Fallout (7 page)

Petkov took a deep breath as he closed the door behind the two men. He felt as though he were suffocating. When dealing with the Mafia, you did what they asked or you ended up dead. He couldn’t see a way out of the downward spiral his life had become.

Luke looked down through his visor at the green, tree-filled terrain of central Ohio around Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. They had slapped tanks on their planes and flown cross-country from Fallon to Wright-Patterson. The Operations officer who had approved the cross-country flight felt that he owed Luke one last good deal. Everyone knew he was getting out. They all felt sorry for him.

“TOPGUN 23 cleared to break.”

“Roger,”
Luke replied. He checked the downwind leg for any other traffic he hadn’t already seen. He looked over at Thud flying tightly on his wing and started nodding slowly. He was counting, as he always did. Then he put his left hand up to his oxygen mask and kissed Thud off.

He pushed the stick slowly but steadily to the left, putting theF/A-18 into a slow left roll until it reached a ninety-degree angle of bank. He pulled back hard, and the Hornet bit into the air and turned sharply from the runway below him as he reduced throttle to slow down his jet. Thud counted to four, then put his own Hornet into an identical five-G turn behind Luke.

As Luke leveled out downwind, he lowered his flaps and landing gear. He waited until he was parallel to the runway and at its end. “
Tower, TOPGUN 23 at the 180, three down and locked
.”

“Roger, TOPGUN 23 cleared to land Runway 6. Winds 070 for four.”

“Roger,”
Luke answered as he continued his turn and steep descent. He landed perfectly on the runway. He turned off at the end of the runway and looked for the truck to guide him to the transient line, where he could park his jet and the Air Force would refuel it for him.

Luke and Thud taxied together and followed the directions of the ground crew who were waiting for them. They held their brakes while the Air Force men put wooden chocks by their wheels. They were finally in place, and they were given the signal to shut down.

Luke pulled his throttles around the stop to the off position and had a quick idea. As his engines wound down, he glanced at Thud, who was watching him, knowing he was going to think of it. Luke brought his head back slowly, then quickly forward. When he did, both he and Thud pulled the canopy lever back, and their two canopies opened as if linked together, a perfect precision canopy-opening exercise. It was what all Navy squadrons did after a fly-off, when they’d been on a cruise for six months, and they had flown back off the carrier to their home base as a squadron. Their families waited expectantly, and the pilots, with their stomachs fluttering and yearning to hold their spouses again, would all leave their radios on, and the skipper would signal for everyone to shut down their engines and open their canopies at the exact same time.

They climbed down from their planes and walked to the line shack together.

“My butt is killing me,” Thud commented.

“Long flight.”

They paused at the maintenance counter and put their helmets on it. A senior Air Force enlisted woman approached them. “Do you have your gas card, sir?” she asked.

Luke removed a credit card from the small pocket on the left shoulder of his flight suit.

“Your jets okay, sir? Need any maintenance?”

“No, they’re fine, thanks.”

“When do you expect to depart, sir?” she asked, writing.

“Tomorrow at 0600.”

“Yes, sir, the tower should be open. You might give them a few minutes to have their coffee so they don’t taxi you into a C-17.”

“Good point. Make it 0630.”

“Will do, sir,” she said, smiling as she glanced over his shoulder, apparently at someone approaching them from behind. Her face expressed sufficient concern for Luke to turn around and see a man walking toward them from two cheap black couches that formed the transient pilot waiting area. He was wearing polyester pants that might have fit once but certainly didn’t now and a short-sleeved plaid shirt that might sell for ten dollars at Kmart. The man was staring at Luke as he walked directly at him. He was unshaven. His hair was black and unkempt. He had clearly slept on his hair and hadn’t seen a mirror since.

Luke’s concern grew as the man approached him.

The man spoke with an accent. “Navy Lieutenant?”

“Who are you?” Luke asked, not really wanting to know.

“Are you Navy Lieutenant? From TOPGUN?” he asked, putting the emphasis on “gun.” He looked out the window at the two desert-camouflage F/A-18s with the distinctive circular TOPGUN logo and the lightning bolt.

