Lamborghini didn't go to the lectern, but remained seated at the table. "Sir, we have definite confirmation of a secure voice transmission between the Intrepid and a Russian Orbita earth station receiver at Perm. Yet the spacecraft has refused to respond to any of our own transmissions — on any frequency. We have reviewed the service records of Kapuscinski, Mulcahey, and Rodriquez, and have found nothing anomalous to indicate they would singly, or collectively, do something like this. In fact, their records are unusual in that they're virtually devoid of any black marks. The orbit pattern of the Intrepid has not changed, and the spacecraft has gone past its first reentry window for a touchdown at the Baikonur Cosmodrome shuttle runway — and this brings up a tough question. If the Intrepid is indeed trying to defect, then why hasn't it attempted reentry for a landing at Baikonur?"
"I grant you that the spacecraft has gone past the reentry window," concurred Whittenberg, "but even so, if it's not a defection, what else could explain the Intrepid's scrambled radio transmissions over Perm?"
No one had an answer.
"Very well, then," said the CinC. "Regardless of its passby of Baikonur, we have to assume the worst — that the Intrepid is indeed a defector. In just a little while I'm going to have to place a conference call to Admiral Bergstrom and the Secretary of Defense and brief them on the situation. They're going to ask me for a proposal on how we respond to this. What do we do?"
There was a prolonged silence.
Lydia Strand, Lamborghini's deputy, absently felt the clasp on the back of her head to make sure her long, dark hair was up in place before saying, "Sir?"
"Yes, Major," said Whittenberg.
"I agree that the Intrepid must definitely have gone over. I mean, there simply is no other explanation for its behavior. Now if we take that premise as a given, it means there has to be a reason why it passed up Baikonur on its first go-around."
"And the reason?" asked Sir Isaac as he stoked up his pipe.
Strand cocked her head to one side. "I think it can only mean that the Intrepid is either damaged or the controlling party is not a pilot — which would mean it was Rodriquez."
"And?'' prompted Sir Isaac again. He was following her train of thought.
"If the shuttle is damaged, or if the controlling party is unable to fly the spacecraft through reentry, then the Russians would have to send someone up to repair it or fly it down, or maybe send up one of their own shuttles and transfer the payload to it. Whatever the case—"
"They would have a launch vehicle on the pad ready to go, or would be hastily assembling one. Maybe as we speak." Sir Isaac finished the thought for her, then looked at Lamborghini. "Colonel?"
The intel chief picked up the baton. "We get every Keyhole satellite we have to start eyeballing their launch facilities, pronto — right, sir?"
"Right," said Whittenberg. "Tell SPADOC we want passes over Baikonur, Plesetsk, and Kapustin Yar, ASAP. Tell them to change orbits if need be and not to spare the fuel. Go make sure they get it right. Now."
Lamborghini nodded and left the room.
"Any other thoughts, Major?" asked Whittenberg.
Strand furrowed her brow. "It's imperative we get to the Intrepid before the Russians do. And whoever we send up should have the means to prevent the Intrepid from falling into Soviet hands."
' 'You mean, if we sent the Constellation up after Intrepid, the Constellation should be able to shoot down or disable her?" asked Michael Dowd, the chief of staff.
"Yes, sir," replied Strand.
"Well, that's just charming. Real charming." The veins on Dowd's neck started to stick out. "The last time I checked I didn't see any air-to-air missiles mounted under the Constellation's wing. What are we going to do? Send the Constellation on a ramming mission? If we do, that leaves three astronauts marooned in orbit with no way of getting them down. Plus we blow up a cool seven or eight billion dollars' worth of equipment in the process. And yCm can forget about an antisatellite missile. Our farsighted President saw fit to send those to the shredder a year ago!"
Whittenberg reached over and gently patted his chief of staff's ham-hock shoulder. "Take it easy, Bull. All of us are wound up pretty tight over this thing. Rest easy. I need you."
Dowd sighed. "Yes, sir. You're right. I'm sorry. And I apologize to you, Major. I hope you know I wasn't sniping at you personally."
"Yes, sir," replied Strand sympathetically.
"It's just, well, the Constellation has no armament, we can't ask the pilots to go on a kamikaze mission, we have no ASATfe, the SDI platform isn't armed yet. We're just flat on our ass. And I feel like we're being played for some kind of suckers — that part especially I just don't like."
Whittenberg leaned back, closed his eyes, and thought carefully before he spoke. "I assume everyone here has an Omega clearance?"
All heads nodded. An Omega clearance was far over and above a Top Secret classification. It was used for only the blackest of the "black," or supersecret, technical programs — such as the Eardrum satellite. The selection of the term Omega was not an accident. Since it was the final letter of the Greek alphabet, it signified that whoever leaked Omega material was at the end of his career.
"What about the Kestrel?" asked Whittenberg.
Dowd raised an eyebrow, then instinctively looked around the room. Before answering he focused on Fairchild. "Sir Isaac, has this room been swept?" which meant electronically inspected for listening devices.
"Yes, Chief," responded Sir Isaac. "Just before the afternoon conference started, as per standard procedures."
Everyone was sensitive about the Kestrel, because not only was the technology hypersecret, its very existence could be construed as a violation of the antisatellite treaty. If some errant Congressman or staffer leaked that to The New York Times there would be hell to pay — several times over. So far, there had been no leaks. But now, given the Intrepufs current situation, the ASAT treaty appeared to be a moot issue.
Still, Dowd looked around once more before speaking. "The Kestrel? Sir, that just isn't feasible. Lockheed just delivered the prototype a month ago. It's still going through avionics testing. The weapons systems have never been fired in a space environment. We haven't even conducted full-scale wind-tunnel tests yet."
"Sir Isaac, have all the avionics and weapons systems been installed?" Whittenberg reflected that 98 percent of being a commander was prodding people in a direction they didn't want to go.
Sir Isaac pinched the bridge of his aquiline nose before saying, "Yes, General, they've been physically installed. But as the chief of staff said, there's still a lot of debugging to do. We figured on four months of avionics/electronics testing at Edwards, then wind-tunnel tests back at Lockheed, then static firing of the weapons from the SDI platform, and probably a dry-run flight before we load on the missiles for a mission test. In all, sir, I think we're a minimum of nine months away from a full all-systems-check ride."
Whittenberg sipped from his cup. "LTV delivered the Phoenix-VII and the new prototype Sidewinders a few weeks ago, didn't they?" He was referring to an updated version of the radar-guided Phoenix missile system used by Navy interceptors and a specially modified model of the infrared-guided Sidewinder air-to-air missile which had been a mainstay of American fighter aircraft since the Vietnam War. Both missiles were manufactured by LTV and had been redesigned to operate in a space environment.