Fallout (9 page)

“I need to get those maintenance-cost estimates from you. In writing. Numbers that MAPS can commit to. Then it’s up to me to sell it.”

“You will have it.”

“We’ll need it right away. We’ve got a meeting with the government this week.”

“Yes, of course. What is name of person?” Vlad asked.

Luke glanced at Thud, his mind drawing a blank.

Thud tried to remember. “He’s an Undersecretary of Defense. Merewether, or something.”

Luke walked down the passageway of TOPGUN toward the glass doors to the parking lot. He had just left Commander Beebe’s office. The letter of reprimand, the copy of which Gun had given him with no explanation or ceremony, no softening apology, was smoldering in the pocket of his flight suit. Gun had given it to him as if it were next month’s watch bill.

Gun had finally shown some surprise, though, when Luke handed him his letter of resignation in return, without even looking at the letter of reprimand. He’d said he understood. Would have done the same thing, he’d said. Right, Luke had thought. Gun had said he would approve Luke’s request and forward it up the chain of command. “Great,” Luke had said, not even attaching a “sir” to the end of his sentence. He couldn’t possibly. He had no more respect for Beebe.

As he headed out the door to his car in the hot parking lot in front of the building, he saw Brian Hayes, almost completely masking his ongoing fight with MS. “Hey, Spy Man,” Luke hailed. “What’s up?” Luke could see that Hayes had been standing by the door of his car without moving for some seconds. Hayes’s face was filled with emotion. “What’s the matter?” Luke asked as he walked over to him.

Hayes’s eyes were swollen and pink. “They’re giving me a medical discharge.”

Luke knew that would be the result. The Navy wasn’t about to keep someone with MS on active duty. “I’m really sorry, Brian.”

Hayes spoke quietly. “This is all I’ve ever wanted to do, Stick. This is where I belong. I’m good at this.”

Luke nodded. “The best.”

“What are you up to?”

“Just submitted my letter of resignation.”

“From what?”

“The Navy.”

Hayes looked over his shoulder to make sure no one else had heard the heresy. “Are you crazy?”

“I can’t stay in with a letter in my jacket. You know that.”

“I figured you’d appeal it or something. Everybody in the Navy loves you, Stick! They can’t let you get out.”

“Apparently not everyone.”

Hayes let the truth of that sink in. “Now what? Airlines?”

“I’d rather die.”

“So what’ll it be?”

“I’m going to start my own TOPGUN school.”

Hayes frowned. “You serious?”

“Serious as a heart attack.”

“How?”

“Lease some MiGs and an airfield from the government and hire former TOPGUN instructors as pilots.”

“You’re not kidding. How you going to finance that?”

“I’ve got an appointment with Thud’s dad—”

“The billionaire?”

“The same, on Saturday, and if he’s interested, I’ve got an appointment with the Undersecretary of Defense on Thursday to explain it to him. Thud and I just got back from checking out the MiGs.”

“Unbelievable.”

“You want to come work with us?”

Brian didn’t want to look desperate. “Seriously?”

“Sure. We’ll need an intel officer to do the same stuff you do here.”

“Classified?”

“Don’t know yet. Could do it a bunch of ways. May be classified, may not be. You could be the admin officer, too, setting up the classes and all kinds of stuff. You interested?”

“I don’t know really, how long . . .”

“Do it as long as you want.” Luke smiled. “I’ll keep you posted. Keep your fingers crossed for us with Thud’s dad and the DOD.”

“Does Thud know you’re going to ask his father?”

“He’s going with me.”

“I didn’t think they were on speaking terms.”

“They’re not.”

“Is he going to get out, too?”

“Gun doesn’t know it yet, but if I get the money and the DOD approval, Thud is going to put in his letter.”

“The skipper will go completely postal!” Hayes laughed.

“Yeah. That would really rip me up,” Luke said as he headed toward his Corvette. “I’ll call you.”

One week later Luke stood at the pay phone in the cafeteria at the Pentagon. He finally pressed his home number into the pad, then his credit card number, and listened to the phone ring at his house. Thud stood behind him and listened in on the conversation.

