“TOPGUN 23 cleared to break.”
“Roger,” Luke replied. He checked the downwind leg for any other traffic he hadn’t already seen. He looked over at Thud flying tightly on his wing and started nodding slowly. He was counting, as he always did. Then he put his left hand up to his oxygen mask and kissed Thud off.
He pushed the stick slowly but steadily to the left, putting theF/A-18 into a slow left roll until it reached a ninety-degree angle of bank. He pulled back hard, and the Hornet bit into the air and turned sharply from the runway below him as he reduced throttle to slow down his jet. Thud counted to four, then put his own Hornet into an identical five-G turn behind Luke.
As Luke leveled out downwind, he lowered his flaps and landing gear. He waited until he was parallel to the runway and at its end. “Tower, TOPGUN 23 at the 180, three down and locked.”
“Roger, TOPGUN 23 cleared to land Runway 6. Winds 070 for four.”
“Roger,” Luke answered as he continued his turn and steep descent. He landed perfectly on the runway. He turned off at the end of the runway and looked for the truck to guide him to the transient line, where he could park his jet and the Air Force would refuel it for him.
Luke and Thud taxied together and followed the directions of the ground crew who were waiting for them. They held their brakes while the Air Force men put wooden chocks by their wheels. They were finally in place, and they were given the signal to shut down.
Luke pulled his throttles around the stop to the off position and had a quick idea. As his engines wound down, he glanced at Thud, who was watching him, knowing he was going to think of it. Luke brought his head back slowly, then quickly forward. When he did, both he and Thud pulled the canopy lever back, and their two canopies opened as if linked together, a perfect precision canopy-opening exercise. It was what all Navy squadrons did after a fly-off, when they’d been on a cruise for six months, and they had flown back off the carrier to their home base as a squadron. Their families waited expectantly, and the pilots, with their stomachs fluttering and yearning to hold their spouses again, would all leave their radios on, and the skipper would signal for everyone to shut down their engines and open their canopies at the exact same time.
They climbed down from their planes and walked to the line shack together.
“My butt is killing me,” Thud commented.
“Long flight.”
They paused at the maintenance counter and put their helmets on it. A senior Air Force enlisted woman approached them. “Do you have your gas card, sir?” she asked.
Luke removed a credit card from the small pocket on the left shoulder of his flight suit.
“Your jets okay, sir? Need any maintenance?”
“No, they’re fine, thanks.”
“When do you expect to depart, sir?” she asked, writing.
“Tomorrow at 0600.”
“Yes, sir, the tower should be open. You might give them a few minutes to have their coffee so they don’t taxi you into a C-17.”
“Good point. Make it 0630.”
“Will do, sir,” she said, smiling as she glanced over his shoulder, apparently at someone approaching them from behind. Her face expressed sufficient concern for Luke to turn around and see a man walking toward them from two cheap black couches that formed the transient pilot waiting area. He was wearing polyester pants that might have fit once but certainly didn’t now and a short-sleeved plaid shirt that might sell for ten dollars at Kmart. The man was staring at Luke as he walked directly at him. He was unshaven. His hair was black and unkempt. He had clearly slept on his hair and hadn’t seen a mirror since.
Luke’s concern grew as the man approached him.
The man spoke with an accent. “Navy Lieutenant?”
“Who are you?” Luke asked, not really wanting to know.
“Are you Navy Lieutenant? From TOPGUN?” he asked, putting the emphasis on “gun.” He looked out the window at the two desert-camouflage F/A-18s with the distinctive circular TOPGUN logo and the lightning bolt.
Oh, great, Luke thought. A wannabe who’s been obsessing his whole life in a basement somewhere about flying at TOPGUN. They were everywhere. Every air show, every port of call, every tour of a carrier, everywhere. Guys—almost always men—who knew more about the airplanes than the pilots who flew them did. They knew the manufacturing specs for the canopy and the number of landings the tires could take before they had to be changed. They were information sponges and generally not very much fun to be with. They almost certainly had never actually flown an airplane—or had a normal human relationship. “Yeah, that’s us,” Luke admitted reluctantly as he turned back to the female Sergeant.
“We must talk,” the man insisted.
Luke listened carefully to his accent. He’d heard it before but couldn’t place it. “What?” he said over his shoulder as he and Thud examined the paperwork that had been handed to them.
“We must talk,” the man said again, touching Luke on his elbow.
That was too much. Luke put down the papers and turned to the man, looking at him more carefully, to see if he was a threat. “Do I know you?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the Sergeant apologized, growing concerned. “He said he was a friend of yours. He was supposed to meet you here.”
Luke looked at the man again, waiting for an explanation.
“I am Vlad, from MAPS,” the man said quietly, with authority.
Luke hesitated. “Vlad? Have we spoken?”
“Yes, but I’m sure you have forgotten. I am very new at MAPS, and they have just assigned me to the idea you have sent them about this new TOPGUN School.”
Luke quickly looked at the Sergeant to see if she was listening. She wasn’t. Luke headed away from the counter. “What are you doing here?”
Vlad smiled and shook Luke’s hand with enthusiasm. “I didn’t warn you that I was coming. I for this apologize,” he said in his heavy Russian accent. “It was on the moment of a spur. They said you had told them you planned to inspect the MiGs this weekend and would try to get them the serial numbers. I offered to come help, and they told me to come.”
“This is Thud,” Luke said, indicating Quentin.
Vlad shook Thud’s hand with equal vigor. “I have heard of you. You are part of this, too. Yes?”
“Yes,” Thud said, smiling as he evaluated the man on whom so much might depend.
Luke said, “But I’m not sure they’ll let you come with us.”
“They must,” Vlad said with confidence. “First you check into VOQ,” he said, putting the emphasis on the O of the acronym for the Visiting Officer’s Quarters. “I will drive you there. Then we go to find MiGs.”
Luke looked at Thud, who said, “Forget the VOQ. Let’s see the MiGs. It’s already almost 1400.”
Luke and Thud followed Vlad out of the small building to the parking lot by the operations building. “What is your last name?” Luke asked.
Vlad fished in the pocket of his tight polyester pants for the rental-car keys. “Petkov,” he replied in such a way that the name sounded like an explosion.
“Nice to meet you,” Luke said. “Where’d you get this… car?” he asked, suddenly concerned.
“Cheapest rental car place I could find. Nineteen and ninety-five per every day.”
“I’ll drive. I’ve been on this base before—” Luke said.
“I know base. I got here before you. I was driving around, until I saw Navy pilots do snappy break in F-18s, not pull up rolling break like Air Force. Then I just watched where you go.”