The Glass Lady (6 page)

When the lights in the ceiling worked with the sunshine raining through the windows to reveal the room where he stood, Jack Enright was amazed. The Colonel's home was perfectly ordinary: well-worn furnishings, a few low bookcases, a stereo, and assorted junky easy chairs—all upon dirty carpet of no particular color.

“What ya think, Jack?” inquired the Colonel, who had laid his precious box and pads atop the sorely nicked table in the dining room. The table was cluttered with a day or two of dirty dishes.

“Homey, Skipper.”

“Ya betcha, Number One.”

Colonel Parker handed Enright a cold beer, still in the can, which the tall man had fetched from a kitchen cramped to the point of being crummy.

“Browse,” Will Parker invited cheerfully with a wave of his own can of beer. He moved about and tidied up the single large room which had the back porch and dining room at one end and the living room at the other.

“Thanks, Will,” Enright smiled. He could not find a single model airplane.

Enright moved about the airy little house. Along one wall, broken by the arch leading to the tiny kitchen, was a line of framed photographs, large and institutional. They were the usual fare of squadron portraits with thin boys posing proudly before F-4 Phantom and A-6 fighter planes. In the background were rice paddies.

Turning to the long, unbroken wall opposite, Enright saw other framed images running the length of the long room. But these were dressed in finely crafted frames made from expertly mitred barn siding. And the colors were sparkling in the daylight of afternoon.

Jacob Enright sucked in his breath, warm with beer. He surveyed a dozen elegant photos and lithographs—every one a single lighthouse.

Against gray skies and frothy seas, each portrait was a solitary lighthouse growing from jagged and rocky shorelines.

“You still there, Jack?” called the Colonel as he walked from the kitchen.

“Skipper, these are magnificent. Magnificent.”

Enright stepped sideways to study the long row of lighthouses. He shook his head slowly as he felt the tall man stand at his side in the afternoon sunshine.

The thin pilot turned his face to the older man at his side. Colonel Parker's neck was at Enright's eye level. The shaft of daylight swirling in from a window fell upon the Colonel's face. It accented the deep lines and hollow cheeks. The long face was firmly set in a strange weariness. The warm gray eyes within angular shadows were tranquil, even sad.

“Lighthouses, Skipper?” Enright said softly.

“Lighthouses, Jack . . . This one and that one are my favorites: Old Saybrook in Connecticut and Nubble Light at Cape Neddick, Maine.”

The tall man paused and stared at his lighthouses. In the fragment of the Colonel's silence, Enright's beer-befuddled mind could hear the cruel sea breaking whitely at the feet of the stone towers before his face. He knew when his command pilot was still in transit through a thought. So he waited with a copilot's studied patience.

“Lighthouses do their work without protest, without bending, come rain or sleet or high water. And they do it standing alone.” William McKinley Parker glanced down at his ward and his closest friend. “That appeals to me.”

“Our man in Vienna reported in an hour ago. No joy with the Russians.” Admiral Hauch wiped his perspiring forehead with his large hand. “And they know—damn near down to the wiring schematics.” The Admiral, in regulation shirtsleeves and open collar, sagged in his massive chair. “Bloody bastards.”

The long table was huge in the chilly glass cage where only four weary men sat in the Admiral's council. Two men sat at each side of the conference table with the presiding Navy man at its head. Beside him, a young Marine sat at attention while his fingers rested poised upon his stenomachine's black keys. Disinfected, dehumidified, hypoallergenic, double-filtered air gushed rhythmically from the glass vents overhead and in the glass floor.

Commander Mike Rusinko of the Navy sat beside Colonel James Cerven of the Air Force. They looked tiredly across the broad table at Colonel Dale Stermer from the Air Force and Joseph Vazzo, the stoney-faced diplomat from State.

“For the record,” the Admiral droned as the young Marine's fingers danced, “present are Commander Rusinko, Eastern Test Range; Colonel Cerven, Air Force, Western Test Range, Vandenberg; Colonel Stermer, Air Force Space Command; and Joe Vazzo of State.

“You have all been briefed on our LACE malfunction. At a session here yesterday, we ruled out disabling LACE with our own Earth-based laser weapons. Two hours ago, we concluded a conference between our people here and the anti-satellite operations people at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, and McCord Air Force Base, Washington. We reviewed the developmental integration of our experimental, miniature homing vehicle, anti-satellite system being tested at those bases. As you know, but for Joe's benefit, that device is a two-stage anti-satellite missile launched from an F-15 fighter plane. The missile is powered by a Boeing Short Range Attack Missile motor, or SCRAM, with a Vought Altair upper stage. The whole mini-missile device was first launched from an F-15 fighter in November 1984. The homing device sighted in on a star out over California. But nothing went into orbit and all we really tested was the infrared tracking optics. Our people say ‘no way' as to hitting LACE.”

