38
It washigh noon when Drake and Clarissa were cleared onto Joint Base Andrews with two minutes to spare. The driver dropped them by one of the 89th Airlift Wings’ secure hangars. This one was across a wide taxiway from where the President’s 747s were kept.
Inside were the two C-32s that were most commonly used by the Vice President as Air Force Two…when therewasa Vice President. He’d ridden in them several times himself enroute to critical meetings. But the modified 757 would require eighteen hours to reach Brunei, not counting a refueling along the way.
With the big doors open, inside the shadowed hangar was still hot. The Memorial Day weekend heat wave was showing no sign of relenting.
“Next time, give me a little more warning,” Clarissa brushed at her clothes, which did indeed look the worse for wear.
“I would have, if I’d had it myself. I only had fifteen more minutes than you did and spent most of that getting to you. I tried calling, but you were on that secure call.”
Then silence fell between them. Clarissa might rate as the one person he wasleastlikely to be chums with…outside of the murdering bastard Zhang Ru. Maybe if he came to the meeting, he could unleash Clarissa on Ru, then stand back to watch the show.
They didn’t have to wait long in the sweltering hangar. Within minutes of the appointed time, a long, sleek jet rolled in.
Sarah Feldman had been as good as her word. But Drake had to blink several times and the aircraft still didn’t seem to come into focus as it eased to a stop close in front of them.
The engines cycled down, and a lone pilot stepped out as a fuel truck rolled up to it.
“Oh, I do love that look on people’s faces. Captain Conklin at your service, sir and ma’am.” He wore slacks and a button-down shirt, but his salute was pure military. “If they’d told me who I was meeting, I might have dressed up a tad. My apologies, General. I work mostly with civilians now and it’s easier when I blend in a bit.”
“At ease, Captain,” Drake returned the salute, but couldn’t take his eyes off the aircraft.
It had more relation to an arrow than a jet. Half of its length was in a tapered nose that stretched an unlikely distance ahead of the front landing gear. It was as if a sleek Gulfstream had told a lie until its nose would put Pinocchio to shame. The wide delta wing was so thin that it seemed to disappear when viewed edge on.
On the side was painted,X-54B Gulfstream.
“That long nose,” the captain began doing knee bends, “splits the air almost silently at supersonic speeds. Think of the pointy tip on supersonic fighters or the Concorde.”
“I didn’t think it would be ready for testing of the A version until later this year.”
“I know. Private sector, right? Never ones to waste time. Need to make it profitable as fast as possible so they can actually get to work. Hustle, hustle, hustle. The A and B are in testing simultaneously. Military insisted on their own test pilot and I pulled the lucky straw.” Conklin patted the low wing as if it was a puppy dog, then began a series of loosening stretches.
“Is it really boomless?”
“Supersonic to Mach 1.5, on the ground they’ll hear a thump around seventy-five decibels. That’s quieter than a telephone ring tone, probably little more than a big truck clunking over a sewer grate. At Mach 2.5, which we only do over water, it will be closer to an alarm clock. The old cannon-crack? We’ve got that one completely licked.”
“And it’s ready for prime time?”
“Well, sir, that’s news to me. An hour ago, I was in Georgia, planning a test flight and a dinner after with this sultry brunette. Now we’re scheduled for two hours to cross the country—never been cleared by the FAA to do that At Speed before except in a narrow test corridor across Kansas. Someone has a serious bit of pull.”
Drake didn’t mention that it was the future Vice President.
“Then an hour and a bit more at full boogie to our refueling stop at Hawaii. About the same again to reach your meeting. Never flown transoceanic before either. Could be very exciting.” Then the fueler called him over to sign the loading sheet.
“Wonderful,” Drake muttered to himself.
The interior was as long and lean as the exterior implied. The cockpit forward had windows around the single pilot, but they faced sideways or upward at a steep angle more akin to a skylight. With no bulbous cockpit dome to interrupt the plane’s intense streamlining, there would be no clear view forward. Large computer screens placed before the pilot, but above the instruments, must be linked to forward cameras.
“Production bird is planned to carry ten to twelve folk,” Conklin told them happily as they hunched over to head aft. “They’ll eventually be expanding to about twenty, or so they tell me. Only have the pilot in the X-54A. Could be five of us here in the X-54B if it wasn’t for all of the test gear. Also, truth be told, your two passenger seats are all they have built so far.”
Their seats were arranged facing forward to either side of an aisle so narrow they were practically rubbing elbows. Across from them stood two racks of equipment filled with gear he didn’t begin to understand.
“Water bottles and some candy bars in the bag there. Let’s get going. There’s a…” Conklin waved a hand vaguely toward the rear before he latched the door and turned for the front of the aircraft.
Drake twisted to look behind him, barely missing clunking heads with Clarissa as she did the same. A tiny commode, with no curtain, was placed close behind the passenger seats.
Just perfect.