“How are you liking Texas?” Phillips asked.
“It’s flat, hot and wet,” Kaz said, smiling. “But I’ve been doing some flying, and it’s been great to reconnect with Luke and Michael.”
Phillips leaned to the left and called through the open door. “Jan, is Mo here yet?”
Kaz’s mind raced ahead. “Mo” would be the overall military boss for Apollo 18—Admiral Maurice Weisner, the Vice Chief of Naval Operations.
“I’m just getting him a coffee now, General,” Jan called back.
There was a knock on the frame of the door. “Permission to come aboard, Sam?”
Mo Weisner entered, smiling, cradling a coffee. Kaz stood to shake hands with the Admiral as Phillips waved him to the empty seat at the table. Weisner had been a junior officer in World War II whose ship had been sunk by Japanese torpedoes; he had lost 200 crewmates. After he’d retrained as a pilot, he’d torpedoed and sunk a Japanese destroyer escort, and gone on to command three squadrons. His gold naval wings, Distinguished Flying Crosses and other ribbons were neatly pinned above his name tag on his short-sleeved uniform shirt.
He sat and turned his heavy-lidded gaze on Kaz. “Good flight in?” The broad vowels of his Tennessee childhood made “in” a two-syllable word.
Kaz nodded. “Yes, sir, the Eastern breakfast flight.” He held up his mug. “My fourth cup.”
“I’ve read the prelim report of the crash,” Weisner said, small talk over. He trained his intense brown eyes on Kaz. “They say no obvious cause. I heard you were there. Was it mechanical or did Tom make a mistake?”
“Weather was good, no other planes around, no sign of a birdstrike. My best guess is something failed in the machine. The accident board is sifting through the evidence.”
Phillips and Weisner both nodded. As fixed-wing pilots, neither of them trusted helicopters.
“How’s Miller doing?” Phillips asked.
“As you know, sir, he’s been training alongside the crew in case something like this happened. He stepped right in and he knows his stuff,” Kaz said.
“Sure, but are they gonna make it work?” Weisner asked. He’d led men in wartime. It was the key question.
“Tom was a special guy and he’d grown close to Luke and Michael. But Chad’s up for it. Apollo 18 will be ready for launch.”
Launch—the day the newly formed crew would leave Earth to do whatever these two senior officers decided.
Weisner glanced at Phillips, who said, “We’ve got some new intel about Almaz. We think they’ve significantly upgraded the optics.” He lifted the pale-green folder and passed it to Kaz.
Inside was a collection of photographs, some with arrows and notes on them in silver and black ink. Kaz picked the first one up and tipped it into the strong light coming from the window. His dissertation at MIT had included an analysis of Soviet space assets, and his memory was clear on early designs for their space station.
“They’ve changed the mold line,” he said, tracing his finger along the new shape of the spaceship’s hull. One by one, he examined the remaining photos, looking closely at the print that showed the most magnification. “The optical window is different and the radiator arrangement has been shifted.”
He looked up. “I agree with you, General. They’ve put a whole new capability in there.” He thought a moment. “Do we have any ground-based intel on how good it might be?”
The senior men glanced at each other and, again, it was Phillips who spoke. “The CIA’s been hearing some things that indicate the Soviets have used different parts suppliers and have also sent new scientific personnel to the assembly plant in Moscow.”
Weisner continued. “Our best guess is they’ve made a significant improvement over the original design.”
Kaz nodded, visualizing the components of the various systems. “The raw size of the optics in Almaz will outmatch their unmanned spy satellites, no question.” He glanced back at the photographs. “That change in its outer shape means they could have put in reflective optics, using the whole interior diameter for focal length.” He ran the numbers in his head. “Which means they could see things down to the sub-meter level. Maybe down to a little over a foot.”
He looked up at Phillips and Weisner. “This version of Almaz could spot the two of you walking down the street and tell who’s who.”
“That’s what my analysts have been telling me,” Phillips said. “That kind of capability means we have to rethink our deployed assets all over the world, from what’s on our ships’ decks to our remote base activities to parking the President’s car. Almaz is going to make us change and curtail what we’re doing. We may have to start performing our critical ops at night, which will increase difficulty and decrease our chances of success.”