The Admiral mopped his brow.

“What's up your sleeve, Michael?”

“One long shot, Joe. And only one.”

The three officers leaned toward the Admiral.

“The space shuttle, gentlemen.”

The Marine stenographer opened his eyes for a moment to study the Admiral's anxious face. The big Navy man looked feverish. The young Marine closed his eyes.

“We have one shuttle from the last mission on the ground at Edwards,” Admiral Hauch continued. “If only we could do a quick turnout there and launch her from the Vandenburg shuttle launch facility. Unfortunately, as you know, that whole complex was shut down after the Challenger disaster. So all we have right now is Endeavor already on the pad at Cape Canaveral.” The Admiral wiped perspiration from his face. “Commander Rusinko, can we go from Kennedy in a hurry?”

“Well, Michael, Endeavor is already stacked on Pad 39, as you know. If we had to, we could run a wet, plugs-out countdown test right now. However . . . if you're planning what I imagine—a rendezvous with LACE and going extravehicular with the shuttle crew—I'm concerned about the crew in line to fly the next Endeavor mission in six weeks.”

“You're correct about the flight plan,” interrupted Colonel Stermer of the Air Force Space Command. “The shuttle would rendezvous with LACE, stabilize it with an astronaut going EVA wearing the Manned Maneuvering Unit backpack, and the crew would use Shuttle's remote manipulator system to affix a rocket engine to LACE. We're thinking of the PAM—the Payload Assist Module motor. It would fire and drive LACE back into the atmosphere where re-entry heating would incinerate LACE.”

“What about LACE getting a shot off at Shuttle, or at one of the astronauts?” Joseph Vazzo asked gravely.

“Dale?”

“To continue, Admiral: We would line the whole payload bay of Shuttle with a blanket of aluminized Mylar. In effect, we would create a mirror to deflect LACE's laser beam. Admittedly, the more serious problem would be protection of the rest of the shuttle which could not be blanketed. We believe, Admiral, that once we stabilize LACE with the manned maneuvering unit's thrusters and by precision attitude hold by Shuttle, we can keep LACE's optics off the unblanketed skin of Shuttle. We displayed that kind of attitude-hold accuracy—holding Shuttle steady to within five-hundredths of a degree—as early as Shuttle Three in March 1982. On STS-3, we needed that kind of precision position control for the payload of the Navy's X-ray, solar polarimeter experiment.

“We have flown the PAM rocket module since Shuttle 5 in November '82. Two of them were attached to satellites launched from the payload bay on that flight. And PAM motors have flown on shuttle payloads routinely.” The officer shuffled through his documents. “We flew the PAM motor on Shuttles 7 and 8 in '83, Shuttle 12 in '84, Shuttles 16, 18, and 23, in 1985, and once in '86 on flight 24. In fact, 3 PAM boosters were flown on each of missions 18 and 23. Our only serious failure was on Shuttle 10 when both PAM boosters failed to ignite on satellites deployed from the bay. We would attach a PAM to LACE during a spacewalk.

“Specifically, our first EVA was done with the successful spacewalks of astronauts Musgrave and Peterson on Shuttle Six in April 1983. Neither pilot used the Manned Maneuvering Unit. We finally flew the MMU outside on Shuttle Ten in February 1984, when astronauts McCandless and Stewart flew the rocket-powered backpacks to distances up to 300 feet away from Shuttle. Before that flight, no American or Soviet pilot had gone EVA without a safety-line tether.

“And, as we all know, the whole ball of wax was done on Shuttle Eleven in April 1984, the Solar Maximum repair flight. The shuttle executed a rendezvous with the disabled, orbiting observatory, hooked it with the shuttle's mechanical arm, and astronauts Nelson and vanHoften went EVA to fix it in the payload bay. They also worked with the flying grapple fixture we hope to attach to LACE by hand so the remote arm can latch on to it. The grapple failed on Eleven, but we've worked the bugs out since then.”

“But, Colonel Stermer, can the shuttle arm hang on to something as heavy as LACE?”

“Definitely, Mr. Secretary. On Eleven, the arm held the two-and-one-half ton Solar Max and also held the eleventon Long Duration Exposure Facility—a lab bench which was left behind in orbit with a year's worth of automated experiments inside. No sweat as to LACE or the PAM device.”

