Caplinger stayed afterwards for private conversations with the senators. Jake left with Toad Tarkington, who had accompanied him. As they were leaving, Caplinger and Senator Duquesne were shaking hands. It was then that Jake remembered Dunedin’s comment.
A week later the House Appropriations Committee held their closed-door hearing. Caplinger spent three hours on the stand, Ludlow two hours. After lunch came Jake’s turn on the hot seat. Three hours later Congresswoman Samantha Strader cleared her throat.
Strader was in her early fifties, her hair permed, her eyes screwed up in a characteristic squint. One of only two Democrats in her state’s congressional delegation, she represented a district carved from the core of her state’s capital city, the only area of the state with a significant minority population. She had one of the safest Democratic seats in the country and had been elected pro forma a dozen times, yet until the last election she had been almost unknown outside her state. Prior to that election she had publicly entertained the idea of entering the presidential primaries as the only woman in the field. Her short-lived quest came to grief on the shoals of political and financial reality, but not before her name and face had been splashed coast to coast by the media. She had jabbed and pricked the real contenders during her moment in the spotlight, had a delightful time, and squinted all the while.
Sam Strader’s avowed passion was the military. Every officer in the Pentagon knew what that meant. She hated them. With an excellent mind, a quick wit, and a tongue to match, she was a formidable opponent.
Today, at this closed hearing of the black projects subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, she adjusted the microphone in front of her and gazed at Jake Grafton as though looking through a dense smoke screen. “Captain, please justify, if you can, the acquisition of another very expensive major weapons system by the U.S. Navy when Chairman Gorbachev is cutting the Soviet military budget drastically, reducing manpower levels by ten percent, slashing new ship construction, cutting navy steaming time.”
“Congresswoman,” Jake said, trying to digest the question. “I don’t think I’m qualified to address that. I’m here to testify about the merits of the prototypes evaluated by the Advanced Tactical Aircraft program for production as the A-12.”
“Didn’t Secretary Ludlow send you over here to testify?”
“Yes, ma’am. He did. And this panel questioned him for two hours this morning.”
“Now it’s your turn. Answer the question, if you can.”
“As I’ve already said, we need the A-12 because the A-6 is wearing out. The A-6 has an airframe designed in the 1950s and is already past the end of its service life. The carriers must have a viable all-weather attack capability or they are obsolete and—”
“But what about the Soviet initiative?”
“Congresswoman, he’s trying to answer your question.” The chairman of the House Appropriations Committee was a Texas Democrat. Just now he looked bored. No doubt he was faking. Rumor had it he had underestimated Sam Strader once too often in the past. That was a mistake Jake Grafton had no intention of making. He was sitting at attention, listening carefully.
Strader ignored the chairman. “Captain Grafton, I want to know when the navy is going to realize that the Soviet threat is diminishing and accordingly lower its requests for funds from this Congress.”
“The navy doesn’t make budget requests of Congress. The administration does. Be that as it may, you assume the Soviet threat is diminishing significantly. I disagree. And the Soviets are only one of our possible adversaries. They still have four million men under arms. They have a formidable, capable navy. We are buying the A-12 to provide an all-weather attack capability for our aircraft carriers for the next thirty years. We must provide a strong Sunday punch for our fleet regardless of the twists and turns of Soviet policy or the ups and downs of this or that communist politician.”
“If the threat is diminishing, can we then scrap a carrier or two and cut back the A-12 buy order?”
“Congresswoman, the Warsaw Pact still has over fifty thousand tanks, four times as much artillery, and twice as many planes as NATO can muster. The Soviet army is three times larger than ours. We are a sea power. Over fifty percent of our oil is imported. I think any reduction of our naval capability when faced with these realities would be very unwise.”
“Captain, it seems to me that both we and the Soviets have spent more money on the military than either nation can afford, and now we have a perfect opportunity to reduce that expenditure. If we deterred them with what we had before they made a ten percent reduction, we can deter them just as well in the future if we make a ten percent reduction.”
