“You took another fox-one up the tail,” he said in a dry tone. “That’s the second time you’ve let that happen. You’ve got to work together, comrades, or you’re never going to make it. We’ve been doing this sixteen hours a day for over a week now. You should be getting it down. We’ve got to start seeing some rapid improvement, my friends. It only gets harder from here.”
In the simulator across from Ammon and Morozov, the two controllers who piloted the MiG-31 s smiled at each other again. So far their job had been very easy.
Ammon heard Morozov throw his helmet up against his console, smashing it loudly against the plastic screen of the simulator. The smoke from Morozov’s cigarette began to cloud the tiny cockpit.
Though the United States Air Force dealt with some of the most highly classified and sensitive information that had ever existed, they had not had a serious internal breach of security in over forty years. All through the ’80s and early ’90s, while the Navy suffered through the Walker spy ease and Pollard scandal, while the CIA tried to estimate how many informants had been killed and how much damage had really been done by Aldrich Ames, while the Army dealt with the sudden embarrassment of the Seymour treason, the Air Force had remained above it all.
This was due in large part to the work that was accomplished in a cramped and busy office buried deep in the bowels of USCOM, an even more cramped and noisy building in the center of Bolling Air Force Base. Located just across the river from the Pentagon, Bolling was near enough to the center of power to know what was going on, yet because it wasn’t as convenient to get to as the Pentagon, by and large the politicians and heavy brass left its workers alone, allowing them to do their job without a great deal of supervision or interference.
Located in the basement of the USCOM building was the office of the Internal Counter-Espionage Division, or ICED. Set up in the early ’80s, ICED’s mission was to monitor, track, observe, and ferret out any spies that might be hiding within the Air Force. Not only did they monitor the whereabouts of suspected spies, they also kept an extensive list of anyone with a TOP SECRET security clearance who they also suspected might be willing to lean in that direction. Young airmen with unusually high burdens of debt, suspected homosexuals, rebellious sergeants, or officers with wounded egos — all of these were people that ICED liked to keep a close eye on.
And through the years, they had had great success on two fronts. First, they had been able to stop several potentially damaging spy rings before they had much success. Second, because they were internal to the Air Force, ICED was able to complete its work without having to look to the outside for help, thus greatly reducing their public exposure. No bad news was ever leaked to the press.
At 6:50 in the morning — at about the same time that Ammon and Morozov were getting shot down in their simulator — Lieutenant Colonel Oliver Tray, deputy director of ICED, was just arriving to work. A slender man with narrow shoulders and sandy blond hair, Tray was dressed in tight bike shorts and a loose fitting t-shirt, having ridden his bike in to work. After hoisting his mountain bike down two flights of stairs, he hid it away in a broom closet and headed down the hallway, through the security doors, to the office lounge. Lt Col Tray bypassed the percolating pot of coffee and trays of glazed donuts and, instead, poured himself a glass of orange juice from the miniature cooler. Gulping the orange juice down, he turned and headed back down the narrow hallway to the men’s bathroom to shower.
On his way to the bathroom he passed the director’s office. As he strode by the open glass doors, the director’s secretary looked up from her tidy desk and called out. “Ollie, if you have a minute, Colonel Fullbright wanted to see you.” Tray stopped in his tracks and turned to face Kay, the middle-aged secretary who ran the director’s office. Pointing to his sweating clothes he silently mouthed the word “Now?”
“He said to tell you as soon as you came in,” Kay responded to Oliver’s gesture. “He’s on the telephone to General Mann right now. If you hurry, I’ll try to cover for you.” Tray smiled and gave a quick thumbs up as he hurried down the hall.
Ten minutes later, freshly showered and dressed in a clean blue uniform, Lt Col Tray walked into his boss’s office and took a seat by the enormous oak-top desk.
“Have you seen the morning reports?” the colonel asked, throwing a thick red folder across the desk toward his assistant director. He liked Lt Col Tray, but worked him hard. It was just part of their business.
“Uh, no sir. I just got in.”
Something must be going on, and as usual, the director was the first one to know. It was to avoid embarrassing situations such as these that Tray usually showed up to work at least thirty minutes before his boss, allowing enough time to take a look at the overnight message traffic before Colonel Fullbright came in. So how was it that Colonel Fullbright seemed to always be the first one in when something was up? Did he have some kind of sixth sense, or was he just lucky? Tray really didn’t know, but he hated how it always seemed to work out that way.
Of course, Tray wasn’t the first one to sit in wonder at some of the things Fullbright seemed to come up with. Truth was, Fullbright was one of the most intelligent men in the entire Air Force. A graduate of MIT, he had moved up through the ranks with lightning speed, and had already been selected to receive his first star, for many of the nation’s top generals had also taken notice of the man. He was young and brash and cool as ice under pressure. And Oliver Tray loved working for him.
Which was the main reason he seemed so embarrassed to tell his boss that he hadn’t yet read the morning reports.
Fullbright watched Tray shake his head, then said, as he waved his hand toward the red binder, “Well, take a look at this. It’s rather lengthy, so go ahead and take it back to your desk. Give it some thought, then come and tell me what you think.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll get right back to you.” Tray picked up the folder and stood up from his chair and started to walk out of the room.
“I’ve got to tell you, you’re going to love this,” Fullbright said with a snort as Tray made his way to the door. “When I read it, it almost blew me away.”
“Interesting reading?” Tray replied, not knowing exactly what Fullbright meant.
“Yeah. Do an initial check-out, if you can. See if you think this guy might just be blowing smoke. Bring him here if you need to. I’ll get back with you later on this morning.”
Tray turned around to leave once again. He was almost out the door before Fullbright called him back. “Oliver, there’s one more thing I wanted to ask you.”
“Sir?”
“What about BADGER? How does it look?”
Tray wrinkled his nose. “Nothing, sir. Nothing at all. I’m afraid it doesn’t look very good.”
The colonel swore. “I can’t believe that we lost him! How could he just disappear? How did we let him slip through our hands?”
“Unless…“ Lt Colonel Tray paused, “unless he was actually killed.”
“Do you really believe that might be what happened?” Fullbright asked.
After some thought, Oliver replied, “No sir, I don’t. Although it’s the most likely explanation, still, I don’t think it is as simple as that. I’m afraid we might have let him slip away.”
Fullbright swore again and frowned.
“Sir, we always knew this could happen. If they wanted him back, there really wasn’t much we could do.”
“Yes, I know, but still that doesn’t make it any easier. We’ve got two lousy options. Either he’s dead, or we let them bring him in. Either way, we didn’t do our job.”