Tomahawk (9 page)

Bells shrilled. A rotating beacon began to flash. Two thuds echoed off the bunker.

The clamshelled upper section came up surprisingly fast. The only indication of the effort it took to lift those tons of metal was the muffled hammer of a prime mover back in the power room. A shining steel rod carried the launch tubes up with it, till they pointed at the empty sky.

Slater said, “Okay, she's open. Elevation angle thirty-five degrees relative to the deck. You can see the canister support assembly and the fronts of the four tubes. The top two have the frangible covers in place. Those are the starred discs, look like the front of a shotgun shell. The bottom two, you can see the nose of the missile. All four have the same electrical and data connections, so you can put any variant in any tube. The heating and cooling system maintains storage temperatures from minus forty to plus one hundred and twenty degrees in direct sun. Fire and security alarms tie into existing ship systems. Any questions?”

Sakai asked, “How about pitch and roll?”

“We sized bolts and shear forces for a sixty-degree roll. I don't think you're going to get that on a battleship. Actually, I seem to recall the
Iowa
class, you roll ‘em too far, the turrets drop out so you don't capsize.”

Dan was thinking that one over when Slater added, “Let me say one more thing, Commander. I wanted to bid on the production units. We could kick you out a nice product. But I got overruled. The company doesn't want to commit on the time frame you're laying out. It's better just to say up front we can't do it than to look stupid later.” The other reps looked at the launcher, ignoring the taunt.

“Are those actual missiles in there now?” Dan asked him.

“No, those are blind rounds—identical shape, size, weight, but no internal structure. Used them to work up the loading equipment.” Slater pointed at an assemblage of metal rods and beams by the bunker. “I recommend you order your loaders from the same guys you get your boxes from. Otherwise, one company's loaders are going
to be a quarter inch off, or the bolt will have different threads.”

Dan noted that. “Okay, thanks for the show. Have you guys got any questions?”

“I do,” said the FMC engineer. He had on a Bills wind-breaker. “Can we streamline the design? And fix a couple things? Like these dual latching mechanisms—you get any kind of torsion, they're gonna dealign and jam. We can do better than that.” He grinned at Slater.

Sakai said, “The latching mechanisms are probably mandated by the nuclear weapons security program.”

“That's right,” said Slater. “You want to improve the design, fine, but make sure you meet those specs. They also approved our nuclear surety link. Those you can buy from us, by the way.”

A middle-aged Unidynamics guy in a sport coat asked, “Command and control?”

“It's called WCS EX mod three and that's all I know about it. Except that there's a lot of glitches in the software build. What bit stream comes through the wires, you're gonna have to ask the commander here.”

Sakai said, “The back end of the launch control system processing is thirty-two signal data translators, one per tube. Each one provides discrete logic-level translation of the flight and firing data direct to the missile. Don't sweat it. All you guys need to do is put in the specified connector.”

“You know, I'm starting to like you, Sparky,” Dan told him. “Any other questions, fellas? … Yeah, you can take pictures if you want.”

The Vimy engineer said, “And a bid deadline, end of the month. Gonna be late nights, next couple weeks.”

“I know. We've been pulling all-nighters, too.” Dan said to Slater, who was leaving, “Can we leave it open like this?”

“Sure. Just power down the console and then tell the guys in the bunker you're securing.”

The Vimy engineer caught up with Dan as he was heading toward the bunker. The others were still grouped around the ABL; a strobe flashed as one leaned in under the raised clamshell, a Jonah peering down the gullet of
the whale. “We're hungry for this one. Got a lot of guys down in Texas looking for this work.”

“You think you can do it, get that bid in. We're definitely gonna award it, thirty-two units first buy, a lot more downstream.”

“Who makes the final decision? You?”

“I don't know if I should answer that,” said Dan. “So I guess I won't.”

“Any way we can get an edge? Anything special we can put in there?”

“I don't think so. You've got all the same info the other guys have.”

“We've done a lot of Navy work. We're pretty hungry.” The man waited, then, when Dan still didn't respond, handed him a card. “Well, you think of something, call me, all right? Doesn't have to be an official communication. Just give me a call.”

“Sure,” said Dan. He finally got the attention of one of the enlisted men, and he yelled, “We're through. It's yours.”

A few minutes later, as he was getting into the car, the card fluttered out of his pocket as he pulled out his keys. He picked it up off the floor. A newspaper clipping was stuck to the back. The headline read HOUSE DISCUSSES CUTS IN MILITARY RETIREMENT PLAN.

“The hell's that?” said Sakai, glancing at it as Dan wondered if it was what it seemed to be. Or if it was just an accident—that two unrelated things had gotten stuck together in the vendor's wallet. But it wasn't anything you could actually call an inducement. Finally, he crunched it in his fist and tossed it over his shoulder into the back of the car.

“Trash,” he said. “Let's go, we got an eleven-fifteen departure.”

6

 

 

 

And rapidly and smoothly as a Metro train accelerating, autumn was on them.

He hardly had time to look up from his desk as the weeks flicked by. Between trips, he was pulling fourteen-hour days, working Saturdays and often Sundays, too. He had to put two of his evening classes on hold; there just weren't enough hours. He still kept making Szerenci's, though. And there was always time for a few beers at Mr. Henry's. He even managed to convert some of the analysis he was doing into papers for class, scrubbed to remove classified information.

Now late on an October afternoon, he lifted his head and stared at the window. Then checked the wall clock and whispered, “Hell.”

He got up suddenly and slid his drawer closed and locked it. He shot a glance into the corridor, then pulled his blues off and hung them. He slid his gear bag out from under the desk and pulled a set of worn gray Naval Academy sweats over his skivvies. He laced his running shoes and tried a stretch. His muscles felt like overtightened guitar strings.

