Curtis shook his head. These guys were all alike. Everyone in the White House was on an ego trip, trying to be the top banana, all the while keeping the Pentagon, and most especially the Joint Chiefs of Staff, out of the loop. Typical. Wilbur Curtis, fourth-generation graduate of the Citadel, four-star General of the Air Force, swore if any of his own seven children ever went into politics he’d wring their neck.
Curtis looked straight at Russell. “Roast whomever you want, but do you or do you not have information on one of my troops being held in Vilnius, Lithuania, by the KGB?”
Russell ignored the question. Instead he peered out of one of the 747’s oval windows: darkness, but far below, the tiny, twinkling lights of an American city. Finally, he turned back to General Curtis, still shaken by the lack of internal security that was often apparent in the White House.
“This is a DCI matter, Wilbur, not your concern.”
Curtis tore off the end of a cigar, hunting for a match. “That’s bullshit and you know it. Do you know who this prisoner is? He was part of a very special, select operation, a man who risked everything to prevent World War Three!”
“I know who REDTAIL HAWK is, Wilbur, but how the hell do you know who he is? What does he have to do with the Joint Chiefs?”
“Didn’t you ever read the Old Dog file?” asked Curtis, chomping on his cigar. “Anyone ever tell you about that mission?”
Russell rolled his eyes, sipping now cold coffee. “I’ve never heard of this Old Dog or whatever you’re talking about, Wilbur. What I do know is we’ve got a former Air Force officer, a B-52 crew member at that, who Probably knows more about the Single Integrated Operations Plan and nuclear warfighting than I do. Now he’s over there, in a KGB-run facility, Posing as a Soviet scientist, helping a group of hard-liners build a stealth bomber. I didn’t send him there, you didn’t send him there, so he’s not Working for us. Which means he’s working for them, spilling his guts.”
Curtis jabbed out his cigar in a nearby ashtray, frustrated by the cut-and-dry attitude of politicians like Russell. There was never enough time — or interest — by the people sitting in the ever-changing seat of power in Washington to learn about the projects and details of the past. The Old Dog mission was only a few years old and already it was long forgotten by the very ones who should remember it. The flight of the Old Dog was a mission that had driven everyone involved in the episode into virtual isolation at HAWC. Not to mention the isolation David Luger had suffered behind the walls of Fisikous. Even if Luger was helping at the Institute, Curtis knew him as well as his own sons. Curtis was sure Luger’s cooperation wasn’t of his own volition.
“Look,” Curtis said, “I’m going to pull the Old Dog file for you, and you’ll have it when we arrive in Washington. Your eyes only.” He scribbled a note to his aide, then said, “Now tell me, what’s the status of REDTAIL HAWK?”
Curtis saw the slight hesitation, the aversion of the National Security Advisor’s eyes, and a sinking feeling came over him.
“I don’t know what his status is … at this point,” Russell said.
Curtis exploded, eyes ablaze: “You didn’t order a sanction, did you?”
Russell said nothing.
“Goddammit, you’re going to have him executed? Whatever happened to extraction? Especially for one of our own?”
Russell loosened his tie, wishing he could simply leave the room. But Curtis would follow him all over the damn plane. “Wilbur, the last briefing I had on this guy said he was an Air Force officer who’d died in a plane crash in Alaska on a training mission. When we did some checking, DIA found out there was no plane crash and no mission. Now the guy turns up in a Soviet aircraft-design facility and doesn’t show any obvious signs of duress. What were we supposed to think? How did I know it was some classified operation?”
“Let me guess,” Curtis interrupted. “You just happen to have a guy very close to REDTAIL HAWK, close enough to, say, poison him.”
Russell cleared his throat. “One of our Moscow section officers has an ex-KGB contact that still throws around a lot of weight,” he explained. “This contact helped us… uh… place an agent very close to REDTAIL HAWK. It’s verified. Wilbur — your ‘friend’ is a major player in this aircraft-design center. He’s advanced the state of the art in Soviet aircraft design by at least five years.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true.”
“No doubt on his identity?”
“Our agent got fingerprints, photos, shoe size, eye color, the works. No doubt at all.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Curtis said, still shaking his head in disgust. “You’ll find Luger’s a hero, a genuine hero, when you read the Old Dog file. He’s obviously been brainwashed and forced to work for the Soviets. We’ve got to pull him out of there.”
Russell’s eyes lit up in surprise. “Pull him out? How the hell am I supposed to get this guy out of one of the most top-secret and secure places in the Soviet — I mean, in Europe?” Russell asked. “If he was in a gulag or a prison, maybe. But he’s in the European version of Dreamland or China Lake. It would take a damned battalion to get him out!”
“Leave that to me, George,” Curtis said confidently. “You give me the details and I’ll show you how we can get him out. But tell your mole to watch Luger and keep us updated constantly on his position. For God’s sake, don’t kill him.”
“Fine,” Russell said. He picked up a roll, looked at it with distaste, then put it back on the tray. “That part of the game’s not in my blood anyway.”
“What about this bomber being built in Fisikous? Is this Tuman the stealth bomber the Soviets were supposedly working on before the empire crumbled?”
“I guess,” Russell replied absently. “The staff convinced me we should keep an eye on it, although I think it’s a lot of worrying over nothing. These Soviets holed up in Fisikous don’t have the money to produce carrots, let alone an intercontinental bomber. They’ve lost all their privileges under the new system. When the facility’s turned over to the Lithuanians, they’ll be out of work.”
“What if they get the money from somewhere else?”
“Who? Russia? They don’t have the money either. Poland? Bulgaria? The IRA…
“How about Iran? Iraq? Syria? Libya…
“I’m telling you, nothing’s going to happen. The plant will be closed, the production stopped, and the Lithuanians will put the stealth bomber on display or sell it to us for hard currency. The thing isn’t going anywhere,” Russell reiterated. “We’ve been monitoring things in Fisikous and all the other design bureaus, and they’re ghost towns. We can shut Fisikous down immediately if there’s any hint that the technology will be exported outside the CIS.”
“Then Luger’ll be killed,” Curtis pointed out. “They wouldn’t want it made public that they’ve been keeping an American military officer locked up in that place all these years.”
“Or maybe Luger will go with the scientists. Voluntarily.”
“We’ll pull him out immediately then,” Curtis said. “We can’t take a chance”
Russell thought it would be easier to kill the guy than to risk lives trying to rescue him, but he didn’t say it. In his present mood, Curtis would go ballistic “All right, Wilbur. If you’re gonna extract him, then work up a plan. But this guy is going to have a lot of explaining to do!”
“You didn’t seem too interested in hearing him tell his story a little While ago, George,” Curtis said.