for Christmas a year or so ago. He found them and dropped them in his pocket.
He took the gloves off. With the envelope inside his shirt, he went to the men’s head. There he used the tweezers to put the envelope on the counter. Holding his shin pocket open, he used the tweezers again to fish a stamp from the interior. He moistened it on a damp place on the sink, then affixed it to the envelope.
Back in the office, trying very hard not to touch the envelope at all, he dug through the classified Department of Defense directory until he found the address he wanted. This he copied onto the face of the envelope in block letters.
He put the envelope back into his shirt, put on his hat and told the secretary in the outer office he would be