Katherine picked it up after one ring. “Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“How did it go?” Katherine asked.

“I don’t know what happened,” he said, trying not to sound as discouraged as he felt.

“Did your computer crash?”

“The Undersecretary’s a train wreck. All disheveled. I didn’t even get to do my whole presentation. He didn’t want to have anything to do with it.”

“He didn’t want to hear it?”

“Completely uninterested. He had the time set aside, and we had a conference room, and his staff was there. Everybody seemed enthusiastic except him. He’s just a bitter guy.”

“What did he say?”

“He said it wasn’t happening on his watch. Said it sounded like a waste of U.S. assets.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah. We’re finished.”

“But it’s a
fabulous
idea. Especially since Thud’s dad signed on!” Katherine knew what it would do to Luke if he could never fly fighters again.

“I think the Undersecretary is one of those guys that hates it when other people succeed. It makes him feel better about himself to bring down other people.”

Katherine sighed. “I guess we’ll just have to regroup, find other airplanes and a different airfield. They can’t really stop you from doing this.”

“Yes they
can
, Katherine. This is the guy who would approve the contracts to use our school at all. If he doesn’t want us out there competing with TOPGUN and Red Flag, he’ll just make sure we don’t get the contracts. He can sink us!”

She didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry, Luke.”

“I guess it’ll have to be the airlines,” he said bitterly. “Our flight leaves from Reagan in about three hours. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Okay,” Katherine replied. “I love you. And it doesn’t matter how these things go. I always will.”

“Yeah, I know. See ya.” He leaned back against the pay phone and closed his eyes. All he could think of was sitting in the cockpit of an airliner, trying to sound cool as he made an announcement to the passengers about how they were going to try a different flight level because it would be smoother . . . He didn’t
want
smooth air. He wanted to
scream
through the sky and across the desert floor, and pull on the stick of a jet until vapor trails ripped off the wings, and zoom straight up into the sky so the only way he could see the earth was through his rearview mirror, and get his radar to lock up another airplane, and hear the growl of a Sidewinder missile in his headset, and watch the sun set—upside down—and look at shooting stars in the night sky through his bubble canopy, and head to the O’ Club full of the piss and vinegar and exhilaration of a day of air combat maneuvering. He couldn’t imagine life without it.

The Undersecretary wrestled with the lock on his apartment. The key didn’t fit perfectly, and unless he jiggled it just so, the door wouldn’t open. It was the perfect end to a very aggravating day. Now he was prevented from even getting into his pathetic apartment. The apartment he hated. He became so annoyed that he put too much force into the key, and it started bending inside the lock. He took his hand off and backed away and began breathing heavily. He wanted to kick the door open and rip it completely off its frame. He closed his eyes, continued to breathe, then tried the door again. He forced himself to the grab the key lightly and turn the lock gently. It finally opened, and he stepped through the door. He threw his raincoat onto the wooden dining room chair and dropped his briefcase on the floor. It was full of memos and papers from work that he knew he wouldn’t touch all night. He just took them home so the others in his office would think he was being diligent.

He had only two things to look forward to that evening—a basketball game on television and a refrigerator full of beer. He could lose himself in the game. Merewether walked into the living room to switch on the television and noticed for the first time that something was amiss.

“Good evening, Mr. Undersecretary.”

Merewether felt the chill of pure panic race through him. He spun to his left and saw Yushaf. “What the hell are you doing here? About gave me a heart attack! How did you get in?”

“It was open.”

“No, it wasn’t. I just used my key!”

“You just used your key to lock it, and then you got frustrated and unlocked it.”

“
What
are you doing in my apartment?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Why couldn’t you talk to me at the office? Or set up another one of those lunches at one of those fancy stupid restaurants?”

“I could have. But I wanted to talk to you tonight. I drove over to your house to see you, forgetting that you didn’t live there anymore. I saw your wife. It’s a very nice Lexus that she has. And that house is so beautiful. It’s too bad you had to give all that up.” Yushaf stood. “Would you mind if I got myself a glass of water?”

