Hellfire c-20 Read online

Coyote entered the compartment, and Strain moved quietly to a corner. That was another thing about the newly promoted lieutenant that Lab Rat liked, his ability to fade into the background until he was needed. Hard to do when you were Strain’s size, too.

  “Your people ready?” Coyote asked. “I got to tell you, there’s a lot more riding on this test now than there was a few hours ago.”

  Lab Rat ran his hand over his scalp, feeling the small bristles poking into his palm. “It’ll work. It’s got to.”

  “You sound sure about that.”

  “I am, Admiral.”

  “Well.” Coyote stared at the computer screen showing the relative positions of all the ships in this part of the ocean. The symbols formed a neat geometric pattern on the screen, courses and speed represented by speed leaders. Too bad reality wasn’t as orderly. “The sooner we get it over with, the better I’ll feel. Especially when we COD the civilians off the ship.” He glanced over at Lab Rat. “They’re a pain in the ass.”

  “Yes, Admiral. But they own the gear until we sign off on the formal acceptance of it.”

  Coyote waved him off irritably. “I know, I know. As much as we’ve paid them for developing the damn thing, you think they’d be easier to get along with.” The defense contractors had been cluttering up the flag mess for weeks.

  “We’ll know tonight, Admiral. As soon as it tests sat, I’ll have them secure all the gear and pack up their stuff. We’ll have them out on the next COD.”

  Coyote stared moodily at the screen. “Yeah, I know.” He stood and stretched, feeling the long hours seeping into his bones. “The sooner the better. DESRON wants the ASW module back, and the techs are bitching about the power distribution panels and the new wiring harnesses, and the chief engineer is going hermitile over the voltage drop in there. That shit draws a hell of a lot of power.”

  “First COD,” Lab Rat promised.

  “Let’s hope that’s soon enough. Call me if there are any changes.” Coyote took one last look at the tactical plot before leaving.

  Strain moved quietly to Lab Rat’s side. “I’ll go through the pre-op checklist again, sir.”

  Lab Rat shook his head. “No. We’re ready. If you really want to do something useful—”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “—then go check on the COD availability. I have a feeling the admiral’s going to be more interested in that than another checklist.”

  Washington, DC

  The Beltway

  0900 local (GMT-5)

  Tombstone pulled his cherry red muscle car into the parking lot. The office building was typical of the structures that were home to a multitude of small defense contractors known as the Beltway Bandits. The design had been modern fifteen years ago, when defense industry money seemed to be an endless stream of cash and new defense contractors and consultants would pop up overnight. It featured an impressive foyer replete with a waterfall and large plants, marbled floors and express elevators. The entire impression of the lobby was one of luxury.

  Not so for the floors farther up the sixteen-story building. At least half had absolutely no windows. The target occupants required areas that could satisfy the Department of Defense regulations for security, and the building specifications required to house top secret material. Each floor was separated from the others by a layer of steel, and the concrete brick of the structure was designed to prevent eavesdropping and electronic surveillance.

  The sixteenth floor was particularly secure. The rents charged were commensurate with the degree of security the floor afforded its occupants, and ranged from merely high to absolutely outrageous. Nevertheless, the building never had a shortage of potential renters for the sixteenth-floor facilities.

  That Advanced Analysis had been able to obtain a small suite of rooms was something of a curiosity to the other occupants. Normally, one spent months, perhaps years on the waiting list. How it was that Advanced Analysis had managed to move in immediately just eight months ago was a mystery. No one had ever heard of them and no one had ever worked with them before their appearance on the scene.

  A few of the more knowledgeable defense contractors quietly took note of that, along with the priority given to their tenancy, glanced at the sign-in log in the lobby, and noted that few visitors ever came to Advanced Analysis. And finally, they took in the occasional appearance of two very familiar faces in the passageway and elevators: retired Admiral Thomas Magruder and his nephew, retired Vice Admiral Matthew Magruder.

