“Thinking.”
“About what?”
She remained curled up, staring toward the windows.
He put the light switch back on AUTO and the lights snapped on. He sat down beside her. “All right, Wendy. What’s going on?” Still no answer. “Something at work? Something with the Old Dog project?”
“… I had my flight physical this morning.”
The smile disappeared from his face. “All right, enough damn mystery. Out with it.” And then he saw the pamphlet in the wicker wastebasket beside the bed. Even upside down and crumpled he could read the title: “Facts About Your … “
“Pregnancy? You’re pregnant?”
She looked apologetic. “Patrick, this is all wrong … I’m sorry—”
“Sorry? What are you sorry about?”
“This … that … oh, damn …”
“Wendy, you’re babbling. Tell me what in the world you’re so sorry about.”
“I don’t want you to think that I … I did this on purpose, trapping you or something—”
“Of course I don’t think that.” He slid over and put his arms around her. “Don’t be silly, I’m trying to absorb it, but I’m delighted—”
She seemed to stiffen. She backed away and looked at him, hard and long. “Do you mean it? Because if you’re just saying it—
“Of course I do. Hey, I love you …”
She collapsed in his arms. “I was so worried … afraid you’d think I was trying the last dodge—”
He shut her up by kissing her. “Like I said, I happen to love you, I want you and I want our son … daughter …” And he began to kiss her again.
She pulled herself free. “I want you to make sure, Patrick. This is so important—”
“Then it’s settled. Let’s go.”
“Go? Go where?”
“Downtown.”
“Downtown? Why do you want to—?” And then she understood.
“We’re living in Las Vegas, a lot of people get married here every year, some even at nine o’clock on a Monday evening—”
“What about …?”
“Family? My mother’s gone, and my brothers and sisters will be thrilled — relieved I finally got my act together and married you after all these years. What about your parents? You need to decide, Wendy. It’s up to you …”
Her answer was to reach out to him and draw him to her … all the answer he needed.
At eleven o’clock, Maraklov left the Silver Dollar casino on Las Vegas’ Fremont Street and made his way to the taxi stand down the block near a twenty-four-hour wedding chapel. He searched up and down the long line of taxis, then carefully checked around him. Satisfied, he ambled down the line of taxis until he was beside one that had its roof light off, signifying that it was already hired.
Maraklov got into the front seat of the cab.
“Well, well, General Big-Shot,” Moffitt greeted him. “Dobriy vyechyer … looks like you have some sort of a problem—”
“Stuff it, Moffitt.” He turned toward Kramer, sitting in the back seat of the cab with a copy of the Wall Street Journal. “They’re deactivating the DreamStar project. In two days.” Kramer appeared not to have heard him. “Did you hear what I said?”
“I do not think he believes you, tovarisch,” Moffitt said.
“Speak English, asshole. Better yet, keep your trap shut. Kramer, listen to me. We’ve got to get DreamStar out of Nevada.”
He did not look up from his paper.
Maraklov grabbed the newspaper away from Kramer and crumpled it up. “What the hell’s wrong with you, Kramer?”
“With me? Nothing is wrong, Captain — except I have just conveyed your previous message to Moscow, how you have countermanded their order. Now, you tell me that you were wrong and that the KGB’s original plan must be implemented. Am I now supposed to happily embrace your idea?”
“Hey, I just found out about this today. The damned project director was screwing around in the simulator and got himself hurt. He filed his report—”
“And the Joint Chiefs canceled the project,” Kramer interrupted, “overriding the Air Force’s recommendation for lower levels of activity.”
“You know about this?”
“We heard about the Pentagon’s recommendation over the weekend,” Kramer said. “Our superiors contacted us immediately, wanting us to explain the disparity between your contentions and the announcement. I could offer none.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“We needed time to evaluate the situation,” Kramer said. “Besides, your phone was not working. “ He had had it off the hook all weekend, afraid of contact with anyone that might have seen Kramer and Moffitt at his apartment. “But it did not matter. We knew you would contact us tonight.”
“Well, this new development changes things, makes your original plan not only necessary but, if I can pull it off, one that will give us a significant advantage. They stop, we go on … I think it can be done. I’ll need refueling support, somewhere in Mexico. I won’t know exactly where or when, so you’ll have to be flexible. Arrange for a transport plane carrying fuel and supplies. You said you had some private company in Mexico, nothing connected with the KGB or anything governmental …”
“It can be done.”
“If I get a refueling I can fly either to Cuba or Nicaragua. I think Nicaragua would be safer, further from the U.S., less organized. After landing in Nicaragua we can make preparations to fly it to Russia with an escort.”
“So now you believe you can get this aircraft out of Nevada successfully,” Kramer said. “You were sure that you could not do this before.”
“They’re talking about mothballing my fighter. I’m not going to let them do that. No way. I’ll crash the thing before they take it away from me.” He immediately wished he could take back those last words.
Kramer was silent for a few moments, then: “The Command is concerned about you, about your motivation. They believe that you do not seem to care who has control of the fighter as long as you have it. This worries them—”
“They don’t have to worry about a damn thing. Just make sure they have a tanker in Mexico when I get there, and make sure they have a secure, protected place to keep it in Cuba or Nicaragua or any other damn place I make it to. I’ll get the fighter to Russia in one piece. You can bet on that …”
3
High Technology Advanced Weapons Center (Dreamland), Nevada
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,” Brigadier General John Ormack, the deputy commander of the High Technology Advanced Weapons Center, began. “This is the operational test flight briefing for Mission Three Sierra, first full-crew operational combat test flight of the B-52 M-model Megafortress Plus bomber.
“Our landmark mission today consists of an AIM-120 air-to-air missile test engagement, AGM-132C Tacit Rainbow III anti-radiation cruise missile test launch, and AGM-98 air-to-ground laser-guided missile weapon release.”
To an outsider it hardly seemed like something to cheer about. To those assembled in the briefing room, it was something to applaud. That was especially true for those seated at the place of honor in the front row — General Bradley Elliott, Patrick McLanahan, Wendy Tork, and Angelina Pereira, surviving members of the original Old Dog’s B-52 flight crew. Ormack himself had been the copilot aboard the first flight of the original Megafortress and the project director for the newly redesigned Megafortress Plus. He seemed to have grown younger since their amazing mission eight years earlier — many members of his Megafortress Plus project half his age had difficulty keeping up with him.