Monaghan's route to Edwards had been circuitous indeed. When the Kestrel project developed steam, Whittenberg decided to cast out for a Navy or Marine pilot to groom as chief test jockey for the prototype. In a quirk of timing, Whittenberg's request for pilot candidates hit the desk of Vice Admiral "Dixie" Creighton, Commandant, U.S. Naval Air Test Center at Patux-ent River, Maryland, just as the commandant hung up the phone after talking with his wife. Admiral Creighton's spouse had informed her husband that their eldest daughter had been seen sneaking out of the BOQ room of a certain Commander Monaghan in the wee small hours that veiy same morning.
Within the week, Creighton had Monaghan's orders cut for SPACECOM, and he was sent across the continent to Edwards and the Kestrel project — much to the delight of the commandant and his wife, and to the chagrin of their daughter. It took her an entire week to find another pilot to bed down with.
Stumbling out of the shower, Monaghan didn't bother to shave. He pulled on his flight suit and wobbled out the door to his Porsche 944.
Air Force Capt. Davey Barnes buckled the chin strap on his crash helmet and fired up his brand-new Honda 500cc Interceptor motorcycle. Next to an F-16, he thought the cycle was the most fun you could have with your clothes on. He dropped it into gear and took off.
Barnes lived off base in an apartment in the town of Lancaster. His route to work involved weaving through some side streets before getting on the main highway that led to Edwards. He approached an intersection without slowing down because, having traveled through it almost every day, he knew the cross street had a stop sign and he had the right of way. What he didn't know was that the driver of an approaching station wagon had dropped a lighted cigarette between his legs and was searching frantically for it when he barreled past the stop sign and into the intersection. There was a skidding-crashing-scraping sound as the station wagon clipped the front wheel of the cycle. Barnes was pitched up in the air and did a lazy somersault over the hood of the car before coming down on his left leg with a sickening crack.
Maj. Lydia Strand set down her coffee cup and once again stared at the three personnel files in front of her. Each one was crammed with evaluations, biographical data, old addresses, transfer orders, and the melange of paperwork that military people accumulate during their careers. She'd gone through each file three separate times looking for some clue that would tell her which crewman on the Intrepid was a traitor. Sitting alone in the conference room, she felt more perplexed than ever. Her lack of experience as an investigator left her with nothing but her own common sense and intellect to guide an inquiry into the lives of Kapuscinski, Mulcahey, and Rodriquez. But the general had said, "Do it," and that was that.
CM/Sgt. Tim Kelly walked in with a fresh pack of cigarettes. He'd been briefed early that morning on the Intrepid affair, and had been chosen by Strand to help her sort things out. He wasn't an investigator by trade, either, but had been in the intelligence field for seventeen years of his thirty-year hitch. He was built like a fireplug, and the crew cut on his bullet-shaped head was always trimmed close. Strand had instinctively liked him from their first encounter in the intel section.
"Any leads?" he asked.
Strand tapped the files and sighed. She was already red-eyed and tired. "Nothing. A big zip. Each one picture-perfect… I feel a litde over my head here, but I guess we've got to do the best we can. I talked with the chief of staff and he agreed it might be good to have some expert assistance on this. We're supposed to have an FBI agent assigned to us shortly." She leaned back. "What's your guess?"
The sergeant lit up. "I would say that something like this would have to be motivated by one of two things. Extortion or ideology." Kelly gave credence to the truism that senior NCOs ran the armed services. He didn't have a college degree, but the man was a self-taught scholar. His quarters were crammed with books on psychology, Russian history and language, Star Wars technology, and defense strategy. During the Vietnam War he had interrogated North Vietnamese prisoners and had been on the intelligence crew that worked on the heartbreaking Son Tay POW rescue mission. After Vietnam he was assigned to the debriefing team which handled Soviet defector Viktor Belenko when he flew his MiG-25 Foxbat fighter to Japan. The CIA had dangled a job in front of Kelly more than once, but he elected to stay with the Air Force.
"Extortion or ideology? How do you mean?" asked Strand.
Kelly played with his lighter and said, "I mean, he's either defecting on his own volition or being forced to do it."
For the next hour they went back and forth over Kelly's thesis, looking for some glimmer of an opening that would lead them to the Intrepid's defector. They enjoyed no success.
Finally, Kelly said, "Okay, what about Kapuscinski? That's Eastern European extraction, isn't it? Maybe he longs to be back with the kinfolk in the old country?"
Strand opened his folder. "Two hundred and twenty-three combat missions in Vietnam, the Distinguished Flying Cross, a Silver Star, and two Purple Hearts. Flew F-105 Thunderchiefs and F-4 Phantoms. He's an ace. Shot down six MiGs. Doesn't sound like a Commie sympathizer to me."
"Me either," Kelly agreed.
"Besides," said Strand, "if you knew Iceberg, you knew his feelings on Vietnam. He was always sorry we hadn't finished the job with nuclear weapons."
Kelly raised an eyebrow.
"Seriously. Also, his parents came from Poland. A rumor circulated among some people at NASA, which I happened to overhear, that his mother had been raped by a gang of Russian soldiers during World War II."
Kelly shook his head. "Christ. We take our safety and security for granted, don't we? Can we talk to the mother? Is she still living?"
Strand looked grim and replied, "No. She was killed during a robbery in Chicago years ago."
Kelly continued toying with his lighter. "What about Rodriquez? He climbed out of the slums in East L.A. Scholarships all the way. Maybe his early poverty instilled some kind of sympathy for a socialist order of some kind?"
Strand thought about that one. Although incredibly bright, Jerry was a flaky guy. Didn't care much for a U.S. presence in Central America, she remembered. Flaunted authority sometimes. "Maybe," she said.
The phone rang, and Strand answered. After listening for a few seconds she said, "All right. Bring him to the conference room." She hung up and turned to Kelly. " Our G-man is here."
Shortly thereafter, an Air Police security man escorted the FBI agent into the room. Strand and Kelly looked up… and up… and up some more. Kelly thought the chief of staff had mistakenly sent them someone from the Chicago Bears.
A huge hand extended and a rough voice said, "Hi. Walt Tedesco. Special agent. FBI Denver office."
Strand and Kelly shook hands carefully — not wanting any fractures — and introduced themselves.
The agent checked out his surroundings. "So, quite a setup you guys have here. I went through half a dozen security checks to get in. I had no idea all this was underground."
Kelly nodded while checking out Tedesco. The Chicago Bears connection had occurred to him because the agent looked like the Bears' head coach, Mike Ditka — widow's peak, mustache, and all. "Yes, sir," said the sergeant. "We don't get many visitors under the mountain."