The Fly Boys (31 page)

“We’re not?”

“Our Pentagon session isn’t scheduled until tomorrow,” Simon continued. “And the upcoming meeting, for which I got you here
a day early, and on false pretenses, isn’t about the AeroTanker.”

Gold shook his head, confounded. “Howie, what the fuck is going on?”

“You’ll see. In the meantime, I wanted to come meet you personally to make it clear to you that I wouldn’t have taken part
in this subterfuge if I hadn’t been convinced that it was absolutely essential to the national interest.”

“Holy shit—” Gold laughed weakly. “Will you please tell me what’s going on?”

Simon gestured to the driver. “That’s all I can say right now. You’ll know everything in a few minutes.”

Gold, his thoughts in turmoil, nodded mutely as the Plymouth, its tires humming on the wet asphalt, left the river behind
and made its way through the crowded Washington streets. Several times when the traffic threatened to slow them up, the driver
touched a switch mounted beneath the Plymouth’s dash. A siren blared, and the traffic parted to allow them to continue smoothly
on their way.

It began to rain more steadily. Thanks to the decreased visibility, Gold, who rarely visited Washington, soon lost his bearings.
“Where are we now, Howie?”

“What’s called Foggy Bottom,” Simon smiled. “See? There’s the Lincoln Memorial.” He pointed out the white marble building
wreathed in mist like some ancient temple on Mount Olympus.

Gold caught a glimpse of the Washington Monument in the distance, the great spire piercing the fog, and then they were turning
onto a narrow side street. Simon pointed out what he said was the rear of the State Department as they drove down a hill and
then turned through a gate marked
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
. They came to a stop in an interior, blacktopped courtyard formed by three imposing gray stone buildings.

The sergeant driver got out of the car and came around to open Gold’s door. Gold and Simon got out. Simon hurried him through
the rain into one of the buildings. A muscular-looking young man in a too-snug suit was seated behind a desk just inside the
door.

“General Simon and Herman Gold to see Jack Horton,” Simon told the young man, who used the telephone on his desk to relay
the news.

“Jack Horton!” Gold echoed. “I haven’t seen him since 1945! Howie, what’s going on?”

“You’ll understand everything soon, Herman,” Simon assured him. “Just come with me.”

“I’ll have to get someone to escort you, General,” the young man apologized as he relieved them of their coats and stowed
them in a closet. “It’s Agency procedure.”

“What agency?” Gold whispered to Simon as the young man returned to his telephone.

“Central Intelligence Agency,” Simon whispered back.

“What’s
that
?” Gold muttered. “Wait, I can probably guess. If Jack Horton is involved with it, it’s got to be cloak and dagger.”

Simon nodded. “Nobody has publicized it for obvious reasons, but part of the legislation Truman signed back in ‘47 to create
the Department of Defense also authorized a new intelligence-gathering outfit to replace the OSS.”

A young woman appeared from a hallway, and led Gold and Simon through several rambling corridors lined with offices to an
unmarked, closed door. A secretary seated outside the office smiled and said, “Go right in, gentlemen.”

Simon opened the office door and stood aside to let Gold enter. Inside the office, Jack Horton, wearing a gray suit, white
shirt, and red tie, stood up from behind his large antique walnut desk. He was as tall and skinny as ever, Gold thought. Horton
had grown a rakish bottle-brush mustache, but he still favored a military-style haircut and black horn-rimmed eyeglasses.

“Herman, thank you for coming.”

“Jack, don’t mention it, but then you never
did
mention it, right?” Gold smiled thinly. “I’ll say this for you, you don’t look a day older than when I last saw you.”

Horton smiled. “It comes from staying single and loving my work.” He snapped his fingers. “Oh, and I quit smoking a year ago.”

Gold nodded. “Smart. I wish I could get my chief engineer off those coffin nails.”

“Who, Teddy?” Simon asked.

Gold nodded. “Teddy’s been looking like hell lately.” He glanced around the office. “Well, Jack, your work must love you,
as well,” he remarked. “You certainly seem to have come up in the world since our last meeting.”

Horton’s large corner office was furnished to suggest a front parlor in a prosperous Georgian town house instead of a place
of business. The walls were painted turquoise, and a large rectangular, blue and gold Oriental carpet covered most of the
polished wooden floor. A striped Sheraton sofa and a matching armchair were arranged facing Horton’s desk, which was swept
clean. There wasn’t so much as a pen stand on it.

