Hadamard was clearly using the Titan proposal to propel himself from the relative obscurity of his previous accounting background to the front rank of national figures. Once the Titan mission was launched, and NASA’s final affairs wound up and devolved, Hadamard would have his pick of jobs, in industry or politics. Hadamard, the article said, had every chance of becoming man of the year.
Deeke had to grin at that. Hadamard was one shrewd guy if he could turn a Shuttle crash into a good career move.
Somehow it was typical NASA. All bullshit.
At last an aide — a young MP — collected him, and walked him to the office of Brigadier General Albert Hartle.
Hartle came out from behind his desk, and shook Deeke’s hand vigorously. “Gareth. It’s good of you to come out here.”
The MP brought Deeke a coffee. It was good quality, potent and rich. Then the MP left, closing the door behind him.
Hartle smiled thinly. “I’d offer you a drink. Baltics, that’s what you Edwards boys used to drink, right?”
“I understand, sir. Not here.”
“No. Not here.”
Deeke sized up his surroundings. The office was just a box, like all the chambers in the complex. Hartle had left the walls unpainted; the bare steel shone in the harsh fluorescent strips. The biggest item of furniture was Hartle’s desk, a severe battleship-grey affair that looked like it had been welded together out of gun metal. Its surface bore a blotter, a fountain pen, and a small old-fashioned computer terminal.
The only item of adornment on the walls was a North American Air Defense Command crest, behind Hartle; the NORAD badge was a shield, with a sword and eagle wings upraised before the North American continent, sheltering it from the lightning strikes above.
Hartle was approaching sixty. The Brigadier General was small, trim and upright in his decorated uniform, his strong hands folded up before him.
He looked, Deeke thought, like part of the room, an extension of its severity.
This was Hartle’s habitat. As far as Deeke knew Hartle had no family: nothing in his life but the Air Force, and what he saw as his mission. It was hard to imagine the old Cold Warrior anywhere else but here.
They’ll probably have to bury him here, Deeke thought.
Hartle was studying him, his blue eyes predatory.
“I think you’d better tell me why I’m here, sir.”
“Gareth, I want you to indulge me. I want to go over a little history with you. Because if we don’t learn from the past, we’re condemned to repeat it. Right? And by the end of the story, I think you’ll agree with me that we need to take action now. A single, affirmative, decisive action. There are others who will support us…”
“Action, sir?”
“Bear with me.”
Hartle started to tell Deeke how he had gotten involved in America’s space activities as far back as the 1970s, after Apollo.
“Of course you know the truth about Apollo. McNamara — the Defense Secretary — supported the lunar thing to President Kennedy. Why the hell should the DoD support a big civilian man-in-space boondoggle? But in retrospect it’s clear. McNamara had wider goals. With a big new program like Apollo, outside the reach of the USAF, McNamara could please the aerospace lobby and Congress, taking the pressure off himself, so that he could get on with budget-paring defense programs. Our programs.
“You must understand this point clearly, Gareth. The civilian space program, and its Agency, were actually used as bureaucratic weapons against the USAF. And hence, of course, against the national interest.”
So, Deeke thought, our interpretation of history is that the U.S. went to the Moon in order to beat up on the USAF. Deeke suspected it wasn’t as simple as that; he knew the USAF’s space programs had been riven by infighting within the Air Force from the beginning. But it wasn’t a bad theory.
Maybe old Al Hartle has been down this damn hole in the ground too long.
…But Deeke found he wanted to hear more. It all fit in, he realized, with his own instincts.
It had been years since Deeke’s last visit to the complex.
Deeke was surprised by the subdued atmosphere. He remembered a buzz about the place, a sense of purpose and vigor. If the Big One had ever come, this might have been one of the last outposts of civilization, as the bright young people here monitored the launching of nuclear-tipped missiles across the planet. They could have survived down here for weeks, months even; there were big steel reservoirs, for instance, storing six million gallons of cool, uncontaminated Colorado Springs water.
The sense of mission, of power, had been palpable. Deeke missed it all, damn it.
But now it was different, right across the country, even the world; now, in hardened Minuteman silos that had cost millions to develop, farmers were being allowed to store grain.
Sometimes, Deeke thought, he just couldn’t recognize the world, this odd, fragmented future into which he was slowly sliding, helplessly. None of the old certainties seemed to hold any more.
He could understand how Hartle felt, with his recitation of forty-year-old history, of historic crimes for which retribution was coming.
“Go on, sir.”
“We had to accept the Moon, but at least we were able to stop those assholes flying to fucking Mars…
“I worked on the study group that came up with the Shuttle recommendation. We forced NASA to accept a delta-winged orbiter, to give the bird a low angle of attack atmosphere entry — more heating, but greater cross-range abilities. And that big cargo bay was built for anti-sat work. The Shuttle was a military vehicle, no doubt about it. Then we started work on the Vandenburg launch site. We even essayed an orbital bombing run, over Moscow. But we were faced with nothing but delays and overruns. And then came fucking Challenger.
Think how far back we’ve slipped, since the X-15 you flew. A fucking museum piece, but still the fastest aircraft in the world. Do you remember what we planned? The X-20, the B-70 — a Mach 3 bomber — and the F-108 — a Mach 3 fighter — all cancelled by 1968. My God, they even cancelled the Supersonic Transport because of the fucking environmentalists who said the human race would become extinct if it ever took to the air. Right now the USAF does not have a plane to catch the Russians’ Foxbat…
“Gareth, NASA has been a thorn in our flesh ever since it was founded, by Eisenhower. Even when it hasn’t been used as a positive weapon against us, it’s acted to disrupt our programs and limit our capabilities. My God, if I had my way there would be NASA managers hauled into the courts to answer charges of treason, such is the damage they’ve inflicted.
“But it’s been a long game. NASA has been weakening since 1969. It’s been a slow decline but it’s been steady. And now, at last, we’re in a position to kill it.”
“Kill it, sir?”
“Listen to me now. This damn Titan stunt is one last throw of the dice by those NASA assholes. If it succeeds, they’re figuring, maybe they’ll get back in the public eye, start clawing back some of the power and prestige and funding they’ve blown. We can’t let that happen, Gareth.
“Look, we’re working at many levels to stop this. We’re pulling strings in the Pentagon and up on Capitol Hill. I’m calling in every favor I can. And, frankly, we can count on Xavier Maclachlan’s support. If we can just delay the damn thing until Maclachlan gets into the White House in ’08 we’ll have won…
“But anyhow, this is an historic moment, and we must have the courage to act, to shape the future. Otherwise, we might have no future to shape. The Red Chinese, Gareth. Asia is stirring from its thousand-year sleep. Red China will soon be on the march. Think about that.”
“You talked about action, sir.”