Oh, great, Luke thought. A wannabe who’s been obsessing his whole life in a basement somewhere about flying at TOPGUN. They were everywhere. Every air show, every port of call, every tour of a carrier, everywhere. Guys—almost always men—who knew more about the airplanes than the pilots who flew them did. They knew the manufacturing specs for the canopy and the number of landings the tires could take before they had to be changed. They were information sponges and generally not very much fun to be with. They almost certainly had never actually flown an airplane—or had a normal human relationship. “Yeah, that’s us,” Luke admitted reluctantly as he turned back to the female Sergeant.

“We must talk,” the man insisted.

Luke listened carefully to his accent. He’d heard it before but couldn’t place it. “What?” he said over his shoulder as he and Thud examined the paperwork that had been handed to them.

“We must
talk
,” the man said again, touching Luke on his elbow.

That was too much. Luke put down the papers and turned to the man, looking at him more carefully, to see if he was a threat. “Do I know you?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the Sergeant apologized, growing concerned. “He said he was a friend of yours. He was supposed to meet you here.”

Luke looked at the man again, waiting for an explanation.

“I am Vlad, from MAPS,” the man said quietly, with authority.

Luke hesitated. “Vlad? Have we spoken?”

“Yes, but I’m sure you have forgotten. I am very new at MAPS, and they have just assigned me to the idea you have sent them about this new TOPGUN School.”

Luke quickly looked at the Sergeant to see if she was listening. She wasn’t. Luke headed away from the counter. “What are you doing here?”

Vlad smiled and shook Luke’s hand with enthusiasm. “I didn’t warn you that I was coming. I for this apologize,” he said in his heavy Russian accent. “It was on the moment of a spur. They said you had told them you planned to inspect the MiGs this weekend and would try to get them the serial numbers. I offered to come help, and they told me to come.”

“This is Thud,” Luke said, indicating Quentin.

Vlad shook Thud’s hand with equal vigor. “I have heard of you. You are part of this, too. Yes?”

“Yes,” Thud said, smiling as he evaluated the man on whom so much might depend.

Luke said, “But I’m not sure they’ll let you come with us.”

“They must,” Vlad said with confidence. “First you check into VOQ,” he said, putting the emphasis on the O of the acronym for the Visiting Officer’s Quarters. “I will drive you there. Then we go to find MiGs.”

Luke looked at Thud, who said, “Forget the VOQ. Let’s see the MiGs. It’s already almost 1400.”

Luke and Thud followed Vlad out of the small building to the parking lot by the operations building. “What is your last name?” Luke asked.

Vlad fished in the pocket of his tight polyester pants for the rental-car keys. “Petkov,” he replied in such a way that the name sounded like an explosion.

“Nice to meet you,” Luke said. “Where’d you get this . . . car?” he asked, suddenly concerned.

“Cheapest rental car place I could find. Nineteen and ninety-five per every day.”

“I’ll drive. I’ve been on this base before—” Luke said.

“I know base. I got here before you. I was driving around, until I saw Navy pilots do snappy break in F-18s, not pull up rolling break like Air Force. Then I just watched where you go.”

“You’re very clever.”

“Yes, very clever. I can do anything,” he said, stating a simple fact as he saw it.

“Keys,” Luke said, holding out his hand.

Vlad looked at Luke and immediately saw that this was nonnegotiable.

Luke opened the driver’s door, unlocked the other doors, and pushed the button that released the trunk. They tossed their bags into the back and climbed in, with Vlad in the backseat. Luke and Thud glanced at each other as the body odor that was following Vlad around settled inside the car. They made quick faces of horror at each other but said nothing.

“You could trust my driving. I was MiG pilot before maintenance,” Vlad said.

Luke was surprised. “What kind?”

“MiG-29. NATO calls Fulcrum. The ones we are now going to see.”

“Then you stopped being a pilot?”

“Yes,” he said bitterly.

“Why?” Luke asked, watching him through the rearview mirror.

Vlad turned his head to look out the window at the passing buildings. He was surprised at the beauty of the base, the officers’ brick homes, the lush trees, the groomed golf course, and the pond. It was somehow comforting. “Disagreement with my commanding officer. It was unwise on my part.”

“So what happened?”

“So I left Air Force and went to work with MAPS. Much easier. Plus we get paid.”

“You live in Germany?” Thud asked.

“Yes, but . . .” he said loudly and then paused. “When you—Turn here—” he yelled at Luke, who had almost missed the turn. “When you two start your own TOPGUN school in Nevada, I hope to be there to help you with MiGs. As chief maintenance officer.”

