Fortunes of War (13 page)

“Have you heard about Siberia?”

“You mean lately? Don't get the paper here and I don't own a TV.”

“Japan invaded Siberia.”

Scheer took a long pull on his beer and crushed the can. “It's a crazy world,” he said finally.

“Yeah. I'm recruiting fighter pilots. We're giving an F-22 squadron to the Russians, and they are hiring qualified pilots. You were highly recommended.”

“By whom?”

“The head test pilot at Lockheed-Martin.”

Scheer shrugged. “I miss the flying. The F-22 is a great machine, really great. But…” Scheer took a deep breath and sighed. “This is where I'm going to spend the rest of my life.”

Cassidy looked at his watch. “I got a few hours. How about a tour.”

“Okay. Let's take the Jeep.”

The road was a washed-out rut with huge mud holes that almost swallowed the Jeep. “Got to do something about the road,” Scheer muttered.

“What was last winter like?”

“Cold and long.”

Cassidy asked questions to keep him talking, about raising cattle, the weather, the range. Finally, he asked, “Do you really think this is the place for you?”

Scheer took his time before he replied. “I'm only the third white man to own this land. Last owner was from Florida, a real estate broker whose wife divorced him after the kids were grown and out of college. He lasted four years. He bought the place from the original homesteader, who was nearly ninety when he sold. He's in a nursing home in Cheyenne now.”

Scheer pointed to some of his cattle, then indicated his boundaries with a pointed finger