Friday-night automo- bile accident. He summarized the conversation he had had with the West Virginia state trooper who investigated the accident. The trooper had served four years in the marine corps and by a stroke of fortune Henry bad been in uniform. The trooper had been good; he knew murder when he saw it. He had taken the admiral to see the local prosecuting attorney, who had been splitting firewood in his backyard when the two of them arrived in the police cruiser. After two hours of talking. Henry induced the prosecutor and the trooper to agree to a wording of the accident report that did not mention homicide and yet would not preclude a homicide prosecu- tion if the identity of the murderer could ever be established.
“My theory”—Henry shrugged—“I got no evidence, you under- stand — my theory is Harold found out something, teamed some- thing somebody didn’t want him to know — so he got rubbed out.”
The navy Ford pulled up to the curb, but Henry put a hand on Jake’s arm. “This is big, Jake. Real big. You don’t understand how big. The Russians will figure out we’re going to do something dif- ferent and wonderful with the A-12 and they’ll pull out all the stops to get Athena. And five billion dollars in development money is on the line, plus twenty to thirty billion in production money— that much shit will draw every blowfly and bloodsucker in the country. A lot of these people would kill for this technology.”
“Maybe someone already has.”
“Just don’t trust anybody.”
“I’ve figured that out, sir. I think there’s a hell of a lot here you haven’t told me. So I don’t trust you.”
Henry threw back his head and guffawed. “I knew you were the right man for this job.” He became instantly serious. “I don’t give a damn whether you trust me or not. Just do your job and keep your mouth shut and we’ll get the navy a good airplane.”
“By the way, did Strong know about the active system?”
“Yes.”
The admiral’s driver dropped Jake at his office building. One of the few benefits of working a black program was that he could come to work in civilian clothes.
Vice Admiral Dunedin was finishing a conference, so Jake vis- ited with Mrs. Forsythe. In fifteen minutes the door opened and people streamed out, in a hurry.
“Good morning. Admiral,” Jake said.
“How’d your talk go with Admiral Henry?”
“Very well, sir.”
“Don’t lie to me. Captain. I’m your boss.”
“Yessir.” Jake found a seat and looked straight at the blue-eyed Scotsman behind the desk. “He told me what he wanted me to know and that was that”
“How long you been in the navy?”
Long enough to know how to take orders, Jake thought. “Yes- sir.”
“Let’s talk about the A-12. It’s now your baby.”
An hour later the admiral rose from his chair. “Let’s go meet the crew.”
Jake mentioned to the admiral that he had been looking at the personnel folders. “Lieutenant Moravia. She’s got platinum cre- dentials but no experience. How’d she get on the team?”
“Strong wanted her. He was down at Pax River when she went through as a student. He said she’s one of a kind. Since he was a test pilot himself, I figured he had the experience even if she didn’t, so I said okay.”
“I’m not a test pilot,” Jake said.
“I know. These people work for you. If you want someone else, just say so. That goes for any of them, except for Fritsche. If they stay it’s because you think they can do the job and you trust them.”
“I read you loud and clear, sir.”
“Anybody doesn’t pull his weight, or you get goosey about any of them, I’ll have them sitting on the ice cap in the Antarctic so quick they wont have time to pack their long johns,”
The office in Crystal City where the A-12 program team worked was a square space with twenty metal desks jammed in. Five- drawer filing cabinets with combination locks on the drawers had been arranged to divide the room into work areas. The scarred tops and askew drawers of the desks proclaimed them veterans of other offices, other bureaucratic struggles now forgotten. Office equip- ment was scattered all over the room: a dozen computer terminals, four printers, a copy machine, a paper shredder, and a fax machine linked to an encryption device. Jake’s office would be one of the two small private offices. These two small offices each had an out- side window and a blackboard, plus the usual filing cabinets with combination locks on the drawers.
But the security — wow! There were two entry doors, each with cipher locks, and a closed-circuit television that monitored the dead space between the doors. An armed security team was on duty inside twenty-four hours a day. Their business was to check each person entering the space against a master list and log them in and out. The windows had the music sound vibrators and could not be opened. The shades were permanently closed. The fire extin- guisher system in the ceiling had plastic cutouts installed in the pipes so that they would not conduct sound.
“Every sheet of paper is numbered and accounted for,” the ad- miral told Jake. “The phone numbers are unlisted and changed monthly. I can never find my number sheet, so I end up walking down here.”
After a quick tour, Jake stood in the middle of the room with the admiral. “Where’d they get this carpet?”
“Stole it someplace. I never asked.”
“Sure would be nice to get a little bigger space. Thirty people?”
‘This is all the space I have to give you. It takes the signature of an Assistant Secretary of the Navy to get space not assigned to NAVAIR, I haven’t had time to kiss his ass. But if you can get his scrawl, go for it”
“Nothing’s too good for the boys in navy blue,” Toad Tarking- ton chirped cheerfully from his little desk against one wall, loud enough to draw a frosty glance from the admiral.
“You’re Tarkington?” Dunedin said.
“Yessir.”
“I hear you suffer from a mouth problem from time to time- If it’s incurable your naval career is about to hit the wall. You read me?”
“Yessir.”
Dunedin raised his voice. “Okay, folks. Gather around. I want you to meet Captain Jake Grafton, the new program manager. He’s your new boss.” Dunedin launched into a traditional “wel- come aboard” speech. When he was finished Jake told the attentive faces how pleased he was to be there, then he and the admiral shook hands. After a quick whispered word with Fritsche, Dun- edin left the office.
Jake invited the commanders and civilian experts into his new cubbyhole. It was a very tight fit. Folding chairs were packed in and the place became stuffy in minutes. They filled him in on the state of the project and their roles in it. Jake said nothing about his visits with the admirals and gave no hint that he knew anything about the project
He looked over Helmut Fritsche first, the radar expert from Caltech. About fifty, he was heavyset, of medium height, and sported a Hemingway beard which he liked to stroke when he talked. He had alert, intelligent eyes that roamed constantly, even when he was addressing someone. He spoke slowly, carefully, choosing his words. He struck Jake as an intelligent, learned man who had long ago resigned himself to spending most of his life in the company of fools.
George Wilson was at least five years younger than Fritsche and much leaner. He spoke slowly, in cadenced phrases, automatically allowing his listeners to take notes if they wished. When he used his third pun Jake finally noticed. Listening more carefully, he picked up two double entendres and another pun. At first blush Wilson seemed a man in love with the sound of his own voice, but Jake decided that impression didn’t do justice to the fertile, active mind of the professor of aeronautical engineering.
The A-6 bombardier, Commander Les Richards, looked as old as Fritsche although he couldn’t have been a day over forty-two or forty-three. Jake had met him years ago at NAS Oceana. They had never been in the same squadron together but had a speaking ac- quaintance. Richards’ tired face contained tired eyes. Jake remem- bered that just a year or so ago Richards had commanded an A-6 squadron, so this assignment was his post-command tour. His eyes told whoever looked that the navy was no longer an adventure, if indeed it ever had been. The navy and perhaps life itself were experiences to be endured on this long, joyless journey toward the grave. If he caught any of Wilson’s wordplay his face gave no hint. In spite of his demeanor, Jake knew, Richards had the reputation of
