The General Secretary looked directly at his KGB chief. He was shorter than Kalinin by several centimeters and at least twenty years older; Kalinin had a full head of dark brown hair, the General Secretary was bald except for graying temples. The older man was solidly built and only recently giving way to fat; Kalinin was lean, as athletic as a career bureaucrat from Leningrad could manage.
Yet as they stood face-to-face, the General Secretary exuded a power that was considerably more than physical. He had a presence, an aura, an intensity that had all but mesmerized heads of government around the world. His eyes were especially effective in seizing and transfixing.
“Vladimir, the KGB has been well supported by this government. I have given you my support. I did so even when the Politburo believed I had made a wrong decision in appointing you to head the KGB. I believed the KGB needed a strong young leader for the future, and I chose you. I know that you look to something greater than merely the head of the world’s largest intelligence organization — perhaps minister of defense or even General Secretary. Your ambitions are your own affair. But do not accuse me, Vladimir. I do what is in the best interest of our country and this government, including the KGB.”
Kalinin saw the understated power in those blue eyes. After eight years in power, he was still considered by many to be the most influential man on the world scene. With glasnost now an important part of Soviet life, the General Secretary was much more visible in the eyes of the world. Kalinin realized confrontations at this time were pointless and even dangerous.
But the man was getting older. Older and more cautious. Nearly every decision involved weighing how it would look in the eyes of the world. Kalinin didn’t much care about the eyes of the world — he cared about Russia, her security, based on her strength. The Soviet Union was not just another member of the world community — she was, or should be, its leader.
The General Secretary studied the younger man’s eyes for a moment before moving toward the door. Cherkov, once the General Secretary’s mentor and now his submissive guard-dog, followed him out.
The General Secretary might be, as some said, a visionary, Kalinin thought, but right now he was being dangerously shortsighted. Forget him this time, Kalinin told himself. This was a KGB project — it would remain a KGB project.
And if there was any way for this strange new American technology to advance his own position in the government, then let it happen.
1
Air Force High Technology Advanced Weapons Center (HAWC)
Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Patrick S. McLanahan watched Captain Kenneth Francis James preparing to mount his “steed.” James’ tall, powerfully built frame was covered — a better term might have been “encased”—in a stiff flight suit made of nylon and metallic thread. James had to carry around a small portable air conditioning unit to stay comfortable, and the suit was so stiff that James had to be hoisted into his steed on a hydraulic lift. A small army of “squires”—military and civilian scientists and technicians, led by Doctor Alan Carmichael, the chief project engineer and Patrick’s civilian counterpart — followed James on his lift up toward his incredible steed.
Both McLanahan’s and James’ aircraft were in a large open-ended hangar, used more to shield the two fighters from the ultra-magnified eyes of Soviet reconnaissance satellites than to protect against the weather. It was only four-thirty in the morning, but the temperature was already starting to climb; it was going to be a scorcher in the high Nevada desert test-site north of Las Vegas known as Dreamland.
But Patrick wasn’t thinking about the heat. His eyes were on the sleek lines of the jet fighter before him.
DreamStar…
As McLanahan stood gazing at the fighter the senior noncommissioned officer of the DreamStar project, Air Force Master Sergeant Ray Butler, moved alongside him.
“I know how you feel, sir,” Butler said in his deep, gravelly voice, running a hand across his shaved head. “I get a shiver every time I see her.”
She was a child of the first X-29 advanced technology demonstrator aircraft built in the early and mid-1980s. Long, low, sleek and deadly, DreamStar was the only fighter aircraft anywhere with forward-swept wings, which spread gracefully from nearly abeam the cockpit back all the way to the tail. The forward-swept wings allowed air to stick to the aircraft’s control surfaces better, making it possible for the aircraft to make faster and wilder maneuvers than ever thought possible. She was so agile and so fast that it took three independent high-speed computers to control her.
“Chief,” Patrick said as they began a walkaround inspection of the fighter, “there’s no question she’s one sexy piece of hardware. Very sexy.”
Butler nodded. “Couldn’t put it better myself.”
The cockpit seemed suspended in mid-air on the long, pointed forward fuselage high above the polished concrete floor of the satellite-bluff hangar. Beside the cockpit on each side of the fuselage were two auxiliary fins, canards, integral parts of the DreamStar’s advanced flight controls. When horizontal, the canards provided extra lift and allowed the fighter to fly at previously unbelievable flight attitudes; when moved nearly to the vertical, the canards let the fighter move in any direction without changing its flight path. DreamStar could climb or descend without moving its nose up or down, turn without banking, dart sideways in, literally, the blink of an eye.
The one large engine inlet for the single afterburning jet engine was beneath the fuselage, mounted so that a smooth flow of air could still be assured even at radical flight attitudes and fast changes in direction. DreamStar had two sets of rudders, one pair on top and one on the bottom, which extended and retracted into the fuselage as needed; the lower stabilizers were to assure directional control at very high angles-of-attack (when the nose would be pointed high above the flight path of the aircraft) and low speed when the upper stabilizers would be ineffective.
Even at rest she seemed energetic, ready to leap effortlessly into the sky at any moment. “She looks like a great big cat ready to pounce,” Patrick said half-aloud.
They continued their walkaround aft. DreamStar’s engine exhaust was not the typical round nozzle on other fighters. She used an oblong vectored-thrust nozzle that could divert the engine exhaust in many different directions. Louvers on the top and bottoms of the nozzle could change the direction of thrust instantaneously, giving DreamStar even greater maneuverability. The vectored thrust from the engine could also act as added boost to shorten takeoff rolls, or as a thrust-reverser during dogfights or on landing to bleed off energy.
She was one hell of a bird, all right, and Patrick McLanahan figured he had the best job in the world — turning her into the world’s newest and deadliest combat-ready weapon. Patrick “Mac” McLanahan, an ex-Strategic Air Command B-52 radar navigator-bombardier — especially remembered for his role on the Flight of the Old Dog that knocked out a Soviet laser installation — was the project officer in charge of development of the DreamStar advanced technology fighter. Once perfected, the XF-34A DreamStar fighter would be the nation’s new air-superiority fighter.
Walking around the engine exhaust they noticed a crew chief running over to activate an external-power cart. “Looks like they’re ready for power,” Butler said. “I’d better go see how they’re doing. Have a good flight, Colonel.”
Patrick returned his salute and headed toward the plane he would be flying that morning. If the two aircraft were humans, the second jet fighter, Cheetah, would be DreamStar’s older, less intelligent cousin. A by-product of the revolutionary SMTD, Short Takeoff and Landing and Maneuverability Demonstrator projects of the last decade, Cheetah was a line F-15E two-set jet fighter-bomber, heavily modified and enhanced after years of research and development in the fields of high performance flight and advanced avionics. It had come to Dreamland, this top-secret aircraft and weapons research center northwest of Las Vegas, seven years earlier. It had been at Dreamland for less than a day before then Lieutenant General Bradley Elliott, the director of HAWC, had had her taken apart for the first time. The changes to the airframe had been so extensive that it had been given a code-name Cheetah instead of keeping its original nickname, Eagle.