The instructor pilot was using two foot sticks with F-15 models on the end to demonstrate how Stansell should have maneuvered. Then he moved to the white board on the wall of the small briefing room and used four different colors of magic markers to diagram how he would’ve engaged the two F-15s. Finally he ran the video tape that had recorded the flight through the Head Up Display.
Stansell sat quietly, making notes, accepting what the captain had _ to say, and only nodded his head when Donaldson had finished. Get it together, he raged at himself. What’s wrong? This course should be a piece of cake.
The other three members of the flight came into the squadron for their debrief. Snake was loudly telling anyone who would listen how he had “knocked their dicks in the dirt.” Again, the colonel sat quietly through the debrief, thinking how much Snake was like himself when he was younger.
When the debrief was over he escaped from the squadron and headed for the condominium he was renting from a friend.
Barbara Lyon, the condo’s owner, was holding court by the swimming pool. Two younger men were stretched out on the deck chairs beside her, both intent on acing the other out in a bid for her attention, favors. Stansell couldn’t blame them. Barbara was on the spectacular side and the string bikini she was wearing would cause traffic accidents.
“Rupe,” she called, twisting around on the deck chair and leaning forward. Stansell wondered if the rumors about her being a Las Vegas showgirl before she married and later divorced an Air Force major were true. He paused and walked toward her, deciding that even in her mid-thirties she had the body and looks many twentyyear-old girls would kill for. “I need to check your security system, we had a false alarm today,” she said, tugging the top back into place. Barefoot she was two inches taller than he was. The two younger men decided Stansell wasn’t in the game.
He followed her up the stairs, startled at how the beige color of the bikini blended with her tan, making her look almost naked from the back. God, she does make it hard for the troops.
Barbara turned in time to catch his half grin. She gave her long ash blonde hair a toss, a gesture she had practiced in front of a mirror, sure it would add to the effect she wanted to have on the colonel. Actually she found herself attracted to Stansell and his rather quiet ways. The difference in their heights didn’t bother her — she knew that it didn’t make a difference in bed. She liked his well-conditioned body and pleasant looks. And if he would let his dark hair with the few strands of gray at the temples grow long on the sides … She stepped aside to let him unlock the door to his condo, deliberately brushing his arm.
“Let me deactivate the alarm,” she said. “What’s the code?” Stansell told her the four digits that worked the alarm. She carefully punched in the numbers and watched the digital display flash from “secure” to “ready to arm.” Her lips made a slight pout as she studied the box and shifted her weight onto her right leg. She recycled the alarm, fingers playing with the knot on the left side of her bikini, snapping it against her hip. “The problem’s not here. Must be the main box. I’ll get the repairman to check it.” She knew there was nothing wrong with the alarm.
Stansell nodded. Barbara decided she was going to have to be more obvious. Some men just didn’t pay attention. “It’s hot today, you wouldn’t have anything cool to drink?”
“Iced tea? Beer?”
“Iced tea would be fine.” She leaned over the kitchen’s bar while he got the tea for her and a beer for himself. She had noticed the framed photograph of two small girls and a startlingly beautiful woman on the fireplace mantle. “Is that your wife?”
“Was. Divorced. Three months ago.”
It fell into place for Barbara. She had seen the same pattern before and knew there might be a future for her with Stansell.
He handed her the iced tea.
“Don’t those flight suits get awfully hot during the summer?” She reached out and drew a finger across his chest, touching the Nomex flight suit, stopping at the zipper. “All those zippers, and I do like the patch.” She ran a finger over the Triple Nickel’s squadron patch on his right shoulder.
She waited. If Stansell didn’t take the opening it would be plan B-time.
“I only wear it while I’m here. You can have it when I leave.”
“I’ve got to go. Thanks for the drink.” She set the half-empty glass down, smiled at him and turned to leave. “Oh, could I interest you in dinner some evening? I do have some old friends in the Air Force. We might have some mutual acquaintances.”
“Thanks, I’d like that.”
She smiled at him again and left, running plan B over in her head.
Alone, Stansell took his beer and sat down on the couch, wondering what the hell was wrong with him. Once, he would’ve been over Barbara like white on rice. Now — nothing. He didn’t want to get involved? Old hat but maybe true. He pulled the Mission Data Card out of the flight suit’s leg pocket and reread the notes he had made during the debrief. Donaldson was right. He was flying like a newbee right out of basic fighter maneuvers. What was the problem? He knew how to fly the jet but was letting the damn past get,in his way. Concentrate on flying, the program, quit the damn looking at ghosts, wondering about failing, feeling guilty about surviving when all those people died and now some were POWs.
Shake it off and get with it, he told himself as he went into the bathroom, peeled off the sweat-stained flight suit and stepped into the shower. The water felt good against his skin. He heard a knock at the door but ignored it. Since he had come back from the Persian Gulf, he seemed to linger a lot in showers.
“I came back for the rest of the tea,” Barbara called from the kitchen.
“Help yourself.”
The door of the shower swung open and Barbara stepped in. “That feels good.” She gave a wiggle and her bikini bottom fell to the floor. “Untie me, please.” She turned her back to him and held her long hair up, showing Stansell the knot that barely held her top in place. “God, it’s hot today.”
He pulled the knot free and she shrugged off the top.
“Here, let me wash your back.” She faced him and reached around, scrubbing his back. “You must pay more attention.” She laughed, rubbing against him.
Nothing happened.
“Oh well, never mind, I did want to talk to you about dinner. Tomorrow night okay?” She scooped up her bikini and stepped out of the shower, not bothering to dry off. “Seven o’clock,” she told him, and walked out of the bathroom.
A moment later he heard her close the front door. He shut off the water, toweled down, rubbed his hair dry and stared into the water-streaked mirror, not wanting to see too clear an image of himself. For a moment it could have been his old wing commander at Ras Assanya staring back at him. “Muddy” Waters … damn you, Muddy. How to live up to you? To your sacrifice and the way the Wing felt about you? And then: oh, come off it, colonel, this is bull. So you have doubts you can be the man the late Muddy Waters was. Remember what he had done, what you learned from him about the human side of the Air Force and just do what Rupe Stansell can do and not what Waters would have done if he’d lived. Easier thought than done, but he was getting there, and actually felt much better.
He wiped the steam from the mirror and studied his reflection, then slowly turned his face to the left and ran his hand along the right side of his head, brushing his hair back, trying to cover the scar where his right ear used to be.
CHAPTER 2
Michael Cagliari leaned against the back wall of the East Room of the White House, content to stay behind the cameras during the Friday afternoon press conference. As the President’s National Security Advisor, he preferred it that way and worked hard to maintain a low profile.