Tomahawk (3 page)

Sonders looked back toward the elevator and swallowed the last bit of pastry. “Can't say for sure; I don't sit on the boards. But truth be told, it could be stellar, getting handpicked by a flag officer.” He licked his fingers. “Give you one piece of advice. It's nice to be early, but once you show your face, you don't want to disappear again. Where you staying?”

“I just got in. Figured I'd go over to Anacostia, stay at the Q tonight.”

“I'd get myself a place first, get settled. That way, you can hit the ground running.” Sonders crumpled the wrapping and sighed. “Gotta get back. Want that point of contact?”

“Yeah, thanks, then I'll get off your desk.”

He followed Sonders back to his office, fighting a growing anger and apprehension.

2

 

 

 

The detailer's advice about getting a place to live before he reported in sounded reasonable. He got a
Post
at the BOQ and spread it and his map out on the bed. He'd be working at Crystal City, north of Alexandria, and going to George Washington University. A place near the subway would mean he wouldn't have to drive to work.

He found an apartment in a six-story brick tower—a ten-minute walk from the Courthouse Metro stop—then drove across the river into Georgetown for dinner. He couldn't take his eyes off the women. Some carried briefcases, others shoulder totes; a few younger ones, students probably, wore backpacks. There were blondes and redheads, Asians who reminded him of Susan, Ethiopians, Koreans, poised New Englanders with good bone structure. Their glances slid past as if he were invisible.

He spent his first night in the apartment in his sleeping bag, drinking himself to sleep with a bottle of scotch.

The next morning, he stood holding an empty briefcase as the escalator sped him rapidly down into the earth.

Above him, the new buildings of Arlington rose till they were eclipsed by curved concrete. The sky contracted to a blue oval. And still steel hummed underfoot, bearing him and hundreds of others steadily into the depths. He remembered the London Underground, pictures of people huddled in it during the Blitz.

This one was new, pristine concrete, shining terra-cotta tile. A knot of foreigners and tourists stood baffled before
the electronic ticket machines. He had to take an orange train, then transfer at Rosslyn to the blue line; past Arlington Cemetery, Pentagon, Pentagon City, and off at the Crystal City exit. He paced back and forth along the platform until brightening and dimming lights signaled him to stand back.

The car was white, the color of the future. It accelerated in near silence. Lights whipped past, occulting subterranean black. The other passengers read or stared into space. A woman knitted. Not one paid any attention to this wonder. He'd ridden subways in Paris, Rome, and Boston, but this felt futuristic. Then he realized: This
was
the future. He'd wondered, when he was a kid, what it would be like.

The escalator extruded him not into daylight but into another slice of the future: a subterranean shopping mall. He navigated through spotless tiled hallways, like the passageways of sunken ships, flooded not with water but with fluorescent light.

When he emerged at last, the sky was eclipsed by fog. He wondered where Rickover's office was. He had to be around here somewhere, the gnomelike legend who had built this place from nothing.

National Center One was twelve stories high, with a gray concrete-slab exterior and vertical slits for windows. He showed his ID to a sentry and joined a line of uniforms and sport jackets in front of the elevators.

When the doors hissed open, he followed the tide to a gray metal security door. Two Air Force officers stepped around him. One inserted a card into a slot. The lock thought it over, then clicked open. The other man looked at Dan. “Forget your card?”

“Don't have one yet. Reporting in. Is this JPM-Three?”

“Yeah—better known as Joint Cruise Missiles.” The major waved him through. “I'll take him to Shirley,” he told his companion. To Dan, he said, “This way.”

He followed, down a narrow corridor carpeted with orange so bright, he squinted involuntarily. Walls and carpet were new, but boxes of cans and trash, cable assemblies, and stacks of used computer paper lined the
hallway. The effect was odd, as if the future didn't have anybody to pick up the trash or vacuum the carpets.

