The Gold Coast

56

The time comes for Judge Andrew H. Tobiason of the Fourth Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia to make his judgment in the case of Laguna Space Research versus the United States Air Force. Dennis McPherson is there in the courtroom with Louis Goldman, seated just behind the plaintiff’s bench that is occupied by three of Goldman’s colleagues from his firm. On the other side are the Air Force lawyers, and McPherson is unpleasantly surprised to see behind them Major Tom Feldkirk, the man who got him into this in the first place. Feldkirk sits at attention and stares straight ahead at nothing.

Behind the parties in the case, the rather formal and imposing neoclassical room is filled with reporters. McPherson recognizes one of the main feature writers from Aviation Week, in a big crowd of others from the aerospace press. It’s hard for McPherson to remember that much of this is taking place in public; it seems to him a very private thing. And yet here they are in front of everybody, part of tomorrow’s business page without a doubt, if not the front pages. Newsheets and magazines everywhere, filled with LSR vs. USAF! It’s too strange.

And it’s too fast. McPherson has barely gotten seated, and used to the room and the seashell roar of its muttering crowd, when the judge comes in his side door and everyone stands. He’s barely down again when the sergeant-at-arms or some official of the court like that declares, “Laguna Space Research versus United States Air Force, Case 2294875, blah blah blah blah…” McPherson stops listening to the announcement and stares curiously at Feldkirk, whose gaze never leaves the judge. If only he could stand up and say across the room, “What about the time you gave us this program as our own project, Feldkirk? Why don’t you tell the judge about that?”

Well. No use getting angry. The judge no doubt knows about that anyway. And now he’s saying something—McPherson bears down, focuses his attention, tries to ignore the feeling that he’s caught in a trap he doesn’t understand.

Judge Tobiason is saying, in a quick, clipped voice, “So in the interests of national security, I am letting the contract stand as awarded.”

Goldman makes a quick tick with his teeth. The gavel falls. Case closed, court dismissed. The seashell mutters rise to a loud chatter, filling the room like the real sound of the ocean. McPherson stands with Goldman, they walk down the crowded central aisle.

By chance McPherson comes face to face with Tom Feldkirk. Feldkirk stares right through him, without even a blink, and marches out with the other Air Force people there. No looking back.

He’s sitting in a car with Goldman. Goldman, he realizes, is angry; he’s saying, “That bastard, that bastard. The case was clear.” McPherson remembers the feeling he had at the ceremony where the contract was awarded; this is nothing like that for him, but for Goldman…

“We can pursue this,” Goldman says, looking at McPherson and striking the steering switch. “The GAO’s report has got the House Appropriations Committee interested, and several aides to members of the House Armed Services Committee are up in arms about it. We can make a formal request for a congressional investigation, and if some representatives are open to the idea then they could sic the Procurements Branch of the Office of Technology Assessment on them, as well as light a fire under the GAO. It could work.”

McPherson, momentarily exhausted at the complexity of it all, only says “I’m sure we’ll want to try it.” Then he takes a deep breath, lets it out. “Let’s go get a drink.”

“Good idea.”

They go up to a restaurant in Georgetown and sit at a tiny table placed under the street window. Window shoppers check them out to see if they are mannequins. They down one drink in silence. Goldman describes again the plan to influence the committees in Congress, and it sounds good.

After a while Goldman changes the subject. “I can tell you what went on behind the scenes at the Air Force. We finally got the whole story.”

Curious despite his lassitude, McPherson nods. “Tell me.”

Goldman settles back in his seat, closes his eyes briefly. He is getting over his anger at the judge’s contempt for the rule of law, he’s convinced they can win in Congress, and he’s seduced by the gossip value of the story he’s ferreted out: McPherson can read all that clearly. He’s getting to know this man. “Okay, it started as far as you knew when Major Feldkirk came to you with a superblack program.”

“Right.” The cold bastard.

“But the truth is, that was part of a story that has been going on for years. Your Major Feldkirk works for Colonel T. D. Eaton, head of the Electrical Systems Division at the Pentagon—and Eaton works for General George Stanwyck, a three-star general also based in the Pentagon, and responsible for much of the ballistic missile defense. Now, your superblack program was presented to the Secretary of the Air Force as part of a campaign to pull the power of weapons procurement a little closer to the chest, so to speak—back completely in the Pentagon’s power. Official reasoning for that was that procurement is in terrific disarray, because so many ballistic missile defense programs are getting into serious cost overruns, or deep technical trouble.”

“I’m aware of that,” McPherson says bleakly.

“The fact is, the whole procurement system is so badly screwed up that Congress is about to intervene again, which is one reason we have a very good chance there.”

“That’s the official reason, you said? And the unofficial?”

“That’s where it gets interesting. Stanwyck, okay, he’s in the Pentagon. Three-star general. And General Jack James, out at Air Force Systems Command at Andrews Air Force Base, is a four-star general. And they know each other.”

Goldman looks at the palm of one hand, shakes his head. “It’s curious how these things last. They went to the Air Force Academy together, you see. They started the same year, they were classmates. And you know how the officers are graduated from the military academies in ranked order? Well, those two were the competition for number one. In the last year it got pretty intense.”

“You’re kidding me,” McPherson exclaims. “In school?”

“I know. It’s sort of unbelievable what’s behind these kind of conflicts, but several sources have confirmed this. I guess the whole thing was well-known in Boulder at the time. No one knows exactly how the rivalry started—some talk about a practical joke, others a disagreement over a woman cadet, but no one really knows—it’s just one of those things that got rolling and kept going. I personally think it was probably just the number one thing, the competition for that. And James ended up first in the class, with Stanwyck second.