“Well done, Dale. Commander Rusinko, what were you saying about the crew now flight-ready?”

“Yes, Admiral. Our next crew set to fly Endeavor has trained only to deploy two commercial satellites from the payload bay. They have no hard EVA training other than for emergency EVA to close the payload bay doors if the motors or latches hang up.”

“Colonel Cerven, any thoughts?”

“Yes, Admiral. We cannot simply announce to the world that we're going EVA from a shuttle with an inadequately trained crew to blow up a killer satellite. The problem is cosmetic in the extreme.”

“Go on, Jim.”

“Admiral, we need the right crew and the right cover story for the media if we are to avoid another damned feeding frenzy like we saw after we lost Challenger. I'm thinking about the Palapa-Westar operation. You will recall that we trained a four-man, one-woman crew for the Palapa-Westar rescue mission performed by Shuttle Fourteen, Mission 51-A in November 1984. Since that crew was successful, they are still rather well known to the press. But for the first time since Shuttle Two back in '81, we also trained a back-up crew to keep the insurance companies that underwrote the retrieval operation happy. Will Parker and Jack Enright, both of whom you know, were the back-up pilots. Trained with them were two mission specialists who would have done the spacewalks. That reserve crew would have gone only if the primary crew on Fourteen had failed.

“My people are proposing that we send only Parker and Enright to do the whole LACE operation—no other crewmen. First, eliminating the two mission specialists would cut our potential losses in half if the worst happens, Second, neither Parker nor Enright are well known to the media people. Parker flew in Gemini and in Apollo. But that's ancient history to the press. Enright has never flown. They don't have any friends in the press corps. These guys are real hard-asses. The Cape and Houston people call them ‘the icemen.' Let Parker handle the ship while Enright goes outside. They both already have extensive EVA training for the Palapa-Westar rescue flight. In fact, they are still in active training for a shuttle military mission next year.”

“Palapa and Westar,” Secretary Vazzo inquired.

“Yes, Mr. Secretary,” Colonel James Cerven continued with his fine Long Island accent showing just a trace of North Carolina. “Palapa was the Indonesian communications satellite and Westar-6 the Western Union bird, both lost when their PAM boosters failed to light properly on Shuttle 10 in '84. They shot off into the wrong orbits, luckily low enough for another shuttle to get up to them. Shuttle 14 went after them. After a successful rendezvous in space, our two astronauts did a spacewalk—EVA—to bring them back into the shuttle payload bay for return to Earth.

“Here's our plan as of this moment: On March 14, 1990, a Titan-3 missile launched the Intelsat-6 spacecraft into space. Unfortunately, the rocket failed to get the satellite into the proper orbit. The 265-million-dollar bird is parked in a useless orbit of 220 by 140 miles.

“We propose to announce that sudden degradation of Intelsat's systems from prolonged exposure require an emergency shuttle mission to pick it up and return it to Earth for repairs. This is exactly what we did with Palapa and Westar. Astronauts Parker and Enright, under that cover, will rendezvous with LACE instead, attach the PAM, and blast LACE into the atmosphere. My people are confident of having the perfect cover with the perfect crew: absolutely trained but rather unknown.”

Secretary Vazzo looked uncomfortable.

“What about security as far as radio communications with your Parker and Enright up there?” the Secretary demanded wearily.

“Good point, Mr. Secretary,” the Colonel nodded. “If the Russians and the European Space Agency both agree to maintain our cover, then the only real security problem is worldwide monitoring of our air-to-ground communications. And we have a handle on that: Normally, we communicate with shuttles by the high-altitude, TDRS satellites—Tracking Data and Relay satellites. These birds give us virtually constant contact with shuttles. But they can also be listened to. So, we are now working around the clock to get crews into the old NASA network of ground-tracking stations. We began closing them down around the world in 1989, to replace them with TDRS satellites. We can communicate with Parker and Enright through these old ground stations and then relay the communications to Houston and NASA by landlines which are tap-proof. And we even have a perfect cover for this change: In February 1990, one of the TDRS birds went on the blink. Its Ku-band antenna broke so we could not get shuttle television pictures down. That TDRS had been sent up in September of '88. So, we will also be announcing with our Intelsat-6 press release that we may have to rely on the old NASA ground stations since we will need good television coverage of the Intelsat rendezvous and spacewalk. Perfect, gentlemen . . . Everything perfect.” Colonel Cerven looked tired but pleased.