  While other defense contractors speculated on Advanced Analysis’s projects and complained about their intrusion into the sixteenth floor — one small computer company had wanted the spaces to expand their own operations — the wiser among them kept their collective mouths shut. They had seen this before and knew what it meant, more often in the bad old days of the Cold War than now, but the pattern was all too familiar. In all probability, Advanced Analysis was not a normal aspiring defense contractor. Not with those two men involved. Advanced Analysis was most probably a front for the CIA or perhaps another agency with an interest in certain special operations. There were always things that needed doing that no one in the established military structure wanted to be responsible for. Sure, they recognized the necessity, even suggested particular operations, but when it came down to committing forces to the operations, the enthusiasm evaporated.

  The outer office and lobby of Advanced Analysis was done in traditional colors and style. Mauve and sky blue predominated, with modern pictures composed of interesting fabrics and textures gracing the walls. The waiting room had several comfortable chairs, a plastic and slightly dusty small tree in one corner, and a few outdated magazines carefully arranged on the side tables. It gave little evidence of ever being used.

  To date, Advanced Analysis had only four employees: the two Magruders, another Tomcat pilot named Jeremy Greene, and a receptionist, Janice Hall. Greene was technically a civilian, and had accepted a discharge from the Navy with the understanding that if he left Advanced Analysis he would be immediately recalled to active duty. Hall was a quiet, sharp woman, adept at maintaining the outer facade of the company. She fielded incoming calls, collected the resumes dropped off by job hunters and kept the small refrigerator stocked. Of the four, only Hall had regular hours. The other three worked insane hours when a mission was prepping and stood down between missions.

  Tombstone had just returned from two weeks in Africa. There had been some indications that his wife, the former Tomboy Flynn, had been taken there as a prisoner following her ejection at sea. Tomboy, as the commanding officer of VF 95, had punched out when her aircraft was fatally damaged.

  A month before, a Navy captain had risked her career to provide him with photo-intelligence shots of a rebel camp. In one of them, Tombstone could clearly make out Tomboy’s face, lifted up toward the sky. It was a procedure that all aviators were taught, to expose their faces to the sky in hopes that a satellite or reconnaissance aircraft would be able to identify them. Analysis indicated that she was probably at a rebel camp in Africa. Tombstone had few contacts in the area, but that did not prevent him from going there personally and imposing on every possible government official to gain access to the interior.

  “Good morning, sir,” Hall said as Tombstone strode into the waiting room. “Your uncle is already here.”

  “And Jeremy?” Tombstone asked.

  Hall shook her head. “Traffic, probably.”

  “Probably. Again,” Tombstone said. None of them punched a clock at Advanced Analysis, but certain standards of behavior were expected when an operation was in the offing. Even during downtimes, they were expected to stay in contact with the office, ready for immediate recall. Since the last mission, Greene had been increasingly restless and sometimes difficult to locate when needed.

  Tombstone knew what was at the heart of the younger aviator’s attitude. Jeremy was a pilot and he wanted to fly. When he accepted the offer to join Advanced Analysis, he had been assured that he would be flying, an
d in more dangerous situations than he would in the fleet. It hadn’t worked out that way, and too much of it had been Tombstone’s fault.

  I should have taken a RIO, not another pilot. And I should get him more stick time.

  Damn it all, it was so hard to turn over the controls. But how was Jeremy going to get the experience that Tombstone had without — well, experience?

  I’ll talk to Uncle about it. Get a couple of RIOs and start planning on two aircraft missions. Otherwise, we’re going to lose him. I can feel it.

  The security door opened as Hall let him in. Tombstone strode down the short passageway to his office, checked for messages, and then headed for the conference room. A few hours catching up on paperwork, and he would be done.

  His uncle was already there, perusing a thin brown folder. “Morning,” Tombstone said. “Anything up?”

  “Maybe.” His uncle sighed heavily, shut the folder, and shoved it across the table to Tombstone. “Although I’m not sure what we can do about it. We might not even be involved.”