“That would be great,” Luke responded with a tone of caution.

“And then maybe you will help
me
get to be American citizen.”

Luke glanced at Thud, then at his watch. “We’re supposed to meet a PAO at the operations building at 1400,” he said.

“Yes, it is right over there,” Vlad said, pointing from the backseat.

Luke drove right to it. They climbed out and walked stiffly into the lobby. Luke saw a female officer standing there, obviously waiting. She looked at his flight suit and quickly examined his patches—his NSAWC patch, the round TOPGUN patch on his right shoulder—and the brown leather nametag that had Navy gold wings, topgun, and stick on it. “Good afternoon, sirs,” she said. “Welcome to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. I’m Captain Lisa Gannon.” She wasn’t sure exactly whom to talk to, who was in charge. “It’s my understanding you wanted to see the MiG-29s,” she said.

“We’re here from TOPGUN,” Luke said. “We’re preparing a presentation to the DOD, a part of which will be about these MiGs,” he said seriously, implying much more than was there.

“Yes, sir, which is what confused me a little. That sounds like something that is official and should have come through Colonel Robinson, as the MiGs really come under his—”

“It really isn’t official.” Luke looked at her sympathetically. “We just need to see them, and whatever help you can give us would be appreciated.”

“Yes, sir, I just thought you might get more information from Colonel—”

“Thanks, we just want to see the planes. I’m sure this will be fine,” Luke said. “Can we walk there?”

“No, sir, they’re over at the other side of the base. There really isn’t anyone over there except security.”

“Excellent. We’ll follow you.”

Captain Gannon hesitated. This wasn’t the way the Air Force operated. They didn’t do unofficial visits. “Very well,” she said finally. She walked out of the hangar, climbed into a dark blue Air Force van, and drove out of the parking lot. Luke got behind the wheel of the dented Taurus, and they followed her all the way around the base to the remote, lonely spot where the MiGs were parked, next to a small white building that seemed to be there only to support the MiGs.

Luke, Thud, and Vlad got out of the car and walked around the building. Soon they stopped dead in their tracks. There were twenty-one MiG-29s, lined up in two rows just like an operating squadron, waiting for the pilots to walk out and start them up. Luke felt his heart beating faster. He had never seen a MiG-29 in his life. He’d seen photos, videotapes, and three-dimensional simulations. But he’d never seen one of the planes that he had spent the last few years studying and thinking about and fighting every day in his mind.

His enthusiasm was dampened, though, by the appearance of the MiGs. They looked beat up. Their paint was blotchy, some of the fasteners appeared to be coming loose, and they looked sad from the reflective covering that had been placed over the canopies, as if they’d been blindfolded. “What do you think, Thud?” Luke asked.

“Let’s take a look.”

Their eyes pored over the MiGs; Vlad was particularly attentive. Each airplane had its own story and its own foibles. They knew there would be one or two that would be hard to fly in trim, that would want to fly slightly sideways all the time. They knew that one would have electronic gremlins and that systems would fail for no apparent reason, and that others would be the iron horses that never broke down. It was like having a family.

There were two security officers watching them approach the planes. Captain Gannon nodded at them.

They went over to the first airplane and stood near its nose. The white circle with multipointed red-and-gold star on the tail was a tail marking Luke had to admit never having seen before. In fact, before he read the interview in the newspaper with the Secretary of Defense explaining why the United States had acquired twenty-one MiG-29s from Moldova, Luke wasn’t even sure where Moldova was.

Vlad spread his arms in joy as he walked toward the MiG. “The most beautiful airplane in the entire world!”

“What’s up with the puke-green paint job?” Thud asked, distressed.

Vlad answered, “Just the Moldovan camouflage. Not a very good job, true, but look,” he said, hurrying forward to the nearest MiG. “This is C model. Look at dorsal spine,” he said, pointing to the area behind the canopy. “Larger than the A model.” He smiled. “It,” he said, pronouncing the word as “eat,” “has active radar jammer there. Here is radar warning receiver. Very good one.” He gazed at the intake, which was closed by the movable doors. “Big engines.” He smiled again, looking over his shoulder at Luke and Thud, who were watching him with amusement. “Eight thousand three hundred kilograms of thrust.”