Vanishing Point - Marc Cerasini [43]
Jamey blinked, understanding his logic. "That will work, provided I can locate some of the older pathways."
Milo shook his head. "Sounds a little far fetched. You're still transmitting data. Why won't you get caught?"
"It's like the power company trying to meter electricity that is somehow sent through natural gas lines," Tony explained. "The electric company isn't paying attention to the gas system, so it slips right past them."
Milo nodded. "Okay, I'll dig up some of those old protocols and we'll give it a try. But Tony, if I were you, I'd use that same analogy when I explained this scheme to Christopher Henderson."
Tony chuckled at the memory. He'd done just that at the pre-mission briefing and Henderson was hooked. Together, Milo and Jamey developed protocols to translate the data, and stored them in Tony's laptop so that now it took Tony only minutes to convert the data and drop it into an NCP packet. Then he sent the packet on its way. Back in Los Angeles, Jamey would download this data, along with the camera feed from the test site, by tapping into the old ARPANET routes at UCLA, and then downloading all the collected data into CTU's mainframe. And it all happened with only a few seconds' delay.
Tony closed down his computer, then glanced at his watch. In forty-five minutes the demonstration was scheduled to take place. Tony grabbed his backup laptop, and hurried back to the site. He wanted to be present for the final preparations.
* * *
5:15:47 p.m. PDT
Hangar Five,
Experimental Weapons Testing Range
Groom Lake Air Force Base
"This is certainly an impressive machine," Senator Palmer declared with genuine awe.
"The Boeing Sikorski LO-88 Blackfoot was commissioned by the Army," Dr. Megan Reed explained. "The brass were looking to procure a stealthy insertion and recovery aircraft suitable for conducting special operations. Unfortunately the Pentagon wasn't happy with the helicopter's payload limitations, and the program was cancelled shortly after this prototype was tested — successfully, I might add."
The cavernous interior of Hangar Five housed only one aircraft, a sleek, black shape that reminded Senator Palmer of a predatory raptor. A tri-motored, rotor-controlled aircraft, the LO-88 Blackfoot resembled no helicopter Palmer had ever seen. Instead of a main rotor on top of the aircraft, the Blackfoot had two ten-bladed fans housed in engine nacelles affixed to both sides of the aircraft's fuselage. The vertical tail rotor was conventionally set on the tail fin, but was also housed in a hooded nacelle.
Apart from the propeller housings, there were no rounded edges on the Blackfoot. Viewed from the front, the fuselage was triangular — its bottom was flat, sides sloped like the body of an F-117 stealth fighter. This shape — the so-called "Hopeless Diamond" configuration — was designed to deflect radar waves. It was also clear to the head of the Defense Appropriations Committee that no metal was used in the construction of the craft's exterior — everything was fashioned from super-strong plastics or extremely-expensive radar-absorbing composite materials. Two flat-paned cockpit windows in the shark-like, pointed nose were tinted black to match the light-absorbing surface of the fuselage.
Palmer circled the high-tech stealth helicopter once. "This aircraft is quite amazing. But I have to ask, why am I here? This has nothing to do with the demonstration... Or does it?"
"The Blackfoot may have disappointed the Army, but it's the perfect platform to carry the Malignant Wave device to the enemy," Dr. Reed explained. "It's low observable, has a range of over a thousand miles, terrain-mapping capabilities. It can fly nap of the earth, and because of the new vortex technology that powers the main engines, the Blackfoot can also attain altitudes no other helicopter can match."
"I believe I've already expressed my amazement," Palmer replied. He crossed his arms behind his back and waited for the other shoe to drop.
"We learned during early trials