Peter didn't get the vice commander's job.
And the very next day he and Juliet decided to submit his paperwork to retire from the Air Force. She'd practice law and he'd open a flying school, or do something equally benign. It was a bitter end to a gilded Air Force career.
Then he got a phone call from Rodger Whittenbeig — inquiring whether Peter and Juliet would be good enough to come down to Colorado Springs for a weekend visit? "I'll send my Sabreliner for you," he said.
The Lamborghinis traveled to Colorado, and the weekend was simply a dream. The two couples got along great. After a cookout dinner, Whittenberg drew Peter aside for a private chat. He told Peter SPACECOM had obtained approval for development of a prototype spaceplane fighter. Code name "the Kestrel." A Lockheed executive would be project manager, but Whittenbeig needed a deputy project manager who would report direcdy to him at SPACECOM.
"Of course, it would also mean an orientation ride on the shutde. Are you interested?" asked the SPACECOM four-star. "I'd heard you weren't happy at TAC."
"You heard right," replied Peter. "But what about my wife?"
"Lovely lady," observed Whittenberg. "What about her?"
"She wants to start practicing law," said Peter cautiously.
"Fine. My wife's been a teacher for over thirty years. I think it's important for a wife to have her own career.''
A month later Peter and Juliet moved to Colorado Springs. Their eldest daughter transferred to the University of Colorado in Boulder, and their youngest enrolled as a junior in the neighborhood high school. Peter got his orientation ride on the shutde Antares, while Juliet got a job in the litigation division of a
Denver law firm. Although her commute back and forth to Denver was a bitch, especially in the winter, Juliet and her husband were as happy as a couple of pigs in slop. It got even better when Whittenberg pulled Peter onto his staff as the assistant intelligence officer, and later promoted him to chief of SPACECOM's intelligence billet. Everything seemed to be clicking on the right cylinders.
Until the Intrepid went rogue.
The Talon touched down, and when their speed dropped enough, Whittenberg applied the brakes., "Nice touchdown, sir," observed Lamborghini.
"Coming from you, Pete, that means something," replied Whittenberg. He radioed the tower for instructions and was told to taxi to the temporary duty hangar by the pilot's lounge.
' 'What do you make of that?'' queried the CinC as he pointed. "A couple of Navy F- 14s are paiiked by the TDY hangar. Wonder what they're doing on Air Force turf."
Lamborghini had spent his time at the Pentagon, too. "In Washington it could be anything. Maybe the Navy's giving a joyride to a couple of Senators."
"Yeah. Maybe so. I've done that a few times myself… Of course, that never compared with the time I got to take up Angie Dickinson for an 'orientation ride.' "
"Are you serious?" asked a disbelieving Lamborghini. "When was that?"
"Back when I was superintendent at the academy. Bob Hope came through with one of his shows and she was in the group. I thought it would be a nice gesture to give her a spin."
"Uh-huh."
"She looked pretty good, even in a pressure suit."
It was one of those intimate moments between superior and subordinate when the lines of authority disappeared and two men communicated on equal terms.
Whittenberg sighed. "I hope you don't mind me laying this briefing assignment on you, Pete. I'll field any questions that come up, but I thought it better to have somebody else grapple with the details."
"Noproblem, sir."
"You ever met the President?"
"No, sir," recalled Lamborghini. "I met the Vice President a couple of times on his visits to SPACECOM, but never the President."
"Yeah, well, I don't want to sugar-coat it for you," muttered the CinC. "I've briefed the President and Vice President a number of times. If the two of them get their feathers up it's like being caught between a couple of buzz saws. But like I said, I'll handle the questions. Just lay out the situation for them."
"Yes, sir. I think I'll be able to handle it. I've briefed Admiral Bergstrom before. If I can get by him, the President should be a piece of cake."
Whittenberg chuckled. "Yeah, he is an old salt, isn't he?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did you bring the slides?'' It was the third time Whittenberg had asked.
"In my flight grip, sir."
Whittenberg taxied toward the ground crewman and cut his engines when given the sign. He popped the canopy just as an Air Force captain walked up, saluted smartly, and asked,' 'General Whittenberg?"
"That's me, son."
"Please come with me, sir. I've already closed out your flight plan."
The two men climbed out of the plane, carrying their flight grips. They entered the pilot's lounge and quickly showered off the caked-on perspiration. Besides the cleansing, the shower helped recharge the exhausted men. Also, Whittenberg didn't want to face his Commander in Chief while wearing a flight suit. He felt there was a very good chance this afternoon could be the twilight of his military career, and if he got shot down he was at least going to be in proper uniform.
Following the captain out to the tarmac, they boarded an Army Blackhawk helicopter that was warming up. Upon climbing aboard Whittenberg recognized the other two passengers. "Hello, Dr. Havelichek, Dr. Sharp," he said in greeting. "Always nice to see the two of you. I'm sorry it had to be under these circumstances."
"Good to see you, too, General," Havelichek shouted over the growing noise of the rotor blades. "Can you tell us why we're here… and where we're going?"
He shouted back, "You'll find out in a few minutes." The Blackhawk lifted off, and after it gained altitude, Whittenberg could see the Washington Mall in the distance.
The Blackhawk helicopter touched down on the south lawn of the executive mansion, and the foursome of Whittenberg, Lamborghini, Havelichek, and Sharp was escorted off the aircraft by the Air Force captain. They were led to the west entry, where the captain guided them past several uniformed guards and into an entryway which looked like a phone booth with a rubber-cupped camera lens protruding from the wall. Each person was required to put his left eye against the rubber cup while a strobe flash was triggered and an electronic photograph of his retina was taken. The pattern of retinal blood vessels on the back side of the eyeball is as distinctive as a fingerprint, and each man's photograph was matched with a historical computer file of previous White House visitors. Lamborghini's in-processing took the longest because he'd never visited the executive mansion before, and a new file had to be created. Upon completing their verification, they were quickly led through a doorway and into the reception foyer of the West Wing.
Standing in the middle of the black-and-white checkered floor was Admiral Jason Hawthorne Bergstrom, Chief of the General Staff of the United States Armed Forces. To call the old salt "crusty" would be an understatement. He looked as if seawater had been hitting him in the face for thirty years — which was, in feet, the case. His enormous bald head possessed only a fringe of white hair around the perimeter, and between his teeth he chewed on the biggest, most foul-smelling cigar Lamborghini had ever seen — or whiffed. There was hardly a square inch on the Admiral's blue Navy uniform that wasn't covered with battle ribbons or gold braid.
Long before the new administration had taken office, one of its priorities had been to make the Defense Department "work." Through decades of interservice rivalry, and the propagation of layer upon layer of bureaucrats, the Department of Defense had succeeded in developing a structure that couldn't even manage itself — let alone the nation's security. The "command and control" that was supposed to be exercised by the Joint Chiefs had become a joke. There were so many lines of authority between services and major commands that a Pentagon organization chart looked like the tangled strings of a marionette. And weapons procurement? That was a quagmire of pork barrels and corruption.