Hypersonic Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age (24 page)

It wasn’t hard for him to do, for the huge bomber, with its 172-foot wingspan and 350,000-pound gross weight, was a magnificent weapon, one with which the Soviet Union could not cope. It was designed to be invisible to radar and heat-seeking devices, and at a little distance, virtually invisible to the eye.

V. R. was nostalgic. The airplane about to rolled out was replete with techniques, systems, and devices that the various Shannon firms had participated in over the years. The first was the standard in-flight refueling system that Harry Shannon had helped develop with Boeing after World War II. Then there was a quadruple redundant fly-by-wire control system that Bob Rodriquez had pioneered and that O’Malley had backed in the F-117A. One small division of the firm had helped develop the incredible “cotton gin” method of applying the radar absorbent structural material that permitted the B-2A to have its flowing, radar-deflecting contours. Perhaps most important, there was the family of precision guided weapons that Bob Rodriquez had developed over the years.

The thoughts led him to wonder where Bob was; it was something that they knew he was alive. It would have been great to have him here at this rollout, to see the fruit of his work. He should be up on the speaker’s platform, ready to take some bows; instead he was somewhere in the Middle East, apparently. Privately, V. R. thought that Bob must somehow be in contact with O’Malley—he was probably the source for much of O’Malley’s information on the Muslim terrorists, or at least the source for O’Malley’s consuming concerns.

Dennis Jenkins’s thoughts were quite different. He knew that the basic argument for the B-2A was that instead of sending a thousand bombers to take out one target, you sent one bomber to take out sixteen or more targets. The secret was stealth, and where the F-117A was all angles and facets, the B-2A had a sinuous flowing beauty. Its basic titanium structure was wreathed in a smooth-flowing jacket of radar absorbent material, its lines unmarred by any fins or rudders. Like the F-117A stealth fighter, it provided the radar screens with a target smaller than a hummingbird.

But Jenkins worried that advancing technology might solve these stealth secrets. He lived in fear that someone—the Soviet Union, the Chinese, perhaps even some completely improbable enemy such as India or France—might decide to emasculate the stealth programs with some new anti-stealth device. Or they could take a simpler, more direct approach, an openly aggressive act such as a massive strike against our satellite systems.

The United States had opted to have a high-tech military force, small, volunteer, and elite. The American war machine functioned beautifully by weaving the information derived from extraordinarily expensive satellite systems. The satellites provided brilliant communications, unparalleled intelligence, magnificent weather forecasting, and unbelievable navigation capability. They were all tied to command and control platforms that could direct small forces to exactly where they were needed. It was expensive, but it freed the mass of the American public from worrying about defense. All Americans had to do was see that 4 percent of the Gross Domestic Product was spent on defense, and spend the rest of its time enjoying its unprecedented affluence.

Satellites could be taken out. An F-15 with a special missile had proved that back in 1984. The experiment had promptly been discounted, and the program shut down, not because it failed, but because it was too successful, a too-powerful lesson for any enemy.

Not that the satellites had to be shot down one by one. Any of the more advanced nations in the so-called nuclear club could detonate a series of nuclear missiles in space to take the satellite systems out. There would be no way for the United States to recover. Each one of the satellite systems took hundreds of billions of dollars and decades to build and launch. There was very little redundancy in most of them, and none in some. If they were attacked and destroyed, the United States would immediately find itself incapable of conducting military operations, and with a current force too small even to defend itself.

This was the spot where he and O’Malley fell out. Jenkins felt that the space race still had to be won. The first step in the victory would be deploying aircraft with laser beams powerful enough to destroy any ballistic missile upon launch. The second step would be putting these weapons into space, so that there would be a continuous global, twenty-four-hour coverage against attacks on the satellites, or for that matter ballistic missile launches against surface targets. It was Star
Wars squared and he knew it—but he believed it was the only means of protecting the country on the comfortable if dangerous path it had chosen.

A band began to play as the hangar doors opened. The B-2A remained in the background, almost invisible against the dark interior of the hangar. When the doors were fully opened, a tug drew it out into the sunlight toward the bleachers, which were arranged in a V-shape that matched the sweep of the B-2A’s leading edge.

