The Espionage Game

by Susan Glinert Stevens

  “If you’d place your hand on the glass, Colonel,” she said, taking his hand to guide it, “we’ll scan your hand and compare it to the image in our computer’s data banks. And don’t worry about the laser beam either, sir. It’s very low-powered, less than you’d see in the bar-code reader in your supermarket’s checkout counter.”

  Her voice was soft and reassuring, well practiced. She gently but firmly pressed the palm and fingers of his right hand against the glass with one hand while pressing a button with the other.

  Not knowing what to expect, Jerry Rodell stood passively next to the machine and watched a red laser beam playing over the bottom of his hand. It was finished a few seconds later. The machine turned itself off with a loud click. Suddenly, he heard a gentle buzzing sound.

  “Congratulations, Colonel,” she announced, “you’re you, or at least the computer thinks so.”

  The captain pointed to a high-resolution computer graphics screen. Jerry’s security photograph was displayed in the upper left-hand quarter of the screen, while his name, rank, and vital statistics were on the upper right. Below, two handprints were displayed sided by side. One had been scanned from the ink-and-paper handprint he remembered being taken several years earlier. The other was much sharper, clearly showing each loop, ridge and whorl in his hand and fingerprints. “Identity Confirmed,” blinked across bottom of the screen.

  He smiled.

  “So much for the first step,” Captain Korfman commented. “Now to make your visitor’s badge. If you’d step over here, we’ll take your picture and have you on your way in a few moments.” She pointed to another machine.

  Jerry was disappointed by the relatively low technology of the badge making. Stand on the white line, look at the red dot, and— click—it was all over. A minute later, the second machine disgorged a plastic identity badge with his photo, name, and rank on it. Across the bottom was marked the word “Visitor” in large bold letters. “Escort Required” was written diagonally across the entire badge. Captain Korfman slipped the badge onto a loop of plastic cord and placed it around his neck.

  “There,” she whispered tenderly while she smoothed down his collar. “Don’t take it off until you come back in here. And don’t forget to give this back, or the big bad pumpkin man will come get you.”

  Jerry could smell her perfume and felt a stirring in his loins—his wife, Mary, had walked out on him over three weeks ago, and he wasn’t used to celibacy. If it wasn’t for the presence of General Winslow and three armed air policemen, he might very well have made a pass at her. He glanced over at General Winslow, who gave him a knowing look.

  “Sirs, if you would follow me, I’ll escort you into Hanger 18,” the air police sergeant announced, shattering the mood the captain had so skillfully conjured up with the gentle touch of her hands.

  “Certainly,” Jerry grumbled, permitting his pique to show. “Please do, but first, where’s the john?”

  General Winslow was thoroughly enjoying the scene, chuckling to himself as the sergeant pointed the way to the toilets. Jerry reappeared a few moments later and the sergeant opened the door that led to the hangar, fifty yards away. As Winslow began to follow their escort, Jerry gave Wilma a wink and was rewarded with an alluring smile.

  “You know, General,” he declared exuberantly when he joined Winslow outside, “this place isn’t all bad, is it?”

  “Have to concern myself about morale, don’t I?” Winslow replied with apparent innocence. “There are some advantages to life at Dreamland, you know.”

  “May I advise you gentlemen regarding security procedures inside the hangar?”

  “Certainly,” Jerry muttered. The officious sergeant was again standing at parade rest, this time astride the path leading to a doorway in the side of the hangar.

  “I understand your irritation, Colonel, sir,” the sergeant said politely. “However, you are about to enter one of the most top-secret installations in America. I am under strict orders as to how your visit will be conducted. As a visitor, you will be required to remain within ten paces of me at all times while you are inside. General Winslow has chosen to wear a visitor’s badge as well, and, although he is my unit’s commanding officer and the officer who issued these orders, he too is under the same restrictions.”

  Jerry glanced at Winslow’s chest. The badge that now hung on a plastic cord around his neck was also marked “Visitor.”