  Before he took the folder, Tombstone paused to study his uncle. In the last three months, his uncle’s boundless enthusiasm for Advanced Analysis and its mission seemed to have waned. Instead of presenting the ruddy, cheerful face he normally did to the world, his uncle had lost a good deal of color. His face tended to look gray and drawn now, and he appeared older than he had in years.

  “Is anything wrong?” Tombstone asked, his hand still on the closed folder. “You don’t look so hot.”

  “I’m fine,” his uncle said.

  “You sure?”

  His uncle glared at him, his eyes piercing under his heavy eyebrows. There was a grim set to his face, a determination that Tombstone knew very well. It was an expression he’d seen often during his uncle’s days as chief of naval operations, but less often since he had retired from active duty. Now, seeing the same expression again, Tombstone felt uneasy. “What is it?”

  “Nothing.”

  Tombstone recognized that tone in his uncle’s voice. Questioning him further would just result in an argument. Whatever was going on — and Tombstone was convinced something was — he would have to wait for his uncle to reveal it in his own time.

  Tombstone opened the folder. A satellite photo was on top, and Tombstone spent a few minutes trying to puzzle it out before referring to the attached analysis sheet. Photo-intelligence interpretation was a highly specialized skill, more art than science, and it took trained eyes to extract the most information from a picture.

  He glanced at the technical data before getting to the analyst’s comments. The picture was taken at nighttime by an older geosynchronous satellite and showed a large portion of the Atlantic Ocean. There was a sharp line running across the center on it, linking the top right and bottom left corners. Tombstone had assumed it was a scratch of some sort, or a processing anomaly or gap in the data.

  After reading the analyst’s comments, he flipped back to the photo with renewed interest. “A laser shot,” he said, impressed. “And from a Russian ship. Just why did they let us see this? They know when the satellites are going to be overhead, and what areas are covered by geosynchronous assets. Why test it on a clear day when you know a satellite is watching?”

  “Exactly. But keep reading — there’s more.”

  Tombstone skipped the rest of the report and leafed through the later materials. Just after the analyst’s report was a top secret message from the National Atmospheric and Oceanographic Observatory. It announced the termination of the satellite that had taken the first photo. The cause was listed as unknown, possibly a mechanical failure. The message was classified top secret.

  The message after it went one step further, both in classification and in explanation. It was specially compartmented information, eyes only. Readers had to have a cosmic purple clearance even to know that those messages existed.

  And the contents were stunning. Tombstone whistled softly as he read. “Laser… intentional termination… possible experiment and response to theater ballistic missile testing…” When he finished reading, Tombstone looked up with concern in his eyes. “They think the Russians nailed the satellite? But why? How does that tie in with the theater ballistic missile defense system?”

  “Pretty tightly, if you ask me. You saw the storm of worldwide protest when President Bush first announced that the United States would be pursuing an anti-missile defense system. Well, the rest of the world has had a few years to think about that while we worked on developing an operationally reliable system. It relies on early detection of launches and laser targeting and weaponry for soft kill operations. It makes perfect sense as a tactical system. The first thing anyone would want to do would be eliminate the detection and targeting systems, and that means taking out the space-based lasers. What better weapon to use against a laser than another laser?”

  “Fight fire with fire?” Tombstone mused.

  His uncle nodded. “Exactly. It’s very much like the development of the mutually assured destruction, or MAD, program. If you recall, the think tanks were tasked with coming up with a solution to the possibility of nuclear attack from Russia. They spent years considering defense systems just like this, but the technology didn’t exist then. Finally, some smart kid ran the numbers and came up with the answer — within the budget restraints, the only way to fight the Russian ballistic missiles system was to develop our own. Fire with fire, as you say. That resulted in the insanity of the Cold War. We made it so costly for the Russians to attack that they never did — although they did test our resolve on numerous occasions, not believing that an American would have the guts to push the button.

