After the steward placed a coffeepot in the center of the table and departed, closing the door behind him, Caplinger eyed Jake speculatively. “Well, Captain, it seems to me that now would be a good time to sound you out.”
“I’m just an 0–6, Mr. Secretary. All I see are the elephant’s feet”
Caplinger poured himself a cup of coffee and used a spoon to stir in cream. He surveyed Samuel Dodgers as if seeing him this eve- ning for the first time. “Good of you to share your Sabbath with us, Doctor. We’re looking forward to seeing your handiwork to- morrow.”
Dodgers wiped his mouth and tossed his napkin beside his plate. “Tomorrow.” He nodded at everyone except Grafton and de- parted.
When the door had firmly closed behind the inventor, Caplinger remarked, “Senator, what will happen on the Hill if it becomes common gossip that the father of Athena is a fascist churl?”
“You’ll be in trouble. That man couldn’t sell water in Death Valley on the Fourth of July.”
“My thought exactly. We’ll have to make sure he stays out of sight and sound. Little difficult to do in America, but not impossi- ble.” He grinned. When he did his face twisted. It didn’t look like he made the effort very often. “So how do the elephant’s feet look, Captain?”
Jake Grafton reached for the coffeepot. “I confess, sir, that I’m baffled. Seems to me that these new weapons systems under devel- opment, with the sole exception of Athena, are going to be too expensive for the nation ever to afford enough of them to do any good.”
All traces of the smile disappeared from Caplinger’s face. “Go on.”
“As the cost goes up, the quantity goes down- And every techni- cal breakthrough seems to double or triple the cost. If anything, Athena will be the exception that proves the rule. Athena should be a fairly cheap system, all things considered, but it’ll be the only one.”
“And., -” prompted the Secretary of Defense.
“Well, if our goal is to maintain forces which deny the Soviets any confidence in a favorable outcome in any probable nuclear war scenario, we seem to have reached the treadmill. We can’t maintain forces if we can’t afford them.”
“You made a rather large assumption.”
“So what is our goal?”
“The general public regards nuclear war as unwinnable. That’s the universal popular wisdom, and like anything that almost every- one believes, it’s wrong. The Soviets have invested heavily in hard- ened bunkers for the top leadership. They’ve built underground cities for the communist elite. Somebody over there thinks they can win! Now their idea of victory and ours are two very different things, but as long as they think they can win, the likelihood of a nuclear war increases. Nuclear war becomes more likely to hap- pen.”
Caplinger glanced at the senator, then turned his attention back to Jake. He seemed to be weighing his words. “Our goal,” he fi- nally said, “is to prevent nuclear war. To do that we must make them think they can’t win.”
“So you are saying that any method of denying the Russians confidence in a favorable outcome — however they define favorable — is acceptable?”
Caplinger tugged at his lower lip. His eyes were unfocused. Jake thought he seemed to be turning it qver in his mind yet again, examining it for flaws, looking… Slowly the chin dipped, then rose again. “We need…” His gaze rose to the ceiling and went slowly around it. “We need … we need forces that can survive the initial strike and respond in a flexible manner, forces that are controllable, programmable, selective. It can’t be all or nothing, Captain. It can’t be just one exchange of broadsides. If all we have is that one broadside, we just lost.”
“Explain,” prompted Senator Duquesne-
“We’ll never shoot our broadside. That’s the dirty little secret that they know and we know and we will never admit. No man elected President of the United States in the nuclear age would order every ICBM fired, every Trident missile launched, every nu- clear weapon in our arsenal detonated on the Soviets. Not even if the Soviets make a massive first strike at us. To massively retaliate would mean the end of life on the planet Earth. No rational man would do it.” Caplinger shrugged. “That’s the flaw in Mutual As- sured Destruction. No sane man would ever push the button.”
Royce Caplinger sipped his coffee, now cold, and made a face.
“We must deny the communists the ability to ever come out of those bunkers. We need the ability to hit pinpoint, mobile targets on a selective, as-needed basis. That’s the mission of the F-117 and the B-2. If we can achieve that, there will never be a first strike. There will never be a nuclear war.”
Caplinger pushed his chair back away from the table. “Life will continue on this planet until pollution ruins the atmosphere and sewage makes the seas a barren, watery desert. Then life on this fragile little pebble orbiting this modest star will come to the end that the Creator must nave intended when he made man. Watching our Japanese televisions, listening to our compact laser disks, wear- ing our designer clothes, we’ll all starve.”
He rose abruptly and made for the door. Jake Grafton also got to his feet. When the door closed behind Caplinger, Jake shook the senator’s hand and wished him good night.
“He’s a great man,” the senator said, trying to read Jake’s thoughts.
“Yes.”
“But he is not sanguine. The political give-and-take — it de- presses him.”
“Yes,” Jake Grafton said, and nodded his farewell. Suddenly he too needed to be alone.
On Monday morning Jake put Secretary Caplinger, Senator Du- quesne, and their aides on a plane to Fallen with Helmut Fritsche and Harold Dodgers. He had decided to stay at China Lake and supervise the good doctor.
Sam Dodgers was in a foul mood, muttering darkly about money and conspiracies. Jake managed to keep his mouth shut. When the Athena device was ready and installed in the A-6, he helped strap Rita Moravia and Toad Tarkington into the cockpit. Toad was whistling some tune Jake didn’t recognize.
“No birds today. Okay?”
“Whatever you say, boss.” Toad was in high spirits. Higher than usual. He must be screwing Moravia, Jake decided, trying to catch some hint between them. The pilot was all business.
“Work the long distances today- Start at thirty miles and let Fritsche call you closer when he has the info he wants. Just keep the radar he’s using on your left side.”
“Sure, CAG. We understand.” He resumed his whistling as Jake helped him latch his Koch fittings.
“You know who whistles in the navy. Toad?”
“No, sir,”
“Bosun’s mates and damn fools.”
Toad grinned. “I’m in that second category, sir. Enjoy your day with Dr. Dodgers.”
Jake punched him on the shoulder and climbed down the board- ing ladder.
As the Intruder taxied out, Jake climbed into the yellow ramp truck that the base ops people had loaned him. He had no desire to return to the hangar and watch Dodgers tinker with a computer.
He drove down a taxiway and parked near the duty runway. He got out and sat on the hood. Already the morning was warm, growing hotter by the minute as the sun climbed higher and higher into the deep blue sky. Singing birds were audible here, away from the hustle and bustle of the ramp. A large jackrabbit watched him from the safety of a clump of brush.
He could hear the faint murmur of engines in the distance, and assumed that was Rita and Toad. The minutes passed as he sat there in the sun with the breeze in his hair. He had joined the navy those many years ago to fly, and now he was reduced to sitting beside a runway waiting for younger people to take off. Yet this was the world he knew. The world Royce Caplinger had spoken of last night — nuclear deterrence, global strategy — that was an alien environment, as foreign to him as the concerns of headhunters in the jungles of the Amazon.
He saw the tiny tail of the warplane moving above the swell in the runway. It turned and became a knife edge. Still at least a mile away, the visible tail came to a stop and remained motionless for several minutes.
Caplinger’s pessimism troubled him. Sure, the world had its problems, but every generation had faced problems: problems were the stuff life was made of. A man as brilliant as Caplinger, he shouldn’t be so … so bitter.
He heard the engines snarl, yet the tiny white speck of tail did not move. No doubt Rita was standing on the brakes, letting the engines wind up to full power and the temps stabilize before she let it roll. Now… now the tail
