When Medina caused the craft to begin rotating, more than one man exclaimed aloud; the illusion remained. The skin of Black Stealth One was changing its patterns as it rotated, to fool a watcher only a hundred feet away. Ben had learned to look slightly away from it while the craft was in chameleon mode, but the others were staring hard, trying to blink the fuzziness from their vision.
Enjoying the slack jaws despite himself, Ben said, “From this distance it’s not very convincing but put ‘er a thousand feet up and, mister, she is flat fuckin’ invisible. Dr. Sheppard’s boys ran across the fact that the colors of some liquid crystals are voltage sensitive, and we figured out how to embed some in a skin. ‘Bout a thirty-pound weight penalty for the entire skin area. Medina just gives the computer a focus viewpoint it has to fool. Its video looks in the opposite direction and paints the skin with the liquid crystal display to match the backdrop. Kinda like the pixels of a big TV screen; as she moves, she compensates.”
Aldrich, who knew the answer: “And if I move?”
“If the computer’s IR scanner is locked onto you, it compensates. It only fools one viewpoint, but the pilot can select it.”
“Another team is working on the canopy problem,” Sheppard assured the audience. “If the pilot can trust video displays completely, the next version won’t have a canopy.”
Weston: “Let me see if I understand this. The skin only seems transparent because the skin facing the chosen observer takes the appearance of what that observer would see, if the aircraft weren’t there. And the videos on the side facing away from the observerthe back sideare in effect filming the obscured view and projecting it onto the observer’s side.”
“Yeah,” said Ullmer. “In effect. Goddamn little computer’s got some smart parts; it even recognizes when the hellbug’s own shadow is impinging on the backdrop, like when it’s just above the ground. It won’t let its own shadow screw up the projection. That’s smart,” he winked.
By now, Black Stealth One had slid back near its original position, still two stories above them. Ben Ullmer held up his hands, linked their thumbs, and mimed a flapping with his open fingers. Medina nodded and made a console adjustment. Instantly, the Snake Pit’s guests were laughing, for the wing display had become an almost-perfect replica of a bird’s plumage, even to the splayed pinion feathers at the wingtips. A sixty-foot buzzard hung almost silent above them.
“We programmed that in just for fun,” Ben said. “But when she’s soaring over our runway, and you’ve got nothing to scale ‘er againstwell, it’ll fool these old eyes.” With that, he gestured a thumbs-down and Medina let the craft settle on its skids, the soft rush of air quickly dying as Medina busied himself with a clipboard inside.
“Now, just for your opinion, Abe.” One of Charles Foy’s elegant brows elevated slightly. “You agree that hiding this is worth the sacrifice?”
“I do, Charles,” Randolph said. His tone had a matching cool elegance, but in fact the air almost hummed with heightened anticipations. “Given how advanced this is over Blue Sky Three, it seems little sacrifice at all.”
They stood in momentary silence gazing at the craft. “Just consider,” Foy said as though thinking aloud, “what one could do with only a hundred of these. It’s invisible, it can land in any pasture, delivering men or devices, or bringing them back. It could hover unseen over the very Kremlin. Goodbye to all security in the most tightly controlled nation on earth.”
“That shopping list wasn’t very specific.” The Director of Central Intelligence pulled at his chin, noting that Black Stealth One was now a dull gray again, and turned back to the Dernza. “They specify when they can. I don’t think they have a clue about what they’re after, except that it’s a third generation stealth programand that’s enough to make it Priority One for them.”
“My thoughts exactly,” said Charles Foy. “Ben says he’ll need two months to install the long-range tanks. That won’t be the final product. The new canopy won’t be ready, for example. But, still, it will be able to play its part in our flimflam.” He noticed a faint frown on Ullmer’s face. “Excuse me, Ben, we’re talking gibberish to you. Is the other side of Black Hangar secure?”
Ullmer nodded. He got Medina’s attention, mimed a throat-cut and pointed to his Breitling“kill it; quitting time”then led the way back through the door.
“It’s almost five,” Aldrich reminded no one in particular as, without apparent intent, the men formed a loose ring near the center of the expanse.
Foy stuck his hand out to be shaken again. “Ben, the reports don’t do this thing justice. You’ve outdone yourselves; tell your crews I said so.”
Ullmer shifted that dead cigar. “But,” he prompted.
“No buts. It’s unbelievable. Still, sooner or later we had to share the news.”
“Depends on how wide we share it,” Ullmer said darkly, looking down at his feet.
Randolph, with a sad smile: “Still need-to-know only, but don’t worry that the Soviets will find out about it.” He paused.
It was Dar Weston who dropped the bomb: “They already have, Mr. Ullmer.”
“Hell and damnation! How could we leak?” The pain on Ben’s face was so real he seemed in danger of bursting into tears. “And what the GODdamned hell do we do now?”
“We’ve already talked that over. Had to,” Foy said ruefully, “after a man died placing a copy of the new Sov shopping list in Mr. Weston’s hands. CIA saw that the Other Side is uncommonly interested in something CIA itself was unaware of, until we told them; something called Black Stealth aircraft. Sovs even know it’s not CIA, or Lockheed or Northropbut they don’t know any of its technical tricks. They just figure that if it’s stealth they must have it.”
“And they’ll keep coming after it until they have one for themselves,” Foy ended.
“Like our side felt about that MiG that Belenko stole,” Ben said. “Yeah, I know how it works. So what do we do about it?”
Randolph looked at Foy, who looked at Sheppard, who said, “Uhm, well,” and took a breath. “Well, Ben, we have to convince them to go back to sleep; to quit sniffing around. In short, to relax.”
Ben shifted his cigar, bit it hard, and snarled, “I wish I had the foggiest fuckin’ idea how we might manage that, by God I do.”
“Simplest thing in the world,” Sheppard said gently. “We let the Sovs steal Black Stealth One.”
THREE
Ben Ullmer caught most of his cigar before it hit the floor, glaring speechless at NSA’s top cryptographer. He removed a wet mass from his mouth, the part of the stogie he’d bitten off, and crammed the fragments into a pocket. Then his features began to relax. “That is the dirtiest joke I have ever heard,” he said, hoping someone would smile to endorse the idea.
“You understand,” said Sheppard, “that the joke will be on the other side. We will let them have Blue Sky Three, suitably fudged with a dummy flight log. You mentioned that we might be able to spot it? Believe me, Ben: we can. So, they can have it. Instead of having KGB people seeking the real thing, we’d much rather lull them to sleep by letting them steal the sacrifice. If they don’t know what Black Stealth One can do, they won’t know we’re delivering a substitute.”
“This decision is already cast in concrete, I suppose,” Ullmer growled.
Charles Foy: “I’m afraid so. This is damage control, cutting something adrift to save the crucial bits. It would be hard to overstate the tremendous loss this country would suffer if the other side ferreted out the facts of the real Black Stealth One. Their next strategic bomber wouldn’t have to be fast, or heavily armored.”