“Ever since then James has always done just that little bit better in terms of promotion. But recently Stanwyck got assigned to the Pentagon. And since then he’s been a big force in the development of remotely piloted vehicles for combat missions. As you probably know, most of the Air Force brass has a strong bias against unpiloted vehicles, no matter how much sense they make in terms of current weapons technology.”

“Sure. If all combat planes become remotely piloted, it’ll be cheaper and fewer people will be killed, but where’s the glory?”

“Exactly. If it happens, the whole Air Force becomes nothing but air traffic controllers, and they can’t stand it. No more flying aces, no more right stuff, the whole tradition down the tubes. So it’s obvious why they’re so opposed to it. James among them, since he was a big flyer, one of the so-called flying colonels when they were choosing the design for the second generation ATF. But Stanwyck, now, he’s been on the ground for a long time. And he’d like nothing more than to ground the flyboys too, and have James know it was all his doing. Thus all James’s fault.

“Not only that, but Stanwyck is part of the Pentagon group that is trying to centralize all the armed forces, which would weaken the autonomy of the Air Force, and indirectly strip Air Force Systems Command, out at Andrews, of any real independent power at all.”

McPherson shakes his head. “So we were pawns in a battle between two parts of the Air Force? It wasn’t even interservice?”

Goldman pauses to consider it. “Basically true. But it was the program that was the pawn, though. And from what we now know, I suspect it was a pawn that Stanwyck intended to sacrifice all along. Because”—he stops to sip at his drink—“it was Stanwyck himself who told James of the existence of the Stormbee program. This was after you had been working on your superblack proposal for some time, see, after Stanwyck had made sure, by the use of in-house spies, or inquiries from Feldkirk or whatever, that you had a good, workable system. Only at that point, when the superblack mechanism was already rolling to award LSR the contract, did Stanwyck tell James about it, supposedly in the course of answering a request for information. But I think it was planned. I think that that was the shoving of the pawn out into an exposed position, to set up the sacrifice.”

“You mean Stanwyck wanted the program taken away and turned white?”

“Well, think about what had to happen as a result. James gets mad as hell, and because he’s a four-star general he has the authority to make it a white program, and take over the administration of the bidding process. At that point, you people at LSR are doomed, because no matter what the various other bids look like, James is bound and determined that LSR is not going to win this contract, because you are the company that Stanwyck chose. At the same time, as Stanwyck well knows, LSR has a damn good system worked up. So… do you see?”

“He set James up to initiate cheating in the evaluation process,” McPherson says. He feels a certain theoretical pleasure in understanding at the same time that disgust is twisting his stomach again. “If it happened, and we protested successfully, then James loses power.”

“He might even lose his job! They might force him to retire, no doubt about it. At this point James has his back to the wall, and that’s a fact.”

“So Stanwyck’s gambit worked. The pawn was taken, but the king is in trouble.”

“Yes.” Goldman nods precisely. “And as you might guess, it’s people in Stanwyck’s command at the Pentagon who have leaked a fair amount of the material used by us and the GAO. Now, Judge Tobiason is either on James’s side, or he isn’t aware of the conflict and is only protecting the Air Force. Or else he disapproves of the fight and only wants to stop it. Impossible to tell. We don’t really know. It doesn’t really matter, now that that stage of the battle is over.”

“And where did you get this information about Stanwyck and James?”

“From James’s subordinates. He isn’t much liked, and the story is widespread at Andrews. And from Stanwyck’s people, who want it known.”

“Hmph.”

They order another round, then talk about tactics in the campaign to get Congress to act. Goldman is enthusiastic about this in a way McPherson hasn’t seen before; apparently Goldman wrote off their chances in court ever since Tobiason was appointed judge in the case, so that this is the point where he can really work with some hope of success.

But McPherson finds himself very tired of the matter. The truth is, the day has seen the end of one of their last chances. Once a pawn has been sacrificed successfully and taken off the board, what real chance is there for it to petition its way back on, to protest the way it was used, to redress its grievances?

Well, Goldman thinks their chances are pretty good. It isn’t exactly chess, after all. Much more ambiguous and uncertain. But McPherson goes back to the Crystal City Hyatt Regency feeling depressed, and more than a little drunk.

Out one of the great mirror-windowed walls of the Hyatt stands the Pentagon Annex, a massive concrete bunker defended against all the world. Impenetrable. Who could really believe it could be defeated?

He gets lost on the way to his room, has to consult three bad maps and walk half a mile of halls to find it. When he does there’s nothing there but the bed, the video, a window facing the inky Potomac. Can he stand to turn the video on?

No. He sits on the bed. Tomorrow he can fly home. Be back with Lucy. Only fourteen hours to get through till then.

Some two hours later, just as he is falling asleep watching the dead video screen, the phone rings. He leaps up as if shot. Answers it.

“Dennis? Tom Feldkirk here. I—I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry about what’s happened in this case. I didn’t have any part in it and didn’t have any way to change things. And I want you to know I don’t like what’s happened one bit.” The man’s voice is strained to the point of shaking. “I’m damned sorry, Dennis. It isn’t how I meant it to happen.”

McPherson sits dully with phone to ear. He thinks of the stories Goldman told him that evening. It’s possible, even likely, that Feldkirk wasn’t aware of how the superblack program would be used by Stanwyck. He probably found out after it was too late to do anything about it. Another pawn in the game. Otherwise why even call?

“Dennis?”

“That’s all right, Tom. It wasn’t your fault. Maybe next time it’ll go better.”

“I hope so. I hope so.”

Awkward good-bye. McPherson hangs up, looks at his watch.

Only twelve hours to go.