Outside the E-Z Up Farley looked out on the enormous airplane hangar. The other tents were being taken down, their contents hauled away by BGT employees driving Signature Edition Sammy Juniors, mini versions of the forklift model their inventor had stolen from the future. Away went Veterans Day displays of flight suits and A-2 jackets and crush caps, mounted photographs of bomber crews and fighter pilots and aerial combat, machine guns and medals and flags.
At the far end of the hangar, near the Blue and Gray Technology Gulfstream that had brought him here, the huge swing orchestra was packing up. The circulating crowd and shouting children tugging patriotic balloons had dwindled to stragglers. A few hours ago long lines had snaked around the airfield, waiting patiently to tour the vintage aircraft despite the cold gray overcast November day. Because how often does a major corporation debut a mint-condition World War II warbird collection that its founders had maintained in a private hangar for decades?
Farley shook his head and smiled, thinking about Jerry and Wen and the surprise their company had unveiled today. A secret basement project that only outrageously wealthy men could have made a hobby of.
The Bonniker & Broben Collection looked as if it had rolled off the assembly line this afternoon. The Mustang fighter parked inside the hangar by the Aerial Combat display should have had a ribbon and a bow on it. The Mitchell and the Liberator bombers squatting off the taxiway looked like they’d been garaged straight from the factory. The C-47—a tireless draft horse Farley had learned to love during the Berlin Airlift—looked cherry as a showroom sedan.
And the main attraction just outside the hangar entrance. Even now his heartbeat quickened when he looked at her.
His hand went to the envelope in his breast pocket, but the tent panel rustled and Dr. Kitchner emerged, pulling her wheeled brown valise like a lapdog on a leash.
“Oh, good, I was afraid you’d already gone,” she said. “Where’s the general?”
Farley pointed at the row of blue Porta-Potties along the side wall. “Duty calls,” he said.
“Oh.” Kitchner frowned. “Well, I really must leave.” She held out a hand. “Captain, it has been a unique honor. Thank you. For—well, everything.”
Farley shook her hand. “One more question, doc,” he said.
Kitchner nodded uncertainly.
“Do you think if we learn from the future, maybe we won’t repeat it?”
She smiled and looked startled at the same time. “As long as there are people like you in the world, captain,” she replied, “I feel certain of it.” She grabbed the telescoping handle of her valise. “Give my regards to the general. I really do have to go.”
“Have a safe trip,” said Farley. He grinned. “And a good life.”
Kitchner blinked up at him. “You really are quite tall,” she said.
Farley was still watching the valise trail behind her when Andrews came up beside him.
“Sorry I didn’t say goodbye,” the general said.
“She asked me to give her regards,” said Farley. “Think she has a plane to catch.”
A young woman heading toward the hangar with an empty wheelchair waved cheerfully at Kitchner as she went from the structure’s dusk into the waning day.
Farley turned toward Andrews. “Think she’ll sell that video to the History Channel?” he asked.
The general laughed. “I think she’ll just turn it in to the archives.”
“Does anyone ever watch those?”
“I sure as hell hope so.”
Farley snorted. “So is the Air Force officially done with me?” he asked.
The general turned to face him. “Captain Farley,” he replied, “I believe it is.” He saluted. “And I have never been more sincere when I say thank you for your service.”
Farley returned the salute without thinking, back straight, shoulders square, eyes front, pain forgotten. His eyes stung and he swallowed. “Sir,” he said.
Andrews broke the salute and nodded at the girl with the wheelchair, who had stopped a respectful distance away. “Looks like your ride’s here,” he said.
“I thought it was yours.” Farley waved at the girl and she nodded and headed to them with the wheelchair. Farley let himself be helped aboard. He settled his cane against his leg and looked up at the general. “One more roll,” he said.
Andrews nodded soberly. “One more roll,” he replied, and toasted Farley with an invisible glass.
Farley regarded him a moment, then decided hell with it. “What else did they find in that bunker?” he asked.
The general raised an eyebrow. “As far as I know it’s still classified,” he replied.
“Well. I guess that answers that.”
Andrews nodded at Farley’s cane. “I keep meaning to ask you,” he said. “That’s a B-17 throttle, isn’t it?”
Farley held the cane up before him. It was cherry wood, brass-banded near the tip, with an unusual F-shaped aluminum handle. Farley smiled at it, fond and knowing and sad.
“Goodnight, general,” he said. Then he looked back at the girl and pointed the cane forward, and the wheelchair began to move.
Jerry had given him the cane at one of the crew reunions, Farley couldn’t remember which one. Wen had made the handle from the Morgana’s left-hand throttle lever, Jerry’d told him.
Farley had hefted the cane, loving it instantly. You sure you guys can spare it? he had asked.
You do grateful lousy, Broben had replied.
“How are you doing, sir?” the young woman asked as she wheeled Farley across the hangar.
“I’m fine,” said Farley. “Just taking it all in.”
“The crowd was so much bigger than we expected. And you were great, the reporters loved you.” Farley could hear her broad smile. “Can I get you anything?” she asked.
Farley nodded at the aircraft parked outside the hangar entrance. “You can get me over there, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Glad to.”
Farley kept his gaze on the familiar shape ahead as his hand went to his breast pocket and pulled out the Blue and Gray Technology envelope, the folded gray paper. He unfolded it and held it on his lap and closed his eyes and breathed in deep.
Oil and grease, high-octane fuel. And a metal smell hard to explain. Aluminum, iron, blood.
He opened his eyes and looked down at the letter in his hand. Below the printed time and date were two handwritten words painstakingly formed in shaky block letters. Two last words from Lieutenant Gerald Broben, hellraiser, wiseass, zillionaire, philosopher on wheels, and the best copilot this or any other world would ever see.
Farley smiled at that final message even as it blurred before him.
TAXI MISTER?
She was skylighted against gray overcast, profile framed in the hangar entrance, angled upward as if eager to regain the sky. Pale light glimmered the contours of her graceful and aggressive frame, gleamed her cowlings and chrome and cockpit glass, glared the vivid painting on her nose. Undiminished by the decades, beautiful and sharp as she had ever been. A window looking out on 1943 in some other world than this.
“Hey beautiful,” the old man whispered to his bomber.