“You persist in assuming the Soviet Union is our only possible opponent in a world in which we have global commitments. In the last forty years the navy has seen action in Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, and Libya and Lebanon several times. We’ve had to meet those commitments and deter the Soviets too.”
“And more gadgets are going to enable the navy to continue to do that?”
“I wouldn’t characterize the A-12 as a—”
“I would! You people are gadget-happy. The attitude in the Pentagon seems to be that gadgets will keep us free. In the meantime our schools are atrocious and our bridges and highways are disintegrating. We desperately need a nationwide child-care system for working mothers and a long-term healthcare system for the elderly. The damage that drugs are doing to the children of America is a national disgrace. We need to greatly expand our drug education and law enforcement efforts. Yet we can afford none of this because we keep borrowing money to buy grotesque gadgets to kill people with. And this at a time when the Cold War is over!”
“I’m not testifying to that,” Jake said tartly, and felt Toad Tarkington kick him under the table. “The choices are difficult,” he added. “I don’t envy you your responsibilities.”
“Congresswoman Strader,” the chairman rumbled. “This is a closed hearing. Your remarks will not leave this room, so I am at a loss as to why you are making a stump speech to Captain Grafton, who, unless I am mistaken, doesn’t vote in your district.”
Strader shifted her squint back to Grafton. “Just when will the navy’s budget requests reflect the new geopolitical realities?”
Jake answered carefully. “The navy’s budget requests to the administration are based on the needs of the navy in light of the commitments the government has assigned the navy. As for geopolitical realities, I think the political ferment that is occurring in the Soviet Union is the most hopeful development in that nation in this century. But who knows if Gorbachev will prevail? He may be assassinated. There may be a coup. He may just be booted out by his colleagues. We can’t sink the U.S. Navy this year and hope for the best.”
“Time will tell. Is that your testimony? We should let the real human needs of our citizens go unmet so we can continue to fund a military establishment that is a travesty in a world seeking real peace?”
“Your admiration for Chairman Gorbachev is in many ways reminiscent of Neville Chamberlain’s warm regard for Adolf Hitler. I hope you don’t have reason later on to regret your enthusiasm, as Chamberlain did.”
Toad’s shoe smacked on his shin again as Strader snarled, “I deeply resent that remark, Captain. I—”
The chairman cut her off. “Congresswoman Strader, this is not the time and place for a political colloquy with Captain Grafton. Please address your questions to the issue at hand. I must insist.”
Strader stared at Grafton. She was furious. “Why is the A-12 a black project?”
“The technology involved is—”
“No! I reject that. The air force used that explanation for the B-2 bomber—$516 million each—and going higher—and the F-117A —$62 million each. They’ve acquired unproven airplanes with limited capabilities, airplanes that must be operated from paved runways that will be the Soviets’ first nuclear targets in the event of war. No, Captain Grafton. Public debate is what the administration and
the Pentagon seek to avoid.” Her gaze shifted to the chairman. “Public debate is what you wish to avoid, Mr. Chairman, so that your state can secure another bloated, outrageous defense contract for technology that may well not do what those hogs at the Pentagon—”
“Time’s up.” The chairman smacked his gavel.
Strader was just getting up steam. “…that those money-hungry swine at the Pentagon have carefully steered to your state so that—”
“You’re out of time, Congresswoman,” the chairman said, his voice rising, “and out of order. Thank you for your testimony, Captain Grafton. You’re excused.”
Strader kept talking. Jake packed his briefcase and handcuffed it to his wrist. “…these machines are being purchased to fight wars that everyone knows will never occur. Billions of dollars down the sewer! It’s obscene.”
Jake rose and walked for the door with Tarkington at his elbow. Behind him Strader and the chairman were shouting at each other.
“You ever kick me again, Tarkington, and you’ll need a proctologist to surgically remove that shoe.”
