He wasn’t going to give up the Scotch, though, despite what the docs at Walter Reed said about mixing booze with meds. It was the only goddamn thing that let him sleep at night. He wished he had a flask with him now, but Vandenberg had spent thirty years in the military without taking a drink on duty, and he was going to hold on to that distinction until he retired.
That day was probably coming soon. He hated admitting it, but the pain was getting unmanageable some days. The docs gave him maybe six months if he stayed in uniform and kept trying to do his job, maybe a year or two if he gave in and retired. But what the hell would happen then? Bedridden and drugged? Vandenberg had flown combat over Africa and Italy during the war. He wanted a better end than that. He probably wouldn’t get it, though.
And the kid flying this bird seemed to have a natural affinity for finding turbulence. The pilot looked to be all of seventeen, blond-haired and freckled like the boys on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. Sure, he was a first lieutenant and probably ten years older than that. But Vandenberg knew his appraisal was shaded by his own mortality.
With a sigh and a wince of pain, Vandenberg pulled a folder from his bag and began reading. The Russia op wasn’t a bust, per se, but it sure as hell wasn’t going according to plan. Wallace had reported on Frank Lodge’s exploits as if they were all part of the plan, and suggested Maggie Dubinsky was playing double agent. How much of this was true, and how much of it was to help cover a massive snafu, Vandenberg couldn’t say. But he knew Wallace was inherently cautious — a trait which made him an excellent field operative. What was going on now was far too cowboy for Wallace. Lodge, sure. Lodge could rely on the expertise, skills, and memories of, at last count, forty-three different people. But Wallace was the commander on the scene, and Lodge would have to go through him — unless he went off on his own.
What a mess. And now Wallace wanted to smuggle the three captured Soviet Variants out of the country and back to the U.S. for study, to see if Beria’s assertion of changes in Variant abilities was indeed true. And since the NKVD and MGB were now on lockdown — the Lubyanka was completely off limits, as was the Kremlin — Wallace wanted to send Lodge and Sorensen to East Germany, of all places, on the recommendation of Rose Stevens, in order to drum up dissent and try to give Beria another black eye.
Oh, and to top it all off, three Variants were missing in action in the Korean theater.
President Eisenhower had been spitting bullets when they’d briefed him a few days ago. Publicly, Ike was a model of Midwestern restraint and moderation, but the President could deploy his rage like a tank column hitting the breach. Vandenberg and Dulles had gotten an earful yesterday, culminating in an ultimatum — figure out what’s going on with the Variants, fix the Russia op and get Beria out of there, or else the MAJESTIC-12 program would be shut down for good.
Dulles was managing the Russia end of things, and seemed to be settling in for the long game. CIA would start drawing up plans to try to get the Soviet Variants out from behind the Iron Curtain, and the director was leaning toward approving the East German op, if only to get some of the Variants out of the Soviet Union for a while to let things cool down.
Vandenberg — the most senior official remaining in the MAJESTIC-12 program — had been tasked with getting to the bottom of the potential changes in Variant Enhancements, hence the trip to Idaho aboard a rust-bucket cargo plane now on its final approach to Mountain Home Air Force Base, blessedly beyond the mountains.
Of course, the kid at the controls jostled the landing, causing Vandenberg to nearly cry out in pain as his body bounced off the seat. Sure, the crosswinds over the high prairie were pretty intense sometimes, but what the hell were they teaching those kids before giving them their wings? He hoped the new Air Force Academy, once it opened, would do a better job. And he hoped he’d get to see it opened some day.
Vandenberg packed up his things, got up, and headed for the hatch, pausing to shake the pilot’s hand and give him a little advice on the wind. He was tempted to rip the kid’s head off, but knew that wouldn’t really teach him anything, so he opted for magnanimous paternal advice and hoped it would pay off. Heading down the stairs, he saw Detlev Bronk waiting for him next to a jeep, carrying a briefcase.
“How was the flight, General?” Bronk asked after a handshake.
“Bumpy. How do things look here?”
The lanky scientist just scowled. “Let’s get you to a secure area.”
Bronk took the general’s duffel and threw it into the jeep, hopping into the driver’s side. The biophysicist wasn’t full-time at Mountain Home anymore, having accepted a position at Johns Hopkins. Rumor had it that he’d soon be running the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research. Bronk was a smart guy, and cleared for everything related to MAJESTIC-12, so it was perfectly natural to bring him back for an audit.
Within minutes, the jeep pulled up to a large prefab hangar, notable only for the multiple layers of barbed wire around it and the squadron of MPs at the gate. Both men had their credentials reviewed three times, and were searched thoroughly enough to make Vandenberg wince again, before they finally entered the building itself. Inside was a cramped conference room, where Bronk flipped a switch on a small metal box on the table — an electronic jammer designed to confound listening devices.
“We have a problem,” Bronk began. “I thought you said you’d have your best minds working on this project.”
Vandenberg was taken aback. “We do. Or we did. We assigned Lloyd Berkner and Don Wenzel to the project after you left. What happened?”
Bronk snorted as he took a seat, leaning back and folding his arms across his body. “I’ve met them. Fine men, sure. But their background is in engineering and radiation, not biology or the kind of physics we need to really study this thing.”
“Not everybody can get themselves a TOP SECRET clearance these days, what with McCarthy and all the paranoia,” Vandenberg replied with a shrug. “So what did they miss?”
“A little too much. For one, the study of the Variants themselves is almost completely lacking now. Any new Variants are brought in and assessed for their Enhancements, then sent off to training. They’re establishing a baseline, sure, but there’s no further testing. And neither of those men trusts Rose Stevens enough to let her in on it, so the greatest mind we have available to us is being purposefully left out of the loop.”
Vandenberg scowled. “I know. Same with Wallace. That’s a direct order from Truman after what happened in ’49, and Eisenhower agreed to keep it that way. The vortex study and Variant assessments aren’t part of their purview now.”
“Well, that’s dumb, Hoyt. Between the two of them, they’re the sum total of the institutional knowledge around this project, aside from me.” Bronk opened his briefcase and started pulling out files. “I have them doing follow-ups on the Variants we have left here now, mostly new recruits, to see if there’s any changes in their Enhancements, as well as their physical and psychological profiles. Probably won’t have anything for a few more days yet, but already I’m starting to see evidence that some of their abilities have changed. Nothing big, but a few of them have taken on some new side effects, and we already have one — you know the Spanish girl who can fly? She can now go supersonic, whereas she couldn’t before.”