It was a jaded crowd, filled with high-ranking officers and top industry executives. Most of those attending had been to a dozen rollouts and first flights. There was absolute silence for almost a minute and then a roar of approval as they saw how incredibly sophisticated the airplane was.

Jenkins said, “Too bad Jack Northrop didn’t get to see this. I know they told him about the airplane before he died, but he would have loved to see this beauty on the ramp. And too bad your granddad isn’t here, V. R.—he’d have loved it, too.”

Jack Northrop had been the American flying wing pioneer. His XB-35 and YB-49 flying wings were promising, but stability problems ruled out their procurement. It was a program that Vance Shannon always lusted to work on, but never had the chance. He had always regretted it.

The band stopped playing and as the first speaker moved toward the podium the unmistakable sound of a Lycoming flat-six engine droned over the field. Every eye on the field turned up to fasten on a slowly circling Cessna 172.

Jenkins said, “He said he was going to do it, but I didn’t believe it.”

O’Malley, red in the face, yelled, “Who the hell is it? What’s he doing over the field? It’s got to be restricted today.”

Jenkins laughed and said, “It’s Mike Dornheim of
Aviation Week
. He was watching the NOTAMs, the notices to airmen, and said that if there were no airspace restrictions over the field, he was going to get a photographer and fly over. By golly, this will be the scoop of the century. Somebody screwed up; he wouldn’t violate a restriction, I know him too well.”

O’Malley stormed away, furious, yelling back, “They don’t call it ‘Aviation Leak’ for nothing, but this damn near amounts to espionage. I’m going to have his head for this.”

V. R. shook his head. “I think Steve needs a vacation. He never used to be like this; ten years ago he would have laughed and seen it for what it is, a news story. There’s no way they can keep the shape secret once they’ve rolled it out in public like this.”

O’Malley’s mental state was now too often the subject of their conversation.

Jenkins said, “He’s burning himself out on this terrorist stuff. I would have thought that the raid on Qaddafi might have quieted him down, but it’s just the opposite, he’s more wrapped up in it than ever.”

“Dennis, if he would just be a little discreet about it! He never minces words, you know, and that hurts him with the smoother types. Do you think you can tip him off? I can’t say anything, we’re good friends, but there’s still the difference in rank—I just can’t shake that off. I can kid around, but there’s no way I can come to him and essentially reprove him.”

“I’ve tried, but he’s a true believer, there’s no way you can shake his opinion on this.”

The crowd was beginning to thin, and they talked of business and family matters.

“How’s Ginny doing? Has she ever gotten used to you being away all the time?”

“She’s paying me back. When I told her that I was going to Guam for six weeks, to set up for a deployment, she told me she was going to Europe. She went to Switzerland first and is in France now, then she’s going back to London for a few days. She’ll be coming home on the twenty-first, just in time for Christmas. I just hope I’m back in time. If not, there will be hell to pay, for sure.”

December 21, 1988
Approaching Lockerbie, Scotland

T
HE MIXTURE OF
frustration and apprehension that gripped Ginny Shannon on every flight was beginning to fade. She had a late start when the bags she’d left in the Cadogan Hotel’s checkroom couldn’t be found for almost an hour. Then the taxi ride to Heathrow was the reverse of the usual nightmare. Instead of the cabbie speeding, she had
a punctilious driver who stolidly maintained posted speeds despite Ginny’s pleas for him to hurry. The lines at the airport were longer than usual, filled with the usual strange mixture of people and costumes, sounds and odors. Still she made it on time, and once on the airplane, her carry-on stowed and seated on the aisle, things went relatively well. The scheduled 6:00
P.M.
takeoff was delayed only about twenty-five minutes—not unusual at Heathrow.

The high-spirited antics of some excited college students—from Syracuse, apparently, and coming back from an overseas study program—annoyed her.
I must be getting old,
she thought.
A few years ago, that would have been me, annoying someone else.