  “I only go through the bother of signing out my resident badge when I plan to stay longer,” General Winslow explained. “For a short visit like this, it’s much easier to just sign out a visitor’s badge.” He then faced the sergeant. “Please continue, Sergeant.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the air policeman responded. “As I said, each of you is to stay within ten paces of me while we’re inside. To gain access to the hangar, you must enter through the visitor security corridor. You are not permitted to carry anything metallic or flammable inside. So if you have any small knives, wrist watches, small change, cigarette lighters, butane lighters or the like, please drop them in one of the small trays outside of the door. Everything will be returned to you when you leave. I assume that you are not carrying any cameras or electronic devices such as electronic watches or calculators, nor are you wearing heart pacemakers. Is that true?”

  Both Jerry Rodell and General Winslow nodded.

  “Good,” the sergeant continued. “If you’ll follow me.”

  The sergeant walked to the heavy steel door. It opened as he approached, and, without breaking stride, the sergeant entered. A moment later, both Jerry and Winslow were also inside. They were in a short steel-gray corridor with a second steel door at the other end. It reminded Jerry of the machines in junkyards used to smash entire automobiles down into hay-bale-sized blocks of crushed steel.

  Thoughts of the walls moving in to crush them raced through his mind as the outer door clang shut.

  Chapter Four

  “Come on, Jerry,” General Winslow urged as the inner door of the security corridor creaked open. “I want you to meet two ladies. One’s my little sweetheart, and the other isMary Lou , my secret mistress.”

  Suspicious that the heavy steel door might slam shut and crush him, Jerry Rodell waited impatiently until it was nearly completely opened before stepping through it. The lighting in the hangar was subdued, almost dark, suggesting that the building wasn’t in use. Jerry stopped to let his eyes adjust to the weak hangar lighting as Winslow plopped his hand on Jerry’s shoulder like a proud father. Then Jerry saw it for the first time. Although insignificant in size compared to the enormity of the hangar,Mary Lou nevertheless dominated the room.

  “Oh-my-god,” Jerry murmured, “where’s the death ray?”

  General Winslow chuckled. “That’s about what everybody says the first time they see her. Actually, she’s officially called the Advanced Technology Air Supremacy Fighter, or ATASF; but everybody calls her the Star Fighter.”

  Jerry Rodell stepped forward to see the aircraft better. Roughly the size of an F-22,Mary Lou was certainly best described as being from another world. Standing alone in the middle of the cavernous hangar, the airplane looked ready to charge forth to do battle in some intergalactic space war. Painted ghost gray, it sat hulking with it wings swept forward like an eagle mantling it wings over its prey. Two air inlets, one on either side of the fuselage and blending into the wings, gave the plane a carnivorous appearance. They also immediately told Jerry that it was an air breather, unable to leave the atmosphere. He was disappointed; the thought of blasting off inMary Lou to do battle in outer space against the forces of evil appealed to him.

  “‘Star Fighter’ certainly describes her well.” Jerry walked slowly up to the aircraft. “Even though the F-104 had the name first.”

  “Fortunately, most of the younger troops never heard of the F-104,” Winslow replied.

  Jerry turned to Winslow. “I won’t tell if you don’t,” he whispered with a conspiratorial wink. “She’s not very stealthy,
is she?”

  “Mary Louis a dogfighter, first and foremost,” General Winslow began. “However, her designers did take advantage of whatever stealth technology they could. For one thing, most of the airframe is carbon- carbon composite, which is naturally radar-absorbent. In addition, the engines are ducted to hide the compressor blades, although she can go Mach 2.5 in level flight. Of course, when she’s in full afterburner, she’s not very discreet.”

  “Nothing is,” Jerry noted while he continued to study the airplane.

  “Don’t touch it,” Winslow ordered as Jerry began to reach out. “Or else the sergeant might be obliged to shoot you. Only authorized people may physically touchMary Lou .”

  “Wherever did you come up with that name,Mary Lou ?” Jerry asked.

  “That’s just one of the many names this project is known by. Actually, Project Mary Lou is what the engineers who designed her call the project. When they got the contract, one of the lead engineers named it ‘Project Mary Lou’ for security reasons. That name is completely off the wall and has no relationship to any other project names. Pretty soon everyone was calling the airplane itselfMary Lou , and that name stuck,” General Winslow said with obvious paternal pride. He moved forward to where Jerry Rodell stood. “Let me show you her charms.”

