Gulf or the Mid- dle East or South Africa. So the capability to fight those wars is critical. We need planes that can fly five hundred miles through a high-density electronic environment, deliver a devastating conven- tional punch, and return to the carrier to fly again, and again and again. Without that capability our carrier battle groups are an ex- pensive liability and not an asset. We need that plane by 1995, at the latest.”
“You’re implying that our plane can’t rely on pinpoint missiles for weapons.”
“Precisely. The air force has a lot of concrete to park their spe- cialized planes on; carrier deck space is damn precious. We can’t build planes that can only shoot missiles that cost a million bucks each, then push them into the drink when we run out of missiles. We have to be able to hit hard in any foreseeable conflict with simple, cheap weapons, like laser-guided bombs.”
“So we can do something the air force couldn’t with the F-117?”
Henry threw his head back and grinned, obviously enjoying him- self. “We aren’t going to trade away our plane’s performance or mission capability.”
“But how—“
“Better design — we learned a lot from the F-117—plus Athena. Active stealth technology.” His mood was gloomy again. “I think the fucking Russians have gotten everything there was to get out of the F-117 and B-2. Every single technical breakthrough, they’ve stolen it. They don’t appear to be using that knowledge and they may not ever be able to do so. This stuff involves manufacturing capabilities they don’t have and costs they can’t afford to incur. But what they can do is figure out defenses to a stealthed-up air- plane, and you can bet your left nut they’re working their asses off on that right this very minute.”
He looked carefully around. ‘There’s a Russian mole in the Pentagon.” His voice was almost a whisper, although the nearest pedestrian was a hundred yards away. “He gave them the stealth secrets. The son of a bitch is buried in there someplace and he’s ripping us off. He’s even been given a top secret code name— Minotaur.” He scuffed his toe at a pebble on the sidewalk. “I’m not supposed to know this. It goes without saying that if I’m not, you sure as hell aren’t.”
“How’d—“
“Don’t ask. I don’t want you to know. But if I know the Mi- notaur’s there, you can lay money he knows we know he’s there. So the bastard is dug in with his defenses up. We may never get him. Probably won’t.”
“How do we know he gave them stealth?”
“We know. Trust me. We know,”
“So we have a mole in the Kremlin.”
“I didn’t say that,” Henry said fiercely, “and you had damn well better not. No shit, Grafton, don’t even whisper that to a living fucking soul.”
They walked along in silence, each man occupied with his own thoughts. Finally Jake said, “So how are we gonna do it?”
“Huh?”
“How are we going to build a stealth Intruder and keep the technology in our pocket?”
“I haven’t figured that one out yet,” Henry said slowly. “You see, everything the Russians have gotten so far is passive — tech- niques to minimize the radar cross section and heat signature. To build a mission-capable airplane like we want we’re going to have to use active techniques. Project Athena. They haven’t stolen Athena yet and we don’t want them to get it.”
“Active techniques?” Jake prompted, unable to contain his curi- osity.
“Wre going to cancel the bad guys’ radar signal when it reaches our plane. We’ll automatically generate a signal that nulli- fies the echo, mutes it, cancels it out. The plane will then be truly invisible to the enemy. They’ll never see it on their scope. They’ll never receive the echo.” He thought about it “It’s the biggest technological breakthrough since the Manhattan Project. Biggest by a mile.”
“I’ve heard speculation about canceling radar signals for years. The guys who were supposed to know all laughed. Can it be done?”
“The party line is no. Impossible. But there’s a crazed genius who wants to be filthy rich that has done it. That technology is the living, beating heart of the ATA. Now all we have to do is get an airplane built and keep them from stealing the secret.”
Jake whistled. “Can’t we put this on all our ships?”
“No doubt we will,” Henry said sourly, “and the Russians will steal it before our first ship gets out of the harbor. For now let’s just see if we can get it in one airplane without someone stealing it. That’ll be plenty for you and Roger Dunedin to chew.”
“Existing aircraft? How about retrofitting them?”
“Right now, as the technology exists, the best approach is to design the plane for it. The power output required to hide a stealthy plane would be very small. The device would be easy enough to put on a ship, when we get the bugs worked out. As usual there are bugs. Expensive, though.”
Admiral Henry glanced at his watch. “Our work’s cut out for us. The air force will want this technology when they get wind of it, and right now everything they see winds up in the Kremlin. It’s not their fault, of course, but that’s the way it is. The manufacturer of our plane will see it and from there it may end up in the Mi- notaur’s clutches. Ditto the ship drivers. And the politicians who have been trick-fucked on the F-117 won’t sit still for more stealth hocus-pocus; they’re gonna want justification for the four or five billion dollars the ATA will require just to develop, and there it goes again. So right now I’m sitting on a volcano that’s about to erupt and my ass is getting damn warm. You see why I wanted you on board.”
“Not really,” Jake said, wondering how far he should push this. After all, who the hell was Jake Grafton? What could an over-the- hill attack pilot in glasses with four stripes on his sleeve do for a three-star admiral? Bomb the Pentagon? “So what’s your plan? How are you going to do this?”
Henry was so nervous he couldn’t hold still. “I’m going to hold the cards real close to my chest and catch peeking over my shoulder. Or that’s what I’m going to try to do, anyway.”
“Admiral, with all respect, sir, what does CNO say about all this?” CNO was the Chief of Naval Operations, the senior uni- formed naval officer.
Henry squared off in front of Jake. “I’m not stupid enough to try to run my own private navy, Captain. CNO knows exactly what I’m doing. So does SECNAV and SECDEF. But you sure as hell didn’t get it all in this little conversation.”
“Admiral, I’ll lay it on the line for you. I’m not going to do anything illegal or tell even one solitary little lie. I’m not a very good liar.”
Admiral Henry grinned. “You just haven’t had the experience it takes. I’ve been single for ten years, so I’ve done a good bit of it. Seriously, all I want you to do is play it straight. Do your job for NAVAIR. Just keep it under your hat that we have an active sys- tem we’re going to put into this bird. Roger will tell you the same.”
“How many people know about this active system?”
“Here in Washington? Eight now — The Secretary of the Navy, CNO, SECDEF. NAVAIR, OP-50—which is Rear Admiral Cos- tello — me, you and Helmut Fritsche. And let’s keep it that way for a while.”
“Have you tested this system? Does it work?”
Henry made a face. “Fritsche’s seen it work on a test bench. Your first job, after you look at the prototypes, is to put part of it into an A-6 and test it on the ground and in flight.”
Jake eyed the older man. He had this sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. There was a hell of a lot he wasn’t being told. “So how do you know Fritsche?”
“He was a professor at Caltech when I was there for a master’s. We became good friends. He did some consulting work for the inventor on some theoretical problems. He saw what the guy had and came to help. That was three years ago. It was coincidence that there was a deputy project manager job opening in the ATA’pro- gram. I talked Fritsche into taking it. He wants to be a part of Athena. The theoretical problems intrigue him.”
The Minotaur
“You said you didn’t know all the players.”
Henry took this opportunity to look around again. “Yeah. I don’t. Your predecessor, Harold Strong? Great guy, knew naval aviation from catapult to tailhook, everything there is to know, but he wasn’t a politician, not a diplomat. He was a blunt, brilliant, take-no-prisoners kind of guy. Somebody killed him.”
“Why?”
“I wish I knew.” Henry described how he personally drove to West Virginia on Saturday morning after the