During the climb out, she wondered as she had so many times what it was about flying that so captivated V. R. and all the Shannons. She had flown with V. R. often enough in smaller planes. The Shannon firm owned a fleet of aircraft ranging from single engine Cessnas to Learjets and V. R. had checked out in them all. They had flown from Santa Monica to Palm Springs in a Bonanza, and once, from Burbank to D.C. in the Learjet, with V. R. letting her sit in the right seat and actually handle the controls. On every flight, everything had been a serious matter of delight to V. R. He simply reveled in everything from the preflight to the instructions from Air Traffic Control as if they were some kind of Mardi Gras treat. And when airborne, en route, he seemed to become a breathing part of the airplane, admiring the scenery, pointing out traffic to her, and in general behaving as if they were enjoying some vastly entertaining party. She had never liked any part of it but pretended to, to please V. R. Now locked in the aluminum tube of the 747’s fuselage, flying seemed to her as it always did, no different than being trapped on a crowded New York subway train.

Ginny usually drank very little, but this had been a revenge trip, taken only because V. R. was off again on one of his many temporary tours of duty, this time to Guam. She had toyed with the idea of simply showing up in Guam to surprise him, and decided against it, choosing to visit Paris and Geneva instead. Time, circumstance, and inclination had led her to drink wine not only every day, but with every meal but breakfast. It made her feel guilty, for the Shannon family had been cursed by Anna’s long and usually losing battle to alcoholism. V. R. rarely took more than a sip of beer, no matter what the
occasion, and he often bemoaned the fact that his uncle Harry had never reached his true potential because so much of his time was spent caring for Anna. Nonetheless, now she was looking forward to the first drink service, trying to decide between what she thought she should have—sparkling water—and what she wanted—a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks.

The passengers on board the Pan American Clipper
Maid of the Seas
had reached that usual state of anticipation when level-off was imminent, when seat belts could be unfastened, drinks would be served, and the initial rush to the bathrooms could begin. Forward, in the spacious cockpit, the flight crew was beginning to relax and enjoy the ineffable sense of joy and accomplishment that flyers felt—and Ginny could not understand.

Captain James MacQuarrie scanned the instruments with satisfaction. As they leveled off, he called for cruise power and, responding to the ground controller, said, “Good evening, Scottish, Clipper 103 at flight level three one zero.” His first officer, Raymond Wagner, added: “Clipper 103 requesting oceanic clearance.”

Alan Topp, an air traffic controller in the Prestwick Scottish Area Control Centre, watched his radar screen, where Clipper 103’s passage was like every other airliner’s, a routine green square starting its march across the Atlantic, one of scores of similar squares he had monitored that day. At 7:01
P.M.
he noted that the aircraft was on its prescribed course of 316 degrees, flying at a ground speed of 434 knots, just as it should have been given the forecast winds.

In the next instant, a Semtex plastic bomb concealed in a Toshiba radio cassette player exploded in the Clipper’s forward baggage hold, tearing out a twenty-inch hole that began the instant progressive destruction of the aircraft. The green square disappeared from Topp’s screen as the 243 passengers and 16 crew members, some already dead, plunged earthward toward the quiet town of Lockerbie, Scotland. Burning debris, torn parts, and mutilated bodies would kill 11 more innocent victims on the ground. Ginny was spared the horror of the plunge, killed instantly by flying debris.

December 2, 1989
Tonopah, Nevada

T
HE CHANGES IN
V. R. Shannon’s personality and especially his proficiency had not gone unnoticed. Only the week before, the commander of his 37th Tactical Fighter Wing, Colonel Toby Tobin, had pulled him aside and questioned him about how he was feeling. Tobin had observed him preflighting his aircraft and clearly saw that V. R. was not as engaged in the process as he should have been. Tobin had also noticed how obsessively Shannon talked about his hatred of the Muslims, and how the world was endangered by them.

The latter was certainly understandable. His wife had almost certainly died at the hands of a Muslim terrorist, probably a Libyan national. And Tobin knew that V. R. felt guilty that he had flown the raid against Qaddafi, as if that had somehow predisposed fate to take revenge against him by killing Ginny.