“This is all very nice, indeed,” Gold elaborated. “So, Jack, have you gone into the antique business or are you still a spy?”

Horton grimaced. “You’re sore at us for fooling you,” he mused. “That’s okay.”

“Thank you for being so understanding,” Gold said dryly.

Behind Horton, the tall rain-splattered windows rattled in the wind. Horton moved aside to let Gold see the distant but dramatic
view of the Mall.

“On a good day you can see the Washington Monument,” Horton said. “But today it’s in the fog.”

“It’s not the only thing in the fog,” Gold said pointedly. “Come on now, seriously—if you wanted to see me, why didn’t you
just call and say so?”

“You’ll understand everything in a little while,” Horton replied.

“Everybody keeps telling me that,” Gold said sadly. Horton gestured to the armchair, and Gold sat down.

“Herman, Jack figured it would attract a lot less attention at GAT if your people thought you were coming to Washington for
a routine get-together with Air Force Procurement,” Simon said as he sat down on the sofa. “It’s best if nobody back at GAT
knows about any of this.”

“Leastways, not until you agree to help us,” Horton began.

“
Assuming
I agree to help you….” Gold cut him off crossly.

“Fair enough,” Horton smiled, settling in behind the desk. “I’ll start from the beginning, but first I need your word that
no matter what you decide, everything we discuss in this office will remain absolutely confidential. You’ll understand why—”

“In a little while.” Gold scowled. “
That
I know already. Nothing else do I know, but that has been drummed into me.”

“Herman,” Jack Horton cut him off, frowning. “Exactly one week ago today—on August twenty-ninth—the Soviets test detonated
their first atomic bomb.”

Gold stared at Horton a moment, and then he looked at Simon. “Is he kidding?”

“I’m afraid not, Herman,” Simon replied. “I’d better add that this is highly classified information. As of yet, not even the
President’s cabinet has been advised.” Simon’s blue eyes glinted with sardonic amusement. “The only reason they told
me
was because they needed my cooperation to lure you here.”

Gold nodded, trying to come to grips with what he’d just heard.
The Russians had the bomb
— He felt his shoulders hunch, as if to ward off a sudden blow.

“I guess we all knew that it was going to be only a matter of time,” Gold muttered. “But it makes life a little bit more complicated
now, doesn’t it?” He shivered. “The world just got to be a lot smaller, more dangerous place….”

Horton nodded somberly. “Smaller in one sense, but larger in others.”

“I’m not sure I follow you,” Gold said.

“They don’t call it the Iron Curtain for nothing, Herman. We live in an open society, so the commies are having themselves
a picnic snooping on us, but Russia is a closed society. We need hard information on them, but we’re having a devil of a time
getting it.”

“Don’t you have spies over there?” Gold asked.

“We’ve got agents in place,” Horton nodded. “But what our people are able to send back to us is limited and vague.”

“Back before the Berlin airlift, when it became clear that the Cold War was heating up, the CIA came to the Air Force to discuss
their problem,” General Simon said. “And the matter got kicked over to the research center at Dayton, which was how I got
drawn into it. Our lab boys came up with an interim solution: a high-altitude balloon, carrying a powerful camera. We float
them from Europe. Over Russia they snap their pictures, and then we hope like hell that they make it to Japan, where a radio
signal detaches the camera so it can come down by parachute.”

“Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t,” Horton said, shrugging. “When it doesn’t, and the commies get ahold of it,
we stiff it out, claiming that it’s nothing but a weather balloon. The commies don’t believe us, but we don’t much care. What
really bothers us is that the balloon’s routes vary randomly with the wind, and they can only shoot pictures of what happens
to be below them. What we need is a way to travel directly to a chosen, specific target.”

Gold nodded. “In other words, an airplane.”

“An airplane,” Horton agreed.

“I can’t help thinking back to my own flying days in the military,” Gold smiled. “You know, of course, that during World War
One, long before airplanes were used as fighters or bombers, they were used as observation and scouting craft—”

“Excuse me, Herman,” Horton interrupted, glancing at his wristwatch. “But getting back to the matter at hand, General Simon
has suggested that there might be a way to adapt your BroadSword fighter to high-altitude photographic and electronic reconnaissance.”