“Going running?” Sakai turned his head from a Lotus display.

“I'm going stir-crazy, got to break a sweat. You still on those slides?”

“Couple hours yet.”

‘Tomorrow's Saturday. I'll just come in and change here. Don't forget to lock the safe.”

The engineer didn't respond. Dan tucked his ID and apartment key into the lacing of his shoe, checked his drawer again—the lock didn't always catch the first time—and left.

Outside, the sidewalks were thronged with tired-looking people heading for the Metro, for their cars, parked along the narrow streets west of Jeff Davis Highway. He did a few more stretches and twists, then punched his Casio and pushed his reluctant body into motion.

He wove between pedestrians, then broke out at a crossing light. A dark blue sky opened. Glancing at the sun, he figured he had an hour of visibility left. Enough, if he kept up a good pace.

He usually ran along the C and O Canal, a long-abandoned waterway that paralleled the Potomac. Instead of heading directly north, though, he swerved east, heading up onto the overpass to National Airport. A longer run, but it got you to a riverside path that was both more visually appealing and safer than trying to second-guess rush-hour traffic. A narrow sidewalk jammed him against the edge of the flyover. He sucked air, leaning into the climb as his shoes scuffed on grit and butts and fragments of disintegrated tires. He felt strong now. Maybe he'd try a couple of timed miles once he got warmed up.

For the first mile or so, he was always right there, but then his mind would detach from his body and the two would travel independently, the sweating, panting animal and the thing that thought a few inches above its heart. Now as his feet thudded on concrete and the hangars came into sight, tapered fuselages glittering in the rosy evening light, his mind reverted to planning conferences, due dates, milestones, reports.

The contract award on the launchers had gone through, with bonuses for early deliveries and penalties for delays. FMC came in with the high bid, with Unidynamics next and Vimy the low bidder. The board had split the buy among all three. Dan had visited each plant, making sure everyone was working to the same set of plans. FMC had a modern production line in Minnesota. Unidynamics had an older factory in St. Louis, with engineers and machinists
with German names. They didn't have the latest numerically controlled equipment, but they made up for it in craftsmanship. Vimy Manufacturing had impressed him less favorably. It was a converted auto-parts factory west of Austin.

A wide curve left, and a bike path came into view. Asphalt with occasional stretches of worn grass, it followed the Memorial Parkway along the Potomac, over a bridge beneath which sailboats entered and left the marina. Sometimes he stopped there, leaning on the rail while he watched their graceful passage, listening to the fluttering luff of the sail edge as it passed a few feet below him.

Today, though, instead of slowing, he stretched out his pace. The cool air soothed his lungs, and his muscles felt loose and his head was clearer, as if the wind off the river were blowing off the work haze from a week of grinding his brain against documents and telephones and other human wills. Across that turbulent darkness, the Washington Monument pricked the sky, and beyond it the scoop of vanilla ice cream that was the Capitol.

He swung left as he reached the roundabout at the Arlington Memorial Bridge, climbing gradually into the groves and hills of the National Cemetery. Ranks of headstones came into view, then wheeled like soldiers passing in review. The trees swayed to a chilling wind, and shadows grappled on the pathways.

A distant note reached his ear. He almost kept on—nö one would notice or know—then something slowed his steps. It was these silent graves. Each stone marking what had once been a living man. Each knowing fear, pain, grief… but still doing his duty. He knew men who slept here. High school classmates who'd died in Vietnam. Academy friends—some gone down in burning helicopters, others who'd missed the wire or tumbled into the sea on cold cat shots, one who'd been shot in the head in Panama as he waited at a stoplight.

He halted, faced the invisible bugler, and put his hand on his heart.

Go to sleep, Go to sleep, Go to sleep now and rest in your tents.
…

He stood at attention, alone. Alone, yet surrounded by men who had offered themselves to death, in the belief something was worth more than their lives.

A chill searched his back. After all, it was Halloween … the night when spirits walked and the unexpected happened. He didn't believe in ghosts, but he still felt better when the last note trailed off.

He pushed his now-wearying legs back into motion. They went
shuush, shuush
through drifts of maple leaves. He thought, At least in their day, war could settle something, win independence or free a race or destroy fascism. A war today … How many nuclear weapons were targeted on him right now as he ran? Szerenci had compared the Soviet and U.S. strategic forces. The USSR had 7,000 warheads, according to CIA estimates; the United States had over 9,000, building fast toward a goal of 13,500. To make up for their lag in numbers, the Russians loaded their gigantic boosters with warheads yielding the equivalent of 20, 30, 50 million tons of TNT. The zones of destruction covered the whole District of Columbia. Even those who survived the toppling of the crystal towers would die, poisoned by fallout from deliberately dirty Soviet bombs.

His feet brushed through the dead leaves. Millions of dead leaves…

He picked up the pace to escape his gloomy imaginings, winding now downward past titanic warriors straining against a flagpole, past marines in dress blues folding a flag.

His mind returned to what occupied it nearly every waking moment.

The program was emerging into the public eye, and in no positive light. The
Post
had begun it with a scathing review of flight-test results. Subsequent articles, by a defense writer and aerospace analyst named Martin Tallinger, had pursued the story into the forced participation of the Air Force, allegations of payoffs, and objections from the arms-control bureaucracy. The series ran for day after day, painting Tomahawk as a financial sinkhole, a technological pipe dream, an escalatory provocation. The latest news was that the House was scheduling hearings,
called by a congressman and Congressional Medal of Honor holder named Dwayne Harrow. Harrow had spent five years in captivity after his spotter plane was shot down in Vietnam. He'd escaped once and made it across the DMZ, but was recaptured by the Vietcong and returned to Hanoi, where he was tortured and beaten so severely, he'd never walked again.