“Yes, sir.”
When the door closed behind them and they were walking down the corridor, Jake said, “I really lost it in there, didn’t I?”
“Yes, sir. You did.”
“Well, if they’ll just vote the funds now, we’ve done the navy a pretty good job.”
“I suppose.”
As they went down the outside steps of the Capitol, Jake said, “I hope she’s right. I hope the wars never occur.”
“Yeah. And I hope I live forever,” Toad Tarkington said, and signaled to the transportation pool driver, who was standing beside the car a hundred yards away.
As the car pulled up, Toad climbed into the front seat, Jake into the back. They had just pulled the doors shut when the rear door opened again. Jake looked up. The man standing there had a pistol pointed at him. “Slide over, Captain.”
Jake hesitated for just a second and glanced into the front seat. The driver had a gun pointed at Toad. Jake scooted.
The man outside took a seat and pulled the door shut.
“Gentlemen, as you can see, we are both armed. You are going to be our guests for a little while. Mr. Tarkington?”
When Toad didn’t respond, the man beside Jake nudged Toad in the neck with the barrel of his gun. “Mr. Tarkington?”
“Yeah.”
“I have a gun too, and it is pointed at Captain Grafton. The gentleman behind the wheel is going to put his gun in his pocket and drive. If you twitch, if you shout, if you open your door or reach for the wheel or ignition key, I will first shoot Captain Grafton, then I will shoot you. Do you understand?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you feel heroic?”
“Not especially.”
“That is very good. You and your captain may live through this experience if you do exactly as I say, when I say it.”
Tarkington said nothing.
“Put on your seat belts and lock your doors.”
Jake and Toad obeyed.
“Okay, if everyone understands the ground rules, we go.”
The driver put the transmission in drive and fed gas.
The gunman in the backseat was in his fifties, with short hair. He was tanned, stocky, and wore a well-fitting dark suit.
“Where is the sailor who was driving this car?”
“Captain, I warn you for the last time. You will sit absolutely quiet. One word, just one more word, and I will hurt you very badly.”
Jake Grafton looked at the gunman, then at the back of the driver’s head. Toad sat rigid, staring straight ahead.
The car went out onto Independence Avenue and crept west in stop-and-go traffic. Jake eased the briefcase on his lap and felt the gun dig into his side. He sat very still and eventually the gun went away.
Okay, so he wasn’t going to whack this guy with the briefcase and bail out of the car. That stuff only works in movies. He was going to sit very still and hope this guy didn’t blow his brains out, or Tarkington’s.
In spite of the air conditioning, Jake was perspiring profusely. He felt the moisture form rivulets on his face.
He tried to think. Here he was in the backseat of a navy Ford Fairmont sedan rolling through the streets of Washington. At the curbs buses were loading and unloading tourists, hordes of people from Nashville and Little Rock and Tokyo. People in cars with plates from the Midwest and South rubbernecked, and the drivers ignored the traffic signs, seeming to delight in suicidal lane changes and illegal turns onto one-way streets. Kids were running and shoving and demanding pop, mothers were calming squealing infants, and everyone was waiting in line or looking for a restroom. Yet in the middle of it all Jake Grafton and Toad Tarkington had guns in their ribs.
Maybe this guy was the Minotaur. Maybe he was an Ivy League political appointee who had sold out for some reason only a psychiatrist would understand. Yet the way he handled that pistol—Jake knew competence with a weapon when he saw it.
The driver swung left on Fourteenth Street and began to accelerate as he jockeyed with traffic. He crossed the Potomac on the George Mason Memorial Bridge and took the ramp down onto George Washington Parkway northbound.
“You can drop us anywhere along here.” Toad said, “and we’ll walk back to the office.”
Jake winced at the sound of his voice. The gunman beside him paid no attention.
“Glad we could give you guys a—” The driver’s right hand flicked into Toad’s face with a sickening smack, which knocked his hat off. The car didn’t even swerve.
Toad sagged against the window, then slowly raised his head.
The car continued up the parkway. The river was visible between the trees on the right. They passed the entrance to the CIA complex at Langley and continued on at fifty-five miles per hour, the traffic flowing around them at least ten miles over the speed limit.
Traffic on the beltway was thickening as the first surge of rush hour emptied from the city. The man at the wheel kept the car in the middle lane. On and on they rolled, past the Frederick cutoff, east now across the northern edges of the city.
Jake Grafton was bitterly regretting the impulse that had made him mail two letters to the Minotaur when the driver finally edged into a gap in the right lane and took the ramp down to New Hampshire Avenue, where he caught the green light and turned left, northward. They passed the Naval Surface Weapons Center and turned left, into a residential area. After four or five turns down shady streets with cars parked at the curbs and in driveways, the man at the wheel slowed. From a pocket he produced a garage-door opener. He aimed it as he swung left into a driveway. The door rose obediently. The car coasted to a stop inside the garage and the driver triggered the remote-control device again. The garage got very dark as the closing door shut out the light.
“Okay, gentlemen. We are here. We will sit here very quiet and still while the driver checks out the house.” The driver was already out of the car. He fiddled with the knob on the inside door, used a key or pick, and had it open in a few seconds. Before he entered he took out his pistol. In about a minute he was back. He nodded.
Toad went first, walking around the car while the driver in the doorway held a pistol on him.
Then it was Jake’s turn. From the garage he entered a kitchen. Through the sliding glass door he could see a backyard swing.
“The basement.”
Jake went down the stairs. The slanted ceiling was so low he had to tilt his head.
The older of the two men, the man who had ridden in the backseat with Jake, held out his hand toward Toad. “The handcuff key.”
Toad extracted it from his pocket and passed it across. The man used it to unlock the briefcase from Jake’s wrist and cuff him to a chair. The driver produced a set of cuffs from a trouser pocket and cuffed Tarkington to a table.
As the driver sat on the couch with his pistol on his lap and lit a cigarette, the older man examined the lock on the briefcase. He glanced at Jake. “Th
e combination?”
“Fuck you.”
“Ah, Captain. Do you honestly think I couldn’t open the case without it? I merely wished to save myself several minutes of effort.”
Jake told him the combination. The man had it open in thirty seconds, scooped out the documents, and after glancing at his watch, sat down on the couch to read them.
“Who are you?” Toad asked.
“Does it matter?” the reader asked without looking up.
“Not right now. But I’d like a name to give to the FBI.”
The man just chuckled dryly and continued reading.
After a while—Jake wasn’t sure how long, since he couldn’t see his watch—the man said, “This Athena device, a superconductive computer with multiple CPUs, do you think it can be successfully produced in three years?”
Jake said nothing. His stomach felt like he had swallowed a stone.
“Oh well, I don’t have the time to get the answers, and I doubt that you would be forthright in any event. But it certainly is an interesting technological development. You Americans! A nation of tinkerers. What will you think of next?”
He went back through the documents slowly, taking his time, studying them. His pistol lay on the table beside him, within easy reach. Twice he glanced at his watch.
Jake looked around the room. The driver kept his eyes on him or Toad all the time. His pistol lay in his lap. Toad had both wrists cuffed together around the leg of a rather large table. Still, given a few seconds, he could lift the leg and be free of the table. Obviously that possibility did not concern the two gunmen very much. If Toad tried it, he would be shot or pistol-whipped within seconds.
Jake’s cuffs went through the arm of a chair. Beside the chair sat a floor lamp, but to reach it with his right hand, he would need to stick his left hand under this chair arm. It was temptingly close, but he would need an opportunity. And if he got it, what then?
What did those instructors always say at SERE—Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape—school? Never give up. Stay ready. Your chance will come.
The Minotaur Page 47