Gold frowned. “The BroadSword is fast enough, and it wouldn’t take much to fit her with a camera pod, but there’s a cruising
range problem.” He brightened. “Howie, I’m sure you’re familiar with the work Bell Labs has been doing for the National Advisory
Committee for Aeronautics?”

“Sure, the X-series rocket plane,” Simon replied.

Gold nodded. “Well, the X-series carries so little fuel and uses it up so rapidly that it has to be air launched—carried up
hitched to the belly of a bomber and then released in midair.”

“Would that work for a BroadSword, General?” Horton asked eagerly.

Simon grinned. “If Herman says it will.”

Gold smiled back. “I see no reason why we can’t modify some BroadSwords to carry your photographic and electronic snooping
gear and rig them to be air launched along the Russian border. From there, within reason of course, they can dart in and out
of the Soviet Union.”

“Sounds feasible,” Simon decreed. “Herman, I think it would be very helpful if some of your people at GAT worked with us on
the modifications. Most have Government security clearances, and nobody knows the BroadSword like they do.”

“I like that idea,” Horton said. “And it’s given me one of my own. Herman, you’ve got some of the best aviation minds in the
nation working for you.”

“I can’t argue with that,” Gold shrugged.

“Once you’ve selected your BroadSword team and have them working with the Air Force’s people, why not keep them together?”
Horton continued. “What I’m suggesting is an ongoing research and design lab devoted to advancing aerial reconnaissance research.
For example, the Broad-Sword’s modifications will serve as a stopgap solution to our problem, but we still need a reconnaissance
airplane with the range to penetrate the innermost reaches of the Soviet Union. Your secret team within GAT could begin the
R&D on such a plane.”

“Look at you!” General Simon laughed. “Jack, you look like a kid dreaming of being let loose in a candy store.”

“An exclusive Agency candy store is exactly what I want,” Horton grinned. He eyed Gold. “How about it, Herman? You willing
to run one for us?”

If I don’t do it, somebody else will
, Gold thought. That would probably cost GAT essential government goodwill and lucrative government contracts. Besides, Gold
found the whole idea intriguing, provided his company did not have to bear the brunt of the cost involved.

“This kind of work gets expensive,” Gold cautioned. “You can’t expect GAT to pay for it out of its own pocket.”

“Of course not,” Horton replied. “On the other hand, it would blow security and attract commie agents the way spilled honey
pulls flies if we funded you overtly….” He was quiet for a moment. “Try this on for size. What would you say to an arrangement
where appropriations were channeled to you from this agency through a cutout?”

“What’s a cut-out?” Gold asked.

“It’s a middleman,” General Simon replied. “Jack, what about your contacts at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics?”

“Yeah,” Horton smiled. “I’m owed a favor over there. Howie, we could probably divert some additional funding to the candy
store through the Air Force, right?”

When Simon nodded, Gold said, “You two guys work pretty closely, don’t you?”

Simon shrugged. “You said it yourself, Herman. Observation and aviation have gone together from the very beginning.”

“To put it another way,
we’re
the spies, but the
Air Force
owns the skies,” Horton said whimsically. “Okay, Herman, if we can solve the appropriations problem, are you willing to build
us what we need?”

“I’m willing to try,” Gold replied. “Who will I report to?”

“
Me
,” Simon and Horton said in unison.

Gold laughed.

“For now, I guess, you’d best report to both of us,” Horton said uneasily.

Simon, looking disgusted, nodded.

This
, Gold thought to himself,
is one match that wasn’t made in heaven
….

“The thing with Horton and his spooks,” Howie Simon explained, “is that they push too hard. They just never know when to quit.”

Gold nodded. They were in the coffee shop at the Mayflower. Simon had given Gold a ride to the hotel, and had then accepted
Gold’s offer to come in for coffee and a chat.

“Back during the war, and just after, when it was still the OSS, these guys were content to come along for the ride,” Simon
continued irritably. “They needed wings for their observation and spy missions, and they just about kissed our asses when
we were willing to lend a hand. Now they’re getting pushy,” he repeated. “I happen to know that they’ve successfully recruited
some Air Force officers into their fold. Sometimes I think that they’re trying to build themselves their own private air force
inside the one we’ve already got.”