The Penetrators: The high-tension thriller of nuclear confrontation by Hank Searls

Author:Hank Searls [Searls, Hank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silvertail Books
Published: 2024-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

8

“Many Soviet aircraft enjoy performance edges over U.S. aircraft now in service.”

—Admiral George W. Anderson Former Chief of Naval Operations

“We are continuing studies but we have no plan at the present time to produce a successor to the B-52.”

—Robert S. McNamara

“So far as I know, Secretary Zuckert and Secretary McNamara have not ridden on a bomber raid.”

—General Curtis LeMay

General Hub Younger waited his turn in a spectator’s seat in the high-vaulted marble hearing room while General Hal Norwood sat at bay in stubby, glacial calm in the witness chair, his five stars a little dull, his chest a carpet of faded decorations. Younger had never been called to Senate testimony before, and now, as the members of the Armed Services Committee digested his senior’s last answer, he tried to assess the odd discomfort he had felt at the apparent openness of what was a closed hearing.

He had come to the new Senate Office Building with Senator Joe Peroni, riding the underground from the Capitol where he had met the senator in the office of the Majority Leader.

He had met Peroni before, when the senator and two of his cohorts now on the dais before him had inspected ICBM sites near SAC Headquarters. He had felt rapport with the squat, black-eyed Italian-American; his questions in the silos had been studied and he seemed to have a mathematical bent.

He was the senator’s boy at this hearing, the senator’s and the Pentagon’s. Charlie Van Ness, veteran of a dozen such inquisitions, had said: “Just follow Peroni’s lead, Hub, and you can’t go wrong. He’s had me up there three times already. You can see, I’m all right. Bruised, but all right . . .”

The knowledge of that was all that was keeping him from utter panic at the feeling that he was going to be forced to give away military secrets of the U.S., Britain, and Canada, in a truly traitorous style.

He had expected the hearing room to be guarded by Capitol police, or at least by men identifiable as being from the forces of the Senate Master-at-Arms. But he had entered with the senator through no guards at all, faced the dais rapidly filling with committee members, glanced at the spectator seats, half-empty but nevertheless half-full, and quickly asked Senator Peroni: “This is a closed hearing, sir?”

The senator nodded. “Don’t worry, Hub. See those gals?”

Behind the dais at which Brian Holiday presided stood three unobtrusive young women. One of them was studying his face intently. He smiled automatically. All at once she moved to the girl in the center and made some inquiry. The second girl, who apparently recognized him, nodded reassuringly and all three went back to their study of the faces in the spectators below. This was the sole security, apparently, and he must accept it.

General Norwood was not winning friends for the manned bomber. He had been gruff even with his own sponsor, Senator Holiday, and with Senator Peroni almost acid.

“General Norwood,” Brian Holiday said now, “you’ve testified that the ballistic missile will not necessarily be difficult to defend against in the future.

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