Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 02

by Day of the Cheetah (v1. 1)

  “It has to be here in Dreamland or Nellis,” Hal said angrily, punching a palm with his fist. “The quality of the stolen material, and the speed with which our stuff shows up over there tells me it comes directly from here, not through headquarters of systems command. I have got to plug this leak before the whole dam bursts wide open.”

  “Well, keep trying ... but I do have to say I don’t think your idea to plant phony changes in DreamStar’s design will help.”

  Hal looked uneasy. “You figured that out?”

  “It wasn’t too difficult to notice those changes were out of place, Hal. If they’re smart enough to recognize the changes they’ll be smart enough to see that they don’t make too much sense. With all the other security crackdowns you’ve implemented, it does smell like a setup.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll keep it in,” Hal said evenly. “Maybe our spy isn’t as all-fired smart as you think he is.”

  “Maybe.”

  There was a rather strained pause, then Hal asked, “How’s Wendy?”

  “Fine.”

  Hal nodded. “She looked great, really great.” Again a pause. “Something on your mind, Hal?”

  He took a deep breath. “Hope you don’t mind me asking, but . . . how are you two getting along?”

  “Jesus Christ, Hal ...”

  “Dammit, Patrick, you know why I’m asking, and you know I wouldn’t ask unless it was important.”

  “So we’re peeking into bedrooms to find a spy now, is that it?”

  “Easy, pal. You knew all about Elliott’s orders to expand the search for these security leaks. I briefed the senior staff and outlined exactly what guidelines I’d follow and what steps my staff would take. Wendy and Ken—”

  “What the hell do you mean, Wendy and Ken . . . ?”

  “Do you know she was seen at Indian Springs Auxiliary Field the other day?”

  “Yes, I know. ”

  “With Ken James?”

  “So what? This is getting far out—”

  “You’re getting defensive,” Briggs shot back. “What’s the story?”

  “The story is they went to lunch.”

  “At Indian Springs?”

  “It’s James’ little hideaway. It was the day of the last air combat dry-fire test. I was held up by the flight data lab, so James took her to lunch. Apparently he regularly cons the Dolphin pilot into taking him. Any more questions?”

  Briggs nodded—that was the same story he’d gotten from the Dolphin pilot. “Patrick, please don’t make this any tougher for me—”

  “Tougher for you?” McLanahan propped himself up in bed, was about to get up but paled and decided against it. “What the hell are you saying? Is Wendy or Ken under suspicion?” “Everyone at HAWC is under suspicion, even the Ops personnel—especially the Ops personnel. But when DreamStar’s only pilot starts hanging around with a chief scientist from a completely different section of HAWC—who also happens to be the very close friend of the DreamStar project director—a bell has to go off—”

  “She lives with me, Hal. Come on . . . ”

  “Do I really have to spell this out? What if you guys were having a major league argument? What if she left or you told her to? What if. . . dammit, Patrick, you know what the hell I’m talking about.”

  “I do, and it stinks.”

  “The leaks started when she got to Dreamland—”

  “Which is also when the DreamStar project went operational,” McLanahan interrupted.

  “It’s also the time Ken James arrived.”

  “Along with a dozen other people,” Patrick shot back. “You’re spinning your wheels, Hal. Wendy’s undergone government security background checks since she was a senior in college. Ken James is an Academy grad. He’s undergone far more thorough background investigations than just about anyone at HAWC, including me.”

  “He’s also had a pretty rough family life . . .”

  “Which doesn 7 make him a spy. I know all about his past, his father, his mother’s suspicious death in Monaco while he was in the Zoo. But the guy’s been polygraphed, examined, questioned, investigated and scrutinized on a regular basis by a dozen different agencies since entering the Academy. If he’s got a questionable past it would have surfaced by now.” “Well, I’ve still got to check every scrap of info that’s not there, Patrick. You’ll end up hurting security, not helping,” Hal said, not wanting to press it further at the moment. “Gotta go. I’ll see you on Monday.”