“No. That’s fine.” Merewether’s mind was immediately fixated on his huge brick colonial house in northern Virginia, where he’d lived with his wife and their one daughter. The Lexus was the car he’d bought for himself last year. He’d been successful in financial matters, and had invested everything they owned in the stock market during the nineties, the greatest bull market in history. In 1999, when it seemed to peak, he’d pulled out his money, invested in treasury bonds, and bought himself a new car. And then he’d lost it all in the divorce, the cause of which was his own juvenile, sexually driven behavior. One of the young secretaries at the Pentagon was far too willing to play around for him to resist a temptation that he had not faced before. Throughout his life women simply hadn’t looked his way. It was what he was accustomed to. When this one had, it had been too much for him to handle.

He thought of the fireplace that almost certainly had a fire in it, as his wife, also a basketball fan, settled in to watch the basketball game with his daughter. Without him. And it was all his fault. And he knew it. He hated himself for it.

The Pakistani came back into the living room and found Merewether sitting on the couch with his head back. He was sprawled out, his soft belly pressing his shirt over his belt. “Are you all right?”

Merewether sat up. “Yeah,” he said gruffly. “Don’t come in here without permission again. I’ll call the police.”

“I’m sorry. Perhaps I should have waited in the hallway, but I cannot stand long. My legs began—”

“Yeah, yeah. Fine. Whatever.” Merewether looked at Yushaf and his thousand-dollar Italian suit. “What do you want?”

“Yes, right to business.” Yushaf sat down in the threadbare chair across the coffee table from Merewether. “I understand you had a meeting recently. About starting a new TOPGUN school. It would be called the Nevada Fighter Weapons School and would use the U.S. MiG-29s from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. They would fly out of Tonopah airfield in Nevada.”

Merewether’s eyes narrowed. “How the hell do you know
that
?”

“A friend told me,” he said innocently. “It is my understanding, in fact, that the two naval officers are planning on resigning their commissions for the sole purpose of starting the school. I didn’t know it was secret.”

“It’s not secret. But it just happened last week. I’m surprised you heard about it.” Merewether studied him. “How
exactly
did you hear about it?”

“Let’s just say that you are not my only friend in Washington.”

Merewether was annoyed. “What’s your point?”

“It is my understanding that you turned them down and told them it would never work.”

“It’s impractical. They haven’t even thought it through well enough yet.”

“I must differ,” the Pakistani said. “It sounds brilliant to me, and it would alleviate the pressure that currently exists on TOPGUN and Red Flag to get more people through the school.”

“Why does it matter to you?” Merewether demanded.

Yushaf shrugged, then paused. “I simply want you to make the best decisions you can,” he replied. “But of course I do have an interest of my own,” he continued, “and perhaps, one day, it could all work out. As you know, I want to get some of my pilots through your schools. It is not asking much. It is asking only what you have already promised, but so far . . .”

“You continue to remind me.”

“So maybe this could be the solution we both need. Let my pilots come through this new school instead of TOPGUN.”

“How do you figure I need this?”

“It could solve some of your problems, with people like me. And if you help
me
, your good friend . . . who knows? Perhaps I could help you, too.” His hand went up as if in sudden recollection. “In fact, you’ve mentioned to me that you dislike this apartment.” He looked around and nodded with understanding. “I’m sympathetic to that. A man of your stature should have a residence worthy of his position. Sadly, that was taken from you in a way that was outside your control. One of our embassy staff has been called back to Pakistan. Unfortunately, he just entered into a very long-term lease on a beautiful American house. He is no longer there, and the house sits empty.” He looked at Merewether to evaluate his next sentence. “Who knows? Perhaps you could house-sit it until he comes back. And who knows when that will be? It could be a couple of years.”

“Do you think I’m
stupid
?” Merewether asked.

Yushaf realized he had miscalculated. “Of course not. Why would you ask me that?”

“Lunches are one thing. A loaner car is one thing. But the use of a house for two years? That’s worth thousands of dollars!”

“It is yours if you are interested. I certainly do not want you to feel obligated. I know that house-sitting can be a burden when the house is furnished with Persian rugs and a state-of-the-art home theater system and the like. You’d have to take care of all of that. I understand it might be asking too much.”