  “But while the system worked, the downside was that it insured there would be an arms race. And that, as you know, eventually led to nuclear weapons in the hands of rogue states.” His uncle shook his head sadly. “Sometimes I think it would have been better if we’d never uncorked that particular genie.”

  “Maybe if we hadn’t relied on MAD, more research would have been poured into defense systems like the laser,” Tombstone added. “So why are the Russians so dead set against a missile defense system?”

  “Because, to their mind, it means we can attack and not suffer the consequences of MAD. There’s a huge cultural gap between Russia and the United States, don’t ever forget that.”

  “Right. So we’re testing a missile laser system at sea—”

  His uncle interrupted him. “They’re shadowing Jefferson, which is testing our own sea-based ballistic missile defense system. That’s the official story. In response to every query, Russia says it is simply in the same area testing its own systems.”

  “So they planned to use the battle group for surveillance anyway?” Tombstone asked.

  “The thinking is that the Russians are worried enough about the test to stage a little demonstration of their own power. They picked an older satellite, one that wouldn’t have remained in service much longer, and took her out. Maybe they thought they would destroy it before it detected the laser, or that it wouldn’t be able to transmit after being targeted. But fortunately, although her optical capabilities were burned out immediately, she did manage one last data downlink. That picture.”

  “So where do we come in?” Tombstone asked.

  “I don’t know yet. For now, this is all background briefing.” His uncle looked even more troubled and seemed about to continue, then just shook his head. “It’s a complicated situation, Tombstone. More so than I can tell you right now.”

  “I see.”

  “Yeah. I know you don’t like it, but for now you’ll have to let it ride. I’ll fill you in when I can.”

  “No problem.” Tombstone turned his attention back to the message traffic, but had a hard time staying focused. The discomfort on his uncle’s face hinted that there was much more to this than he was letting on. And given the discomfort it was causing the elder Magruder, Tombstone wasn’t so sure he really wanted to know what it was about.

  I re
ally don’t want to know. Tombstone stared at the message in front of him, not seeing it, as he realized how much he meant it. Maybe I’m finally realizing I’m retired. Or maybe it’s just all too much. I’ve spent so much time trying to track down Tomboy, following every lead, worrying about her — maybe there’s just no room left for anything else. There was a time when I had to know every detail, had to. Maybe I can finally put the load down.

  He glanced across at his uncle, who appeared lost in his own thoughts, and felt a flash of guilt. Tombstone might be able to avoid whatever it was, but his uncle couldn’t.

  USS Jefferson

  CDC

  2208 local (GMT-9)

  Blair Edwards was one of the men that Coyote thought of first when the admiral contemplated the indignities of having civilian defense contractors on board his ship. Edwards was a large man, one built on the scale everyone would expect from a Texan. He was almost six and a half feet tall, with broad shoulders narrowing to a solidly muscled waist and legs. As a quarterback at Texas A&M, he had accumulated an impressive record, and had followed it up with a string of business successes as well. Armed with an electrical engineering degree, Edwards had struck out on his own during the height of the Cold War, building from the ground up an electronics and weapons design firm that was second to none. He kept it small so he could control every aspect of the company. While it might not be a household name, everyone in the defense industry knew Edwards Electronics.

  Edwards had been a golden boy during the Reagan era. In a series of top secret contracts, his company had been funded to conduct the initial research and testing on Reagan’s dream of a missile defense system. But the technology had not been there, not then. Reagan had had the dream, but others would have to build the computers to make it possible. When the Star Wars projects had been abandoned, many had thought that Edwards would be crushed.

  Those who knew him well knew better. His closest competitors in France watched him sit back, take stock, and quietly continue his own research. He kept track of all the new technology that might support a missile defense system, updating his designs, keeping a marketing plan so current that some said it was reviewed daily. When the time finally came and technology and leadership collided to produce a favorable environment, Edwards was ready.