  When the door to his hospital room closed, Patrick felt more alone, more isolated than ever before. Mercifully, his body’s total exhaustion forced him to drop into a deep sleep.

  * * *

  Ken James was in DreamStar’s cockpit. He had no flight suit, no helmet. The canopy was closed and all power was off. He was trying to decide how to activate his fighter without ANTARES operating when a brilliant beam of light hit the cockpit from somewhere on the ramp . . . Hal Briggs was holding a huge spotlight on him. Patrick McLanahan was carrying a bullhorn. Wendy Tork stood beside McLanahan crying. She was motioning to him to come out of DreamStar... He lifted the canopy. It weighed only eighty pounds but it would hardly budge. He had to stand on the ejection seat to get better leverage. But as he struggled to lift the heavy Plexiglas windscreen, McLanahan rushed forward, carrying a huge fifty-caliber machine gun. Then Briggs hit him in the face with the brilliant beam from the spotlight and McLanahan raised the machine gun. “Hold it right there ...”

  James’ eyes snapped open. He was confused, disoriented. Then he heard the sounds of footsteps, coming closer, only a few feet away . . .

  He scrambled for the tiny transmitter on the nightstand beside his bed—he had rigged the wall safe with a remote- control trigger to incinerate its contents from anywhere in the apartment. With his other hand he felt for the Beretta automatic pistol hidden under his pillow . . .

  “... Don’t go away, because you ’re listening to the solid gold voice of the solid gold strip, FM one-oh-two ...”

  Ken pulled his finger away from the button just in time. It was his clock radio, set for the station with the two early- morning DJs with their taped sound effects. The bedroom lights, also preprogrammed to come on when the alarm clock went off, were glaring in his face. Swallowing hard, his ears ringing from tension, he carefully held the hammer of the Beretta with one hand while pulling the trigger, letting the hammer slowly uncock.

  It had been another nightmare night, another confused awakening. For the past two nights he had lain in bed, dressed in shorts, shirt, and sneakers, with one finger on the remote- control detonator and one hand on the Beretta pistol beside him. Sleep had been almost impossible. Every noise, every creak, every voice outside shook him awake in an instant, and he would lie there, listening for the sounds of police feet pounding up his stairs or the sight of flashing red-and-blue lights outside his window. Each time he had decided to escape, to get out of town and head off to Mexico before they came and arrested him for espionage, but he would always talk himself out of it, out of deserting DreamStar. He would manage to drift off to sleep, only to be awakened an hour later by another sound. He had managed only a few restless hours of sleep all weekend.

  Now he half-walked, half-stumbled to the bathroom. The tension was taking its toll, all right. He had dark circles under his eyes, his face was pale, his lips cracked and dry despite the beads of sweat rolling down his face. He turned the shower on full cold and stepped into it, forcing himself to stand in the icy water a full minute before feeding in warm water. He stood there, hoping that it would wash his nightmares away. It did not.

  Still, once into his morning routine, his mind began to analyze the situation more rationally. He had holed himself up in his apartment all weekend, afraid to leave but afraid he would be arrested by military intelligence. The fact that no one had come to him or called was reassuring. Perhaps no one had noticed Kramer and Moffitt, the two Russian agents based out of Los Angeles, at his apartment after all. Maybe Briggs wasn�
�t conducting round-the-clock surveillance of his apartment . . .

  His mood was bolstered later that morning as he drove through Nellis toward the waiting area for the shuttle bus to the HAWC research area. None of Briggs’ men made a move for him. There seemed no added security other than the forces that had been added weeks earlier when the initial crackdown had been started—if anything, the added security forces seemed more dispersed and less obvious. He felt relief as he stepped aboard the bus that would take him to Dreamland. Surely Briggs wouldn’t let him go to Dreamland again if he had discovered his meeting with Kramer and Moffitt.

