“Fifty cents.”
“Hold out for a dollar,” her mother chimed in, fighting a roll of plastic wrap, one eye on the small television atop the counter tuned to the “Today Show.”
“Steph,” Shepherd protested.
The phone rang. Shepherd answered it. “Congressman Guth-erie’s office,” he said, handing it to Stephanie.
She wiggled her brows in anticipation, making him laugh, and moved aside with the phone. A bright, ingenuously sexy woman, at thirty-seven Stephanie Shepherd still had the freshness of the University of Denver journalism student who had caught Walt’s eye at an Air Force Academy mixer nearly twenty years ago.
“Wish we were going with you, Daddy,” Laura pouted, glancing at her father’s luggage next to the door.
“Me too,” Shepherd said warmly, “but you know—”
“Yeah, I know, I can’t miss school.”
“I’ll miss you, princess.”
“You’re going to miss the finals too,” Laura said, referring to her upcoming gymnastics competition. She was standing next to the television when Willard Scott’s folksy weather report segued to an update of the morning’s top news stories.
“A terrorist bomb exploded aboard a TWA 727 jetliner en route from Rome to Athens, yesterday,” the newsreader somberly reported. “Authorities said those responsible are believed to be supported by, if not actual agents of, Libyan strongman Muammar el-Qaddafi. The explosion tore a hole in the fuselage, killing four American passengers who were sucked out of the plane, and fell fifteen thousand feet to their deaths.”
Laura turned to her father, her face a bewildered mask. “How can people do things like that?”
“They’re uncivilized, sweetheart,” Shepherd gently explained, turning off the television. “They don’t play by the rules the way we do.”
The child nodded sadly, a dozen questions in her eyes, then she took Jeffrey’s hand and headed for the bathroom.
“The interview’s set for this afternoon,” Stephanie announced brightly, hanging up the phone. She worked as a reporter for the Capitol Flyer, the base newspaper, and Andrews was in the congressman’s district.
“I hope he voted for the ERA,” Shepherd teased.
A horn beeped outside. Their faces tightened apprehensively. They looked at each other for a long moment, then kissed.
“Something else you’re going to miss,” Stephanie whispered as their lips parted.
“You bet; twenty years with a sex-crazed journalist isn’t the sort of thing that just slips a man’s mind.”
“Walt,” she admonished gently, unable to suppress a girlish giggle. “I meant our anniversary.”
“I know,” he said more seriously. “We’ll do something special as soon as you come to England.”
They were still embracing when the children returned and the horn beeped again. Shepherd kissed and hugged each of them, then hefted the luggage and went out the kitchen door to the air force van in the driveway.
An hour later, Major Shepherd and his weapons systems officer, Captain Al Brancato, were at their lockers in the squadron life support room, donning flight suits, helmets, and inflatable G-suit harnesses that girdled their legs and torsos; then they strode down the flight line to a khaki and brown camouflage-patterned F-111F bomber. It had low visibility markings with black stencils. The tail code read: CC-179.
TAC had finally finished the reshuffle and they had been transferred to the 48th Tactical Fighter Wing based at Lakenheath Royal Air Force Base in England.
Brancato was a gregarious man whose taut physique shaped his flight suit. Like most aviators, he adhered to a fitness program of aerobic exercise and workouts in the squadron weight room, where a sign cautioned: THE FORCE IS WITH YOU LIKE IT OR NOT. Gravity was the force, and aviators who flew high performance aircraft viewed G-induced loss of consciousness as a lethal adversary. Well-developed musculature acted as a natural G-suit, augmenting the inflatable harness to raise G-tolerance and prevent GLC.
For the last eight years, Brancato had been Shepherd’s alter ego and wizzo. The latter in more ways than one.
“Name the island that has a quarter of a million less inhabitants today than it did a hundred years ago.”
“Ireland,” Shepherd answered hesitantly.
“Not bad… The American who had a long association with the Soviet Union as businessman and ambassador?”
“Armand Hammer.”
“Averill Harriman. Hammer was never ambassador.”
“You going to do this all the way to the U.K.?”
“Just for that, which famous composer poured ice water over his head to stimulate his brain?”
“Elton John,” Shepherd cracked, as they stowed their luggage on a rack in the weapons bay, empty because the plane was flown “clean,” without ordnance, on deployment flights. The crew chief, who for three years had overseen 179’s maintenance with customary fervor, hadn’t been transferred to England and he watched wistfully as the two aviators did their inspection, then slipped beneath the gullwing canopies into side-by-side red leather couches.
After forty-five minutes of systems checks and engine warm-up procedures, Shepherd radioed for clearance. “Andrews tower, Viper-Two ready to roll.”
“Viper?” Stephanie had asked when they first dated, thinking there was nothing at all venomous about him. “It certainly doesn’t suit you.”
“Well,” he replied, glancing skyward, “you have to understand I’m different up there.”
She hadn’t understood; indeed, she still didn’t. Despite being blessed with that rare combination of guts, skill, and judgment found in the best fighter jocks, killing was out of character for Walt Shepherd; conversely, call sign Viper had no trouble handling it.
Shepherd started the F-111 down the west runway; 30 seconds later, the sleek F model, hottest of the 111 series, was banking over Chesapeake Bay. Soon it was at 30,000 feet, streaking through the atmosphere at 750 MPH. The wings were at 16 degrees, standard for takeoff and climb. Shepherd set the indicator stop at 52, advanced the throttles, and eased back the handle in the sidewall; the wings swept at a rate of 10 degrees per second and the F-111 bolted forward.
“Yeah,” Brancato hooted as the acceleration slammed him back into his seat; it was a kick every time.
Speed was now Mach 1.75; precisely 1,250 MPH.
Shepherd guided the plane into a GAT-assigned commercial air corridor and engaged the autopilot; then he and Brancato settled in for the long haul.
Two hours later, the sleek bomber was 2,400 miles out over the Atlantic, 1,300 miles from its destination. Unlike practice missions, deployment flights had no tactical objective. Once on autopilot, aviators were essentially passengers in a supersonic taxi. Brancato passed the time reading, his nose buried in a biography of Churchill. Shepherd monitored the avionics.
“Mind watching the store for a while?” Shepherd asked, as he removed a palm-sized cassette recorder from a pocket in the leg of his flight suit and clicked it on. Years ago, the first time he and Stephanie were apart, he had wooed her via cassette, and he had been using it to keep in touch with home ever since: from Vietnam, the Philippines, wherever he was stationed without her.
“Thursday, three April,” he began in his easy drawl. “Real pretty up here, babe. We left the Grand Banks behind about an hour ago. Advance report for touchdown is rain and more rain. Sounds like we’re talking weather for ducks. Speaking of water, Al thought you should know that Beethoven used to pour ice water over his—” He paused, catching Brancato signaling to the multi systems display. “He’s waving at me like a matador. Not Beethoven, Al. Be talking to you soon.”
“Three bogies coming off the deck at a hundred miles,” Brancato said, eyes riveted to the MSD screen, where three blips had penetrated the radar envelope.