“But it doesn’t happen,” Jim prompts him.
“That’s right. It doesn’t happen. But do you know what to do about it? No. None of us do. But now, after everything else, I’m convinced that unless the plan includes active, physical resistance, it isn’t going to work. It’s like the defense industry is the British before the revolution—they control us in the same way—and we’re the small landowners in Virginia and Massachusetts, determined to take our lives into our own hands again. We being a group of Americans who are determined to fight the military-industrial complex on every front. There are lobbying groups in Washington, there are newsheets and videos and posters, and now there’s an active arm, dedicated to physical resistance that hurts nothing but weaponry. Since there’s so much public about this group, it’s absolutely necessary to keep the active arm of it secret. So. I know a couple of people—just a couple—who supply me with the equipment, and the intelligence necessary to carry out the operations. That’s all I really know. We don’t have a name. But you can tell by the public statements, really, who we’re a part of.”
Jim nods.
Arthur watches him closely. “So. Is it okay?”
“Yeah,” Jim says, convinced. “Yeah, it is. I was worried by how little I really knew. But I understand, now.”
“Just think of it as you and me,” Arthur suggests. “A personal campaign. That’s what it all comes down to in the end, anyway. Not the name of the organization that you belong to. Just people doing what they believe in.”
“True.”
And so that night they track into the warren of streets behind the City Mall, to the little parking lot between the warehouses at Lewis and Greentree. There they flash their headlights three times and meet the same four men and their station wagon full of boxes, and the four men help them load the boxes into Arthur’s car. Their leader pulls Arthur aside for a brief muttered conversation.
And then they track into the Anaheim Hills, putting on another pair of stealth suits as they take the Newport and Riverside freeways north. Once off the freeway they track up to the edge of a tiny park in an applex, one dotted with long-neglected slides and swings and benches. They crawl to the edge of the park, where a small slope of grass overlooks the Santa Ana Canyon. Below them and across the freeway-filled gorge, on a knoll, sprawls the big manufacturing plant of Northrop. And in the northeast corner of the expanse of buildings, all lit by blazing xenon lights, with a perimeter fence that is swept by roving searchlights, are the three long warehouselike buildings that hold the production facilities for the third tier, midcourse layer of the ballistic missile defense—that is to say, space-based chemical lasers, which will be transported to Vandenberg and hauled up into orbit. The “High Fire” system.
Quickly they hammer four little missile stands into the grass, and Arthur aims them at four doors in these buildings. This is the dangerous moment, the semicovert moment, and if the defenses are sensitive enough…
Arthur, Jim has time to think, is connected up with some excellent intelligence sources: he knows the right buildings, the correct doors, he knows the buildings will be empty, the night security forces elsewhere in the complex… Such information must be top secret in the companies involved, so that the espionage involved in getting hold of it must be sophisticated indeed.
Missiles set and targeted, they trail the ignition cords across the tiny park, back toward Arthur’s car. Buttons pushed, run to the car, track away, tear the suits off, dump them down a storm drain. No sign at all of pursuit; in fact, they can’t even tell what the missiles might have done, because they’re on the other side of the hill now, getting onto the Riverside Freeway with all the rest of the cars. They never even heard a siren this time, because the little condo park was over a mile from the Northrop complex. It really is very simple. But one can assume that the little missiles have followed the laser light directly to their targets, and have dissolved the materials in the plant susceptible to the solvents in the payloads.…
Despite the ease of the attack, Jim’s heart is racing, and he and Arthur shake hands and pound the dash with the same sharp exhilaration that they felt in the first raid against Parnell. Jim becomes more certain than ever that he is only really alive, really living a meaningful life, when he is doing this work. “Here’s to resistance!” he cries again. He has a slogan now.
34
In the month after LSR submits its bid for the Stormbee program, Dennis McPherson flies to Dayton four times to meet various members or subcommittees of the Source Selection Evaluation Board. The questions are tough and exacting, and each session drains McPherson completely. But so far as he can tell, they are faring well. Except for a whole day’s worth of questions concerning the laser system’s abilities in bad weather, the so-called blind letdown issue, he has satisfactory answers for all of their technical questions, and these in turn justify the estimated costs of the system. As for blind let-down, well, there’s nothing much they can do about that. The RFP asked for a covert system, so they’re stuck with the CO2 laser’s inability to see well through clouds. McPherson tries not to worry about it; he figures that the SSEB is merely trying to find out which of the bidders’ proposed systems will deal with this handicap the best.
So. Four intense grillings, each with its ritual humiliations, the various reminders that the Air Force is in control here, it’s the biggest buyer’s market of all history and so everyone gathering around to sell has to do a little submission routine, rolling on their backs and exposing throat and belly like dogs… at least in certain ritual moments, as when beginning or ending presentations, or answering irrelevant, insolent questions, or greeting members of the board at the occasional lunch or cocktail party on the base. McPherson goes through all that grimly and concentrates on the actual sessions, on clear concise answers to the questions asked. It really is wearing.
But eventually the time runs out, and the SSEB has to stop and make its report, and the Source Selection Authority—General Jack James, a serious aloof man—has to stop and make his decision, and this decision has to be reviewed by HQ USAF, and then it finally comes time for the Air Force to award the contract for Stormbee. Somewhere in there the decision has been made. One company will have its bid chosen and will be in charge of a $750 million system, the other four competitors will be sent home to try again, each some several million dollars out of pocket as a result of their attempt.
Because of McPherson’s reports on the grillings, and the original choice of LSR by the Air Force back when the program was superblack, Lemon is confident that their bid is going to be the one chosen. All the Dayton questions indicate a strong interest in the problems of development and deployment, and Lemon thinks the proposal is so strong that no weaknesses have been found. Donald Hereford, in New York, appears convinced by Lemon, and on his orders a big contingent of LSR people travel to Crystal City for the Air Force’s announcement of the award. Hereford himself comes down, with a small crew of underlings. The night before the announcement they have a party in the restaurant above the LSR offices in the Aerojet Tower, and the mood is celebratory. The rumor, spreading industrywide, is that LSR has indeed nailed the contract.
McPherson is politely cheerful at the party, but as for the rumor, he’s trying to wait and see. He’s too nervous to make any assumptions. This is his program, after all. And rumors are worthless. Still, it’s impossible not to be infected by the mood a little bit, to allow hope to break out of its hard tight bud.…