  “She certainly shows a family resemblance to the X-29, with the swept-forward wings,” Jerry noted. He knelt down to examine the underside of the airplane. “But with much larger engines.”

  “Yeap,” Winslow replied. “She’s the ultimate in transonic and supersonic maneuverability. She’s got vectored engines, so she’ll turn on a dime. And since she weighs less than forty-four thousand pounds in air defense configuration, she has a power-to-weight ratio of 1.6 to 1. She’ll out-run, out-climb and out-turn anything else in the sky.”

  A puzzled look wrinkled Jerry’s face as he gazed at Winslow. “Forty-four thousand pounds for an airplane the size of an F-22?”

  “She may be big, but she’s light. Almost all composites. See,” General Winslow noted, pointing to the under-wing surface. “Not one rivet. It’s all one piece and absolutely smooth. The composites also make it an incredibly strong aircraft. Without external weapons she can pull fifteen g’s.”

  “Fifteen g’s?”

  Winslow laughed. “That’s what I said, fifteen.”

  Jerry Rodell shook his head in disbelief. “What keeps the pilot from being turned into mashed potatoes?”

  The general smiled knowingly but gave no answer. Jerry suddenly realized what was bothering him ever since he first started studying the airplane. He abruptly stood on tiptoe and peered intently at the top of the airplane.

  “It’s a goddamn RPV,” he complained bitterly. “There’s no canopy. It’s a remotely piloted vehicle. The pilot sits in a van somewhere, holding a cup of coffee in one hand, and flies this thing with a little joystick like a video arcade game.”

  “You’re wrong, Jerry,” General Winslow replied with a friendly chuckle. “Mary Louis a real airplane, with a real pilot.”

  “But where?”

  “Inside, naturally.”

  “But he can’t see.”

  “Certainly he can.”

  Frustrated by General Winslow’s evasive answers, Jerry Rodell pointed at the fuselage and shouted, “But there aren’t any windows, General! How can you fly a goddamn airplane if you can’t see? There is no way I’d sit inside a coffin and fly the damn thing peering at a television screen.”

  General Winslow laughed aloud while holding up two fingers. “Jerry, remember I told you that I wanted you to meet two ladies?”

  Jerry gazed curiously at him and then nodded.

  “Mary Loumay be sexy and powerful and state-of-the-art. However, compared to CLEO, she’s blasé; she’s just another pretty airplane. CLEO is the real mouth opener.”

  “Who’s Cleo?”

  “‘CLEO’ is an acronym for Computer Linked Electro-Optics” he replied. “That’s how you see.”

  Jerry stared at the general in disbelief. “You mean you want me to sit inside that thing and look at a computer screen while I fly?”

  “That’s about right.”

  “General,” Jerry responded, shaking his head, “let me tell you a little joke I heard some years ago. It seems a whole bunch of people get aboard the latest airliner for its maiden flight, strap themselves in and, sure enough, the airplane is pushed back right on time. The engines start and the pilot begins to taxi out to the active runway. All the passengers are sitting happily in their seats when they hear ‘Good day, ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking, or rather the Mark 300-3X triply redundant computer that has replaced your flight crew. I just want you to know that my designers have taken every precaution to ensure your complete safety and there is absolutely nothing that can go wrong … go wrong … go wrong … go wrong.’”

  The air police sergeant snickered, but quickly suppressed it when Winslow spun around and glared at him.

  “I see your point, Colonel,” General Winslow acknowledged in a huff. “However, you’ve been flying computer-controlled aircraft for years. The F-16 is a perfect example of a fly-by-wire airplane. What happens when something goes wrong … goes wrong … goes wrong with it?”

  “I’ve already punched out of one, sir.” Jerry answered sheepishly.

  “Well,” Winslow continued in a conciliatory tone, “you can always punch out of this thing too.Mary Lou is a dogfighter and one tough lady. However, for her to win, she needs a pilot who trusts her. I think you’re the one to prove her. Want the job?”

