Delta Green - страница 14

Conover knew exactly what Dimatta and Williams were feeling.

Trailed by Abrams, he wandered out to the hangar proper, found the ordnance specialist, and ordered the missiles and pods changed out on Delta Yellow. Communications technicians had the access doors to the avionics bays open on both Delta Yellow and Delta Blue and were installing the radio frequency encryption boxes with the new electronics.

Abrams got Cokes from the machine in the corner and brought him one.

“What do you think, Will?”

Conover took a long drag from the can and let his eyes trail over the graceful lines of his — his! — MakoShark. “I think we got a damned nearly impossible task, Jack. How’re we going to find something that disappears so easily?”

“Yeah”

The depression of the others was settling on him. Conover was by nature a happy man. He loved to laugh and to design practical jokes which always seemed to backfire on him, but were nevertheless worth the effort. His nickname, “Con Man,” arose from his hobby of using Air Force computers to design elaborate and fiscally rewarding scams that he never put into operation. He feared that, like his practical jokes, they would misfire, and he would end up viewing Kansas from within Leavenworth. He couldn’t imagine anything more dismal than Kansas, unless it was Leavenworth.

He had been raised in New York City by an aunt and uncle after his parents had been killed in a boating accident near their home in Albany. His Air Force ROTC program helped him through Columbia University, then into the fixed wing course at Randolph Air Force Base. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, Conover thought of himself as at least presentable to the many women he chased whenever he had a chance, but he always wore long-sleeved shirts to cover the scars on his arms. He had mangled them getting out of the flaming cockpit of an F-16 when its landing gear collapsed on landing at Edwards.

As the live Wasp missiles were rolled under the MakoShark on a dolly, Abrams said, “You want to sit in the ready room or go over to Heaven and get a sandwich?”

“Let’s go to Heaven and eat something more than a sandwich,” Conover told his WSO. “It may be a while before we get another chance.”

They turned away from the activity under Delta Yellow, circumnavigated am introspective Tony Munoz and Delta Blue, and headed for the door.

Conover was acutely aware of the blood stains in the concrete near the door. Someone had done some scrubbing, but not enough.

Stan Vrdlka’s blood.

Abrams pulled the door open and nearly ran into General Cartwright.

“Where’s McKenna?” the general asked.

Conover came to attention, something he did for generals he didn’t like. This one had been in the command less than five weeks. And already blown it. His head was on the line for a three-quarter billion dollar craft.

“He may have gone up to the control tower, sir,” Conover said.

“He had some calls to make,” Abrams added. “Probably doesn’t want to be interrupted, sir.”

“Listen up, Captain. I’ll interrupt anyone I want to interrupt.”

“Uh… yes, sir,” Abrams said.

This general didn’t yet understand that Merlin Air Base, Jack Andrews Air Base, and the detachment at Peterson Air Base in the Springs were operated solely to support USSC-1, which was the space station Themis, and the 1st Aerospace Squadron, which for all purposes was Kevin McKenna.

They stood aside to let the base commander pass, then went outside.

“Let him learn the hard way,” Abrams said.

Anatoly Guryanovich Shelepin had once been a colonel general in the Soviet Ground Forces. His record was impeccable. He had done what the Army and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had asked of him, from field command in Afghanistan to training commands to staff positions at Stavka. In his last assignment with the General Staff, he had been responsible for managing and doling out to clandestine projects the Army’s foreign hard currency reserves.

From his earliest memory, Shelepin had shared the goals and the ideology of the CPSU, assisted in those tenets by a father who had known both extreme deprivation and ardent heroism in the Great Patriotic War.