  Despite the outer calm of the place, however, there were a lot of worried faces and hushed conversation in the hallways and offices of the HAWC research center when James arrived. He poured himself a mug of coffee and began to go through his mailbox in the test squadron’s mission-planning room. Among the half-week’s worth of mail were several notices telling about a Center-wide briefing for all personnel at eight A.M. The topic was not specified.

  It was almost eight-thirty, so he put the meeting out of his mind. He took a sip of coffee and was discarding most of the small pile of mail in his box when J. C. Powell appeared in the doorway.

  “Ken, where you been?”

  “I just got in. What’s up?”

  “You missed the meeting.”

  “I just heard about it. What was it?”

  “I’ve been trying to reach you all weekend. Your phone’s been off the hook or something.”

  “They’re installing videophone in my apartment complex,” he lied. “The phones have been screwed up ever since.”

  “Patrick’s in his office. We better go see him.”

  “Now? What’s the big deal?” He took another sip of coffee. It was pretty unusual to see Powell so wound up. “The Rooskies declare war or something?”

  “Worse,” J.C. said. “They’ve canceled the DreamStar project.”

  James promptly poured a mouthful of coffee down into his lungs and nearly fell out of his chair. “What. . . ?”

  “You heard me. Let’s go.”

  They hurried down the hallway to McLanahan’s office and burst in on the project director as he was signing a stack of letters.

  “Glad you could be with us today, Ken,” Patrick said, finishing his paperwork and dismissing the squadron clerk. He studied James for a moment. “You look like hell, Captain. Hanging out in the casinos all night again?”

  Powell dropped into a chair to watch the spectacle. James blurted out, “What’s this about the DreamStar project being canceled?”

  “If you’d check your mailbox or put your phone on the hook you’d hear about these minor news flashes—”

  “What the hell are you joking around about?” James’ hands were on the colonel’s desk. “Who canceled the project? Why?”

  “The project was officially canceled by the Air Force this morning,” McLanahan said wearily. He picked up a red-colored folder containing a single message-letter. “There are too many gaps in the scientists’ knowledge of ANTARES to justify funding ... at least in the opinion of the top brass. The flying phase of the project is being canceled until the gaps get filled in . . .”

  James stared at McLanahan. “What do you mean, gaps? I can make it work. I don’t get it . . .”

  “The bottom line is that there’s still only one person who can fly DreamStar—and that’s you. J.C. can’t fly it, at least not past anything more complicated than takeoff and landing. I’ve been trying to learn how to use it and I flunked. Carmichael and his lab can’t really say why it works with you and so far not with anyone else. After my last flight in the ANTARES simulator, I—”

  “You were flying in the simulator?” He sounded as if the colonel had committed a major trespass on his territory, his baby. “You tried to fly ANTARES? Why? I’m DreamStar’s pilot, you’re the project director, you—”

  “I’ve been training in ANTARES for several months. I thought I had it down, but—”

  “That wasn’t a very smart idea, Colonel,” James said. His voice was not sympathetic. “ANTARES can be very unpredictable . . .”

  “Yeah, it damn near killed him,” Powell put in.

  “So you submitted a report saying that ANTARES was dangerous, and headquarters canceled the project?”

  “That’s not the way it went down, Ken. The project was slated to lose its flight-phase funding at the end of this fiscal year. The cancellation was going to happen anyway. My . . . accident only moved up the timetable a few months.”

  James turned away, tried to control himself, but his mind was working overtime in its reaction to this information. He had just told Kramer and Moffitt that everything was going as planned, that he was even going to countermand the KGB’s order to steal DreamStar . . . Now the project was going to be canceled. The KGB would never believe that he didn’t know about the cancellation. His credibility would be totally destroyed—they would think he was double-crossing them for sure.

  “Sorry, Ken,” McLanahan was saying, “but it seems like they only needed an excuse to shut it down ...”

  “What will happen to us?”

  “We’re reforming the Cheetah ATF program. J.C. will be the senior pilot. I imagine they’ll ask you to stay on in the ANTARES project. They’ll want to continue their research in the laboratory . . .”

  “I won’t fly any more?”