  “Me, a test pilot, sir? All I have is a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts—I’m no aeronautical engineer. I’m not qualified to test this thing.”

  “As I said,Mary Lou is almost blasé; her technology was developed and proved years ago. In fact, this very airframe has almost two hundred hours of flight time as an RPV. We know exactly whatMary Lou can do. She can pull fifteen g’s in level flight and out-fly, out-turn and out-maneuver anything else in the sky, including missiles. To be honest, she was originally built as a remotely piloted vehicle. However, the sad fact of the matter is she couldn’t out-fight a Piper Cub armed with a sling shot because the remote pilot couldn’t see what the hell was happening. As an RPV,Mary Lou got waxed—shot down—every time.”

  General Winslow slapped the aircraft’s skin affectionately. “Mary Lou,” he continued with a tinge of sadness, “as a highly maneuverable airframe was a brilliant engineering success. However, militarily, she was a total failure. Without a pilot, she’s nothing but an expensive target drone. Until CLEO, we had no way of effectively putting a pilot in her, but last year Blaine Research Institute made a major breakthrough and, at last, we think we have the answer. As I said, we know what she can do, but we don’t know what the pilot can do. The problem isn’t the airplane; it’s the man. Like you said, what keeps the pilot from being turned into mashed potatoes is the limiting factor. That’s why I want you.”

  “But why me, sir?”

  General Winslow shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Remember the special training you went through at Brooks Air Force Base, in the big centrifuge of theirs?” he probed gently.

  “Yes, sir, the potty training.”

  General Winslow guffawed at the term fighter jocks use to describe the Energy Straining Maneuver, as the aerospace medicine doctors at Brooks Air Force Base call the special training they give fighter pilots to teach them how to overcome the effects of high-g accelerations and turns. Unprotected, most pilots will black out under just four to five g’s. The so-called g-suit, which blocks blood from pooling in the legs, increases that limit to six or seven g’s. The coyly named Energy Straining Maneuver consists of taking a series of short, deep breaths while straining your bowels as though you were trying to overcome constipation. The effect of the maneuver is to squeeze the major blood vessels in the lower abdomen and force the blood to the head. This increases some pilots’ resistance to blackouts to an incredible
nine g’s.

  “Well,” Winslow replied, “we found a better way to increase a fighter jock’s resistance to g’s.”

  “How?” Jerry demanded, his interest suddenly rekindled.

  Winslow paused, then pointed at the aircraft. “Part of the answer is in reclining the pilot, keeping his head just slightly above his heart and his feet just slightly lower. Until CLEO, there wasn’t any practical way to do that. The pilot had to sit upright to see. That’s one of the major reasons you can’t safely pull more than seven or eight g’s in an F-16 or even an F-22—you’re sitting up, so you can see the guy who is trying to wax you. CLEO lets you see everything, even though you’re reclining about sixty-five degrees.”

  “How does it work?” Jerry’s eyes sparkled with curiosity.

  Winslow shook his head, “I don’t really know the details, but I’ve tried it. Believe me, it works and works well. Want to try it? We have it set up in a simulator over there.”

  General Winslow pointed to the back end of the dimly lit hangar. Until now, Jerry thought that it was merely the back wall. A door opened and light from the other side outlined a figure standing in the doorway. It wasn’t until then that Jerry realized that a wall had been built the across the hangar, dividing it in half. The front half was still a hangar, while the back half now had a building standing as high as six stories, particularly in the center where the peaked roof of the hangar reached nearly a hundred feet above the cement floor.

  “I see they’re ready for us, Jerry,” Winslow said. “Want to try it?”

  Jerry licked his lips with the tip of his tongue while he thought for a moment. “Okay,” he replied quietly, staring at the open door. A man walked out to meet them. He was about the same size as Jerry, but older and a little heavier, and he was wearing a dirty lab coat.

  “Colonel Fred Kelder,” General Winslow introduced Jerry Rodell to the man. “I would like you to meet Lieutenant Colonel Jerold Rodell. He’s here to see CLEO.”