He read on. The girl’s name hit him. Colonel John Shaw’s face flushed with anger and he bolted in his chair, his square chin hardening as he reached for the hotline to Locke’s squadron. Then he thought better of it. He needed time… time to sort out what had suddenly become a very real problem.
Air Force protocol dictated he should pass the incident on to his deputy for Operations (DO) since it involved a pilot in one of the three flying squadrons that made up the business end of his wing. But his deputy, Colonel Sam Hawkins, was taking a much-needed leave in Cairo. Shaw shook his head and wondered how much longer he could carry Hawkins. He liked the tall, cadaverous colonel and respected his ability as a fighter pilot, but the man let too many details slip through the cracks. And the last thing Shaw needed was to be left holding the bag.
Back to Locke. Shaw decided to handle this problem himself. He knew what had to be done. He hadn’t become a colonel and earned the command of the Air Force’s newest base at Alexandria, Egypt, by being slow or stupid.
Shaw understood the system well and knew that perhaps one out of every hundred colonels was qualified to command a combat-ready wing. But all were motivated by their inner fires to order and lead. It was for the generals to consult their crystal balls and decide who should be given the chance to command and prove his ability. However, the same generals kept a stable of colonels in reserve, ready to take over the reins from their fellow colonel who faltered or drew up lame.
And Shaw knew that the activities of Lieutenant Jackson D. Locke had the potential to get him relieved of duty.
He picked up the hotline to Locke’s squadron, and made a mental note to count the rings before the duty officer answered. The phone had not even completed its first ring when it was picked up; all very satisfactory.
“Have Lieutenant Colonel Fairly report to my office ASAP,” he ordered. “And have Lieutenant Locke in my outer office on the double.”
Jack Locke buffed at his boots with unusual ferocity, bringing them to a high shine.
“I don’t think that’s going to save your butt this time,” the duty officer, Captain James “Thunder” Bryant, observed.
Jack looked up at his friend and grunted before returning to his task.
“Have you told Colonel Fairly yet? The boss doesn’t need any surprises this early in the morning.”
“He isn’t in yet. He flew late last night with Johnny Nelson. He should be here in five minutes or so.” Locke’s dark blond hair flew back and forth to the beat of the brush strokes. He tried very hard not to sweat, even though he had reason to… Thunder picked up the rhythm and beat a tattoo on the desk, adding to Jack’s discomfort. “Knock it off,” he said, throwing the brush into its box. “I think I’ve really stepped on it this time.” He glanced out the window toward the empty spot reserved for the squadron commander’s car, biting his lower lip.
A group of pilots and their backseaters straggled up to the duty officer’s station, a chest-high counter in front of a scheduling board, garnering Thunder’s attention. While Thunder gave the crews a last-minute update on the weather and field conditions, Jack focused his gaze on the concrete ramp in front of the building, studying an F-4 waiting on the expanse of concrete that reminded him of a beach without sand or water, with the hint of its purpose hidden over the near horizon and lost to his view. “God, I love that beast,” he muttered. “How the hell did I ever let last night happen?”
Getting into the cockpit of a Phantom had been a long and tedious road for Locke. Now it was all in jeopardy. Jack’s turn in Egypt had been less than a success. Within a month, he had been thrown out of the Officers’ Club for practicing carrier landings on a beer-sloshed table; arrested for speeding on base in a dilapidated Ferrari he had recently bought from an Egyptian; and reprimanded for being too aggressive on the gunnery range while practicing dive bombing. He prayed everything would blow over in a few days. Other things in his life had… He had been washed out of the Air Force Academy because he flunked military science. He still couldn’t take the subject seriously. But he had learned from it, and pushed himself even harder at Arizona State, where he enrolled to finish college. It had been a walk-through after the discipline of the Academy. The Air Force’s ROTC program at Arizona had opened another path into pilot training. The advice of his ROTC instructor, an unrestrained fighter pilot, had proved good so far; “If you keep your boots shined and your hair cut short, you can screw off until you make captain. After that, you’ll have to play the game.”
Locke had thrown himself into pilot training and finished at the top of his class, but when the assignments came down, all the choice F-15 and F-16 slots went to Academy graduates. Locke went on a drunk, in the privacy of his apartment, but didn’t give up.
Another instructor, a cynical, overweight lieutenant, kept him on track. “Bide your time and use the F-4 to your advantage. It’s an old fighter but a good one. If those pricks that got the F-15s and 16s can’t fly, being a Zoomy isn’t going to help them. You can fly better than any student I’ve trained. Use the Phantom to prove how good you are and work into the F-16.”
Upgrade training in the Phantom had come shortly after that, then an assignment to Alexandria South Air Base where he and Thunder, a big, affable black man, were teamed on the same crew. An immediate rapport sprang up between the two.
Jack complained to Thunder, whose attention was free since the last of the crews left the squadron to fly. “All I want to do is fly. Why do we get hammered for what we do on our own time?”
“There’s more to the Air Force than just flying and chasing around, man. Hey — Fairly just drove up. Catch him quick.”
Locke darted out. Lieutenant Colonel Mike Fairly, squadron commander of the 379th Tactical Flying Squadron, listened to Jack’s story on the drive over and had also decided that was the reason behind the phone call, but it escaped him why the Old Man should be bent out of shape because some fighter jocks were whooping it up at a party. Everyone knew Shaw had raised hell in his time. But Fairly knew from personal experience what a discrete phone call from some general in a higher headquarters could do to a wing commander’s disposition.
Fairly knocked on Shaw’s door. Colonel Shaw waved Fairly to a chair and handed him the incident report with a curt, “Read that.” Before the younger man had read half of the report, he could hardly control his grin. The Security Police had received a noise complaint from the BOQ (Bachelor Officers’ Quarters) at 0207 hours that morning. A team consisting of Technical Sergeant Robert Kincaid and Sergeant Irene Bush (the last name being underlined) had responded to the call and upon entering the BOQ, heard loud music and the sounds of a party. They found the door to Lieutenant Locke’s room fully opened (again, underlined) and the room occupied by approximately fifteen people. The people were shouting and clapping for a couple dancing on a table in the middle of the room. The woman was totally nude and the man was wearing a pair of shorts. The woman was taken into custody by Sergeant Irene Bush (again underlined).
The two individuals were subsequently identified as Lieutenant Jackson D. Locke and a civilian, Miss Abigail Pearson. Miss Pearson’s father was called and picked up his daughter from the Law Enforcement Desk at 0513 hours. An initial investigation revealed that Miss Pearson had been attending a party given by Lieutenant Locke in honor of her eighteenth birthday.
The squadron commander gave an expressive shrug of his shoulders as if to say, “Fighter pilots will be fighter pilots,” when he handed the report back to the colonel.
“Obviously, Colonel Fairly, you are more amused than worried about this incident. Perhaps you’ll feel differently knowing a member of your squadron has been cavorting in the buff with the daughter of the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, the Honorable Frederick Pearson, and that the same Honorable Frederick Pearson was on my base this morning retrieving his daughter from our Security Police. A business that I knew nothing about. Still amused?”