He was relieved to have the security officer say she was expecting him. Ms. Shirley Toya sat him against the wall, took his picture, and told him the ground rules while they waited for it to develop. He had to wear his pass at all times, and turn anyone in he met without one. Window blinds stayed closed. No cameras or tape recorders were allowed into the building. Any suspicious contacts from outsiders had to be reported. No gifts over a value of five dollars could be accepted from contractors. She handed him the badge. His face stared back from under wavy plastic.

“You'll be working for Captain Westerhouse, on the eleventh floor. Here's your key card. We change the combination the tenth of each month. Any questions? … Then I'll take you down. Maybe stop a couple of places on the way, get you introduced.”

He glanced into offices as they passed. Men at desks, civilians, Air Force, Navy. Not many women, except for secretaries. Pictures of jet aircraft and missiles lined the walls. Soft music played. Aside from that, the hushed hum of the air conditioning, and the ripping tap of an electric typewriter, the place was quiet. The Venetian blinds were down, and tilted so you couldn't see the buildings opposite.

“Just a minute. Let me tell Carol you're here,” she said, and ducked into a door marked DIRECTOR. A moment later, she popped out again. “Admiral Kristofferson's free at the moment. You can go right in.”

Kristofferson? He'd expected Niles. He straightened, sucking in a breath.

The director's office was sparely furnished. Dan was about to sound off, but the other was already standing, extending his hand. Kristofferson was stocky and graying, with a touch of bulldog about the face. Looking at Dan somewhere about the level of his chest, he said in a surprisingly soft voice, “Lieutenant Commander Nelson?”

“Lenson, sir. Dan Lenson.”

“Lenson, nice to see you. I was just heading out the door, but let me welcome you aboard.”

“Glad to be here, sir.”

“I understand this assignment's a surprise for you.”

“Yes, sir, thought I was going over to OPNAV.”

“You might find this more challenging technically. More risky career-wise, too.” Kristofferson smiled, but it didn't last more than a quarter second.

Dan mumbled something, not sure how he should respond to that. The admiral snagged his cap off a stand. “Sorry. Things on my mind…. Anyway, we're a joint office, about thirty percent Air Force at the moment, the rest Navy and civilian. You'll work for Dale Westerhouse, PMA for surface ship systems, replacing one of the surface IOs.”

Dan was making a mental note to ask somebody later what PMAs and IOs were when Kristofferson added, in a musing tone, “Every once in awhile, everything has to change. But every revolution devours its fathers.”

“Sir?”

The admiral snapped back into focus. “Sorry … Have you met Colonel Evans yet? Shirley, you might want to take him in to see Bucky.” Kristofferson shook his hand again, grip firm and dry. He bent over his secretary's shoulder for a moment, then headed down the corridor.

The deputy's office was next to the director's. Dan didn't know how formal he was supposed to be, so he took three steps in and came to attention. “Lieutenant Commander Lenson, sir.”

“Oh, yeah. Our new hire. Come on in, have a seat.” Col. Scott Evans was slim and sharp-looking, and the slate-blue Air Force uniform matched his eyes. He had an easy grin, a firm grip from a small, strong hand, and a faint western twang. A pipe sent up a contrail from a silver tray. He pointed Dan to a leather settee, where he looked up at pictures of F-105s.

“Flew Thuds in Vietnam,” said the colonel, following his gaze. He clamped the pipe between his teeth and leaned back again, adding to the haze below the ceiling. “Not the best of times, but I miss ‘em sometimes. This
job's the farthest from a cockpit I've ever gotten.”

“Is that so, sir?”

“Uh-huh. I'm an Air Force brat. My dad flew the B-twenty-nine, B-thirty-six. He was the first guy to get a thousand hours in the B-forty-seven. I grew up on the tour. Carswell, Fort Worth, Little Rock, Omaha. Well, tell me about yourself. That an Academy ring?”

“Yes, sir. Spent most of my time in destroyers. This is my first shore tour.”

“Navy family?”

“No, sir.”

“You're one of Admiral Niles's boys, aren't you? He doesn't say much, but he said something about knowing you, when we went over the list of available personnel. Must have been favorable if he wanted you in here.”

“I served under him before, sir, but I don't really know him.”

“Don't be apologetic about it. That's one of the paths to the top in our business. Find a boss who rewards loyalty and competence, stay on his wing and match his climb rate.” Evans relit the pipe from a silver lighter shaped like a MiG. “Well, you know basically what we do here, right?”

“I've read about cruise missiles, sir. But I can't say I know a lot about them.”

“This is the place to learn. Captain Westerhouse will brief you in on the specifics of your job. Anything I can help you with, my door's always open. And thanks for stopping in.”

The eleventh floor was even more unkempt and littered. Coke cans built an unstable pyramid in a steel wastebasket. The carpet was the same orange as on the floor above, only dingier. Progress charts and photographs of explosions hung slightly askew on the walls. But there were pictures of ships, too. He felt a little more at home.

A dark-haired captain with a crew cut, wearing rumpled, well-traveled whites, sat in a corner office with the blinds wide open, listening to a cassette recorder. He shut it off when Dan knocked at the open door. When Dan
introduced himself, he said, “Lenson? Good, good. Expecting you.”

When he stood slowly to shake hands, Westerhouse was nearly as tall as Dan, but much more heavily built. He looked tired. He seemed pleased to hear Dan already had an apartment. “You want to check in with the personnel support activity with your records. Need a physical, go to Navy Annex. There's a uniform shop there, too. Navy wears salt-and-pepper in the summer and service dress blue in the winter. No khakis except on travel. Let's see, we had a summary of your record here someplace. Small boys, right?”

“Right, sir. Destroyers and frigates. Department head tour on
Barrett,
DDG-nine ninety-eight. A
Kidd,
what they call the
Khomeini-class”

“Engineering duty, myself. What's your degree?”

“Naval engineering. Annapolis.”

“I meant postgrad. System engineering? Aero? Ops analysis?”

“I'm going to get that while I'm here.”

Westerhouse looked doubtful. “You're going to be traveling a lot, so that won't be easy. This is a demanding billet, Dan. But it's vital to the Navy's future. I'll level with you—I'm enthusiastic about this thing.”

“What exactly will I be doing, sir? The admiral—Kristofferson—said I was going to be an IO.”

“Yeah, integration officer. You'd better get familiar with these.”

Westerhouse handed him a folder of directives from the Secretary of Defense, the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, and the Chief of Naval Material. Then he segued into what he expected to happen over the next year. Dan was trying to get some of it down in his wheelbook when Westerhouse said, “The arms-control folks, of course, aren't as gung ho about this as we are. Especially the TLAM-N version.”

“That's which missile, sir?”

“Tomahawk land attack missile, nuclear.”

Dan stopped writing. “Nuclear, sir? I thought this had a high-explosive warhead.”

“You need to read yourself in. There are several versions
of the missile being developed…. Is something wrong?”

Dan sat silent. He hadn't realized he was expected to work on a nuclear system. But did it make a difference?They just made a bigger bang—that and the radioactivity, but it blew away over water…. But Westerhouse had said
land
attack, not antiship

“Something the matter?”

He tried to shake it off, avoiding his boss's eye while he tried to figure out what was bothering him. He cleared his throat and recrossed his legs. The longer he stalled, the worse it got.

He was remembering a morning aboard USS
Independence,
during his midshipman cruise. A white oval being pyloned to the belly of an A-4. The carrier had been steaming downwind, making everything hot and airless and totally still, carrying swirls of stack gas along with her that made your eyes run like tear gas. The marines in a silent ring, weapons aimed outward. He'd come out of the island and stopped, staring, feeling it like every other man on deck. That here was the focus of some awesome power—