  “Only enough for flight-time currency. You’ll get your required twenty hours a calendar quarter in the T-45A trainer, plus a lot of time in the ANTARES simulator. You’ll . .

  “You mean I’ll be reduced to a guinea pig?”

  “I don’t think you have any choice, Ken,” Powell said. “Being the only guy who can fly DreamStar can be a curse as well as a blessing. Carmichael and his people need you to continue their research. They can’t figure out how to teach others to learn the ANTARES interface unless they figure out how you accomplished it.”

  Things were going to hell very, very quickly, James thought. “How soon before we stop flight operations? Will there at least be time for one more flight?” And added quickly, “I hate to see it go out this way ...”

  McLanahan rubbed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “I had to fight like crazy to get Air Force to agree to let us complete the weapons-mating test. They wouldn’t buy off on any more flight tests, though. Absolutely no way.”

  “But they are going to finish the mating test?”

  “They’ve been working all weekend on it,” Powell said. “They should have it finished by tonight or tomorrow morning and then start offloading the Scorpion missiles right after that. I wanted to get some pictures of DreamStar with Scorpion missiles on it—it may be the only time we’ll see that for years.”

  The weapons-mating test—James had his answer . . . “What a waste, Colonel,” he said, trying hard to act more subdued while formulating his plan . . . “An incredible waste. All this time, all this effort ...”

  McLanahan started shuffling papers, a wordless signal to both pilots that the meeting was over, he had nothing more to say.

  “One thing’s for sure,” Powell said to James as they headed for the door. “You’ll go down in the books as the first pilot of a thought-controlled aircraft.”

  James only murmured something and nodded. His mind was a long way away—on plans for the last flight of DreamStar.

  * * *

  Unlike most times, it was still light outside when McLanahan returned home that evening. Still more unusual was finding that he had actually beat Wendy home—but then he heard a faint sound from the bedroom. He opened the door and found her sitting cross-legged on the bed, her arms pulling her knees to her chest. She had the shades drawn and the room was in darkness—she must have overriden the automatic lights.

  “Wendy? What’s wrong? How long have you been here?”

  “Not long . . . how do you feel?”

  “I feel fine . . . anything wrong?”

  “No.”

  No tears in
her voice, no sadness, but it was hardly like her to coop herself up like this. “Why are you sitting here in the dark?”

  “Thinking.”

  “About what?”

  She remained curled up, staring toward the windows.

  He put the light switch back on AUTO and the lights snapped on. He sat down beside her. “All right, Wendy. What’s going on?” Still no answer. “Something at work? Something with the Old Dog project?”

  “. . . I had my flight physical this morning.”

  The smile disappeared from his face. “All right, enough damn mystery. Out with it.” And then saw the pamphlet in the wicker wastebasket beside the bed. Even upside down and crumpled he could read the title: “Facts About Your . . .”

  “Pregnancy? You’re pregnant?”

  She looked apologetic. “Patrick, this is all wrong . . . I’m sorry—“

  “Sorry? What are you sorry about?”

  “This . . . that . . . oh, damn . . .”

  “Wendy, you’re babbling. Tell me what in the world you’re so sorry about.”

  “I don’t want you to think that I ... I did this on purpose, trapping you or something—”

  “Of course I don’t think that.” He slid over and put his arms around her. “Don’t be silly, I’m trying to absorb it, but I’m delighted—”

  She seemed to stiffen. She backed away and looked at him, hard and long. “Do you mean it? Because if you’re just saying it—”

  “Of course I do. Hey, I love you . . .”

  She collapsed in his arms. “I was so worried . . . afraid you’d think I was trying the last dodge—”

  He shut her up by kissing her. “Like I said, I happen to love you, I want you and I want our son . . . daughter . . .” And he began to kiss her again.

  She pulled herself free. “I want you to make sure, Patrick. This is so important—”

  “Then it’s settled. Let’s go.”

  “Go? Go where?”

  “Downtown.”

  “Downtown? Why do you want to—?” And then she understood.