The Minotaur by Stephen Coonts Read Free Book Online Page A

But who, he wondered, were the “we”
of whom the admiral spoke? “You’re our warrior. There’s not
enough time to send you to the five-month program manager
school, so we’ve waived it. You’re going to have to hit the ground
running. Your deputy is a GS-15 civilian. Dr. Helmut Pritsche.
He’s only been here three years or so but he knows the ropes. And
you’ve got some AEDOs on your staff. Use them, but remember,
you’re in charge.”
    “I won’t forget,” Jake Grafton said.
    Dunedin’s secretary, Mrs. Forsythe, gave him a list of the of-
ficers who would be under his supervision. She was a warm, moth-
erly lady with silver-gray hair and pictures of children on her desk.
Jake asked. Her grandchildren. She offered him a brownie she had
baked last night, which he accepted and munched with approving
comments while she placed a call to the Personnel Support De-
tachment She gave him detailed directions on how to find PSD,
which was, she explained, six buildings south. When Jake arrived
fifteen minutes later a secretary was busy pulling the service
records for him to examine.
    He found an empty desk and settled in.
    The civilian files stood out from the others. Helmut Fritsche.
Ph.D. in electrical engineering, formerly professor at Caltech, be-
fore that on the research staff of NASA. Publications; wow! Thirty
or forty scientific papers. Jake ran his eye down the list. All were
about radar: wave propagation, Doppler effect, numerical determi-
nation of three-dimensional electromagnetic scattering, and so on.
    George Wilson was a professor of aeronautical engineering at
MIT on a one-year sabbatical. He had apparently been recruited by
Admiral Henry and came aboard the first of the year. He would be
leaving at the end of December. Like Fritsche’s, Wilson’s list of
professional publications was long and complicated. He had co-
authored at least one textbook, but the title that caught Jake’s eye
was an article for a scientific journal: “Aerodynamic Challenges in
Low Radar Cross Section Platforms.”
    Jake laid the civilians’ files aside and began to flip through the
naval officers. Halfway through he found one that he slowed down
to examine with care. Lieutenant Rita Moravia. Naval Academy
Class of ‘82. Second in her class at the Academy, first in her class
in flight school and winner of an outstanding achievement award.
Went through A-7 training, then transferred to F/A-ISs, where she
became an instructor pilot in the West Coast replacement squad-
ron. Next came a year at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monte-
rey, California, for a master’s in aeronautical engineering, and an-
other year at Test Pilot School at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland,
where she graduated first in her class.
    There were three line commanders: an A-6 bombardier-naviga-
tor, an F-14 pilot and an EA-6B Electronic Countermeasures Of-
ficer—ECMO. Jake knew the A-6 BN and the Prowler ECMO.
There was an aircraft maintenance specialist, whom Jake knew,
and five AEDOs, all of whom wore pilot or naval flight officer
wings. Except for the A-6 BN and the Prowler ECMO, the rest
had fighter backgrounds, including Tarkington, who was one of
only two lieutenants. The rest were commanders and lieutenant
commanders.
    If the navy wanted a stealth attack plane, why so many fighter
types? The air force called all their tactical drivers fighter pilots,
but the navy had long ago divided the tactical fraternity into attack
and fighter. The missions and the aircraft were completely differ-
ent, so the training and tactics were also different. And according
to the amateur psychologists in uniform who thought about these
things and announced their conclusions at Happy Hour, the men
were different too. Either their personalities were altered by the
training or the missions attracted men of certain types. According
to the attack community, fighter pukes were devil-may-care, kiss-
tomorrow-goodbye romantics who lived and lusted for the dubious
glory of