“I’m sure he was speaking about both,” said Weinstein softly. “Francis knows that without one, you can’t have the other.”
“So you really think this trip can position me for the nomination?”
Weinstein spread his hands. “That’s why I wanted to catch you before the meeting — just in case someone tries to throw a wrench in the idea. Longmire’s health is on pretty shaky grounds, and if something happens it would be better for you to go into office as a hero, who’s been tested in international negotiations. This treaty could boost confidence in you and ensure you the next election, if Longmire lasts that long. You should view this trip as more than just service to the country. It’s a springboard for you as well.”
Adleman kept eye contact with Weinstein. Boost confidence and ensure the next election. Suddenly he felt uneasy about his actions, about being calculating and anticipating President Longmire’s demise.
But the first lesson he’d learned as an Army officer was to anticipate and be prepared. So when things went wrong, he could do something. Reacting was better than sitting still and allowing events to pass him by, which was like striking out by watching the balls go by instead of swinging.
Chapter 3
Bruce watched the floor show for as long as he could stomach it. Without Ashley to go back to, he should have been enjoying it, if for no other reason than because of his freedom.
His gum grew stale; tired of popping it, he slipped it into an empty beer bottle that littered the table top.
Set in a smoky, low-ceilinged bar, the show oozed sleaze. Tables were pushed up around an elevated runway. On the bed in the middle of the stage a naked Filipino woman gyrated her hips to music. Bruce couldn’t tell how old she was — it was difficult, since the Filipinos looked so much younger than he.
Technorock, driven by a throbbing bass and incessant drum, blared throughout the bar. The songs were old, from a different era than the one in which Bruce had grown up — not hard rock, but something more commercial, like the soundtrack to a cheap porno movie. It added to Bruce’s discomfort. He pushed his chair back. There must have been twenty beer bottles on the table in front of him.
“Hey, where you going, Assassin?”
“Fresh air.”
“You don’t look too good. Too much to drink?”
Bruce paused. “Yeah.”
Catman turned back to watch the act; he spoke loud enough so everyone could hear him. “Don’t wimp out on us.”
Right, thought Bruce. Talk about a wimp.
He remembered when Catman had finally soloed in the F-15—or rather he remembered the party afterward. They had stumbled into a bar during happy hour, and within a short time they were all drunk as skunks. Catman made a pass at the waitress, only to get sick and toss his cookies all over the table. He then promptly passed out and slumped head-first into his vomit. Thrown out of the bar, the boys had had to push Catman around in a shopping cart until they found their car.
ACC solo. Catman’s first solo flight in an Air Combat Command fighter … a bonding experience known to only a few. Bruce’s thoughts drifted to his own first solo, high above the desert, outside of Luke AFB in Arizona.…
“Heads up, Assassin.”
“Rog.” Bruce craned his neck around the cockpit. At eighteen thousand feet, the view was breathtaking: cloudless blue sky above him, rugged red-brown terrain below. He felt one with the ancient F-15A fighter. He rocked the wings. The craft responded instantly.
What the hell? he thought. He slammed the stick to the right, and the fighter instantly rolled around. He saw brown-blue brown-blue as he spun. He jerked the stick to the neutral position and immediately flew level. “Holy shit.”
“Say again, Assassin.” His instructor pilot’s voice from back at the training squadron on the ground came over his headphones.
“Ah, getting good response,” paraphrased Bruce. “This bird is pretty agile.” He had forgotten that his mike was “hot,” the transmitter left on an open channel during this first solo.
“Copy that,” came back his instructor, dryly. “You’ve got ten minutes before heading back. Go ahead and wring it out.”
“Roger that.” Bruce squinted out of the cockpit. Luke lay off the horizon to his left; directly below were mountains; on the other side, a long fissure wound its way through the Arizona desert. “Request permission to descend through two thousand.”
“Affirmative — but watch those mountains. We won’t be able to paint you on the scope.”
“Rog,” said Bruce. That’s the whole idea.
He pushed the stick forward and to the right. The F-15 broke out of its level flight and began to descend. Bruce flicked his eyes from the altimeter to the airspeed indicator to his radar.
The fissure lay before him. The walls seemed far enough apart to safely bring the craft. He spotted the rugged cliffs that opened up like a yawning mouth. A thin ribbon of water lay at the bottom of the fissure. It must have taken hundreds of thousands of years for the river to create the fissure.
“Five minutes, Assassin. Time to head back.”
“Rog.” But not before I take a look-see. Bruce shoved the stick forward; the craft screamed to the ground. The numbers on the altimeter dropped like a rock.
Bruce’s whole attention was outside the aircraft. The F-15 descended into the fissure. Rocky cliff walls rose up on either side. As on the desert floor, the fissure showed no sign of vegetation, only red-brown earth of a gravel-like texture. The sharp edges of slanted geological zones, painting the walls in weird striped patterns, zoomed by. The walls were treeless. He inched the craft even lower.
The cliff walls closed to within a hundred feet of the wing tips. He lost radio contact in the canyon. As he flew closer to the water, he slowed the craft by pulling back on the throttles. The F-15E bounced slightly from the thermals.
Bruce drew in a breath — the feeling was unfathomable: boulders as big as a house dashed by, a ripple of water lay below … it was almost a psychic experience, like that old scene in Star Wars.
A fuzzy dot ahead, just over the water, caught his attention. As he grew closer, he could make out two dots — two red balloons that hovered in the middle of the fissure. His eyes widened.
Yanking back on the stick, Bruce hit full afterburners. The F-15E jerked up and stood on its tail, accelerating upward while still moving forward. “Come on,” muttered Bruce. Sweat formed at his brow and ran into eyes. The craft seemed to claw upward as the acceleration pushed him back into his seat. He forced his head to the right and tried to find the balloons.
As the F-15E shot up from the fissure he spotted them below him. A thick strand of wire ran across the canyon, holding the balloons in place. The balloons warned low-flying planes that power lines crossed the fissure. If he had not pulled up when he did, his F-15E might have hit the wire and smashed into the rocky walls; a smoking pyre in testimony to his low-flying antics.…
“… can you read? I say again, Assassin. Can you read?”
Bruce tried to keep his voice steady as he kicked off the afterburners and nosed the F-15E back to Luke. “Rog. I … I was pulling out of a roll. I’ve got a vector back home.”
“Copy that.”
Minutes later, after the F-15E Eagle had rolled to a stop, Bruce climbed out of the cockpit. Buckets of cold water doused him, chilling the sweat that still covered his body. He held up a hand to his classmates, who were enthusiastically participating in the rituaclass="underline" after a first solo, the pilot was drenched in water. Catman threw the last bucket on him. “Congrats, Assassin. With your reputation as a hot dog, we all thought you’d try something spectacular.”