"Negative," replied Lamborghini. "The cross angle might be too severe. It may not do us much good. I think we should go for this one now with the Phoenix."
"Take the shot," ordered Monaghan.
Lamborghini punched some buttons on the armament panel and set the missile for dependent guidance, which meant the Phoenix would follow the Kestrel's own radar beam to the target unless otherwise instructed. He pressed the red fire button and there was a flash of bright light, but no sound, and the two pilots watched as the white dot of flame disappeared into the night sky.
"He's following the beam," observed Lamborghini. He tried twisting the radar dish farther to the left to keep the bandit onscreen, but the controller couldn't go any farther. "Bring us to port twenty degrees and drop the nose ten. The bandit is getting to the edge of my scanner."
"Roger," replied Monaghan, and he joggled the Kestrel's hand controller, causing the spacecraft to pivot.
"Okay, he's closing, but it looks like it's going to be close. Range is four-five-seven miles. Switching to independent lock-on." Lamboighini flipped a switch that illuminated the missile's own Doppler-pulse radar. When he heard a tone in his earphones, indicating the missile had acquired the target, he flipped the guidance switch from dependent to independent.
The two blips had almost converged when they disappeared off the edge of his screen, out of range of the Kestrel's radar. "I lost 'em," grumbled Lamborghini. "Looked like it was close, though."
"The one that got away is always the sweetest, Hot Rod," comforted Mad Dog. "We've been at this for a while. What say we take a break?"
"You got it… maybe the Phoenix was able to close on its own?"
Monaghan said, "Don't count on it," and pulled a lever to engage an electric motor. There was a whirring sound as the canopy of the Kestrel simulator raised itself up.
The two aviators were in the hypersecret Kestrel simulation facility at Edwards Air Force Base. It was a room crammed with computer consoles, as well as the simulator module which looked like some sort of carnival ride on stilts. The stilts were actually hydraulic jacks that could pitch the simulator cockpit up, down, and sideways to give the occupants the feeling of maneuver.
Having once been deputy director of the Kestrel project, Lamborghini was intimately familiar with the simulator and the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards, where virtually every fighter aircraft in the Air Force inventory had undergone development testing.
The two pilots climbed out of the simulator and pulled off their helmets as a tech sergeant walked over from the simulator control panel. "Close, but no cigar on that last one, sir," he told Lamborghini. "That problem has a deceptive degree of difficulty. You should have listened to Commander Monaghan and closed a little bit before engaging. That way you might have just tagged the bandit before he dropped off your screen."
Lamborghini scowled. "Closing the gap takes fuel. I figured we might need it for later."
"You were correct to put the missile on independent guidance, though. Unfortunately, our simulation model says your Phoenix ran out of propellant before it could connect." Lamborghini continued to scowl.
"Just wait till next year," offered Monaghan. "Come on, Hot Rod. I'll buy you a drink."
The two men went down the hall to a small vending area. Lamborghini was gratified to discover the soft-drink machine carried Dr Pepper. He'd developed a taste for it while stationed in Texas. After dropping in Mad Dog's coins, they sat down in a pair of plastic chairs at a plastic table.
In appearance, sitting across from each other, each man seemed to be the antithesis of the other. The abstemious, raven-haired Lamborghini was lean, angular; his movements were precise and analytical. Monaghan, on the other hand, was sort of, well, round. The extra poundage on his stocky frame indicated he hadn't missed too many mrals, and his Irishman's crop of red hair was perennially unkempt. As he lit up a Marlboro, a cloud of smoke enveloped a set of craggy features that demonstrated he'd obviously enjoyed "the good life." Yet despite the differences, the two pilots liked each other, and Monaghan could tell that his friend was starting to have reservations.
"Relax, Hot Rod," he comforted. "In the first place we ain't going up. And if we do, you'll do fine. Trust me."
Lamborghini swished his Dr Pepper over the ice in the paper cup. "I hope you're right. This will teach me to have more respect for backseaters. There's a lot more finesse to handling that hardware than meets the eye. I feel comfortable with my grasp of the equipment, but using the systems and computing target solutions is a lot tougher than I figured. It takes a lot of practice."
"No sweat, Hot Rod. If "We do go up, the Intrepid will be sittin' pretty. I'll bring us in so close you can shove a Sidewinder right up Iceberg's ass."
Lamborghini swished his drink again and thought about the phone call he'd received earlier from his deputy, Lydia Strand. "Yeah. Iceberg. Brother. I still can't believe it. The guy has the DFC. Who would've thought?"
Monaghan tossed down his Seven-Up. "I would've thought. In fact, I had a pretty strong inkling it was him."
Lamborghini was surprised. "You? I didn't know you knew him."
Mad Dog nodded. "Yeah, I came to know him in an intimate way, you might say." Monaghan described the Red Flag competition for Lamborghini, and how Iceberg had tried to lead him into a death trap.
Lamborghini's jaw dropped. "You should've told somebody. I've flown in Red Flag, too. They're pretty tight about safety at Nellis."
Monaghan shrugged. "My gun camera ran out of tape just before it happened. I was on air-crap turf — no offense — and nobody would have believed a crybaby swabbie."
Lamborghini whistied softly. "Idunno about that… Guess it wouldn't bother you to get Iceberg in your sights, would it?"
Mad Dog nodded, and his friend was chilled by the look in the man's eyes. It made Lamborghini wonder how much of Monaghan's life-of-the-party demeanor was a veneer.
Lamborghini checked his watch. "My deputy talked to the chief of staff at SPACECOM. He's going to have the Constellation launch and rendezvous patched into the Edwards commo center from SPADOC. We can watch it if you want."
Monaghan nodded. "I want, Hot Rod." Then he scratched his mop of red hair. "Say, I always meant to ask you — you any kin to that sports car outfit over in Italy?"
Lamborghini laughed and shook his head. "No. No, I'm not. Just happen to have the same name. Funny thing, though. The guy who founded that sports car company was a man named Ferruccio Lamborghini. He made his fortune in the tractor business, and then started the sports car operation. Maybe it was sort of like a hobby for him. Anyway, there's hardly a week that goes by that somebody doesn't ask me if I'm related to the sports car family. Yet in my whole life, not one single person has ever asked me if I was related to the tractor manufacturer."
Marine Lt. Col. Phillip Heitmann, Air Force Maj. Jack Town-send, and Army Maj. Sandford Watkins walked through the insulated crew access arm of the gantry tower toward the entry hatch of the Constellation. To the graying Heitmann — a onetime linebacker for Michigan State — walking down that ramp was like walking out of a locker room before a big game. The ground crew's eyes were upon them, and the sense of excitement never failed to make his pulse start thumping.
At the hatch of the orbiter, they slipped off their felt boot covers and dropped them into a plastic bag held open by a white-suited technician. The crew access gantry arm was a "clean" room, designed to prevent foreign substances from polluting the orbiter's delicate electronics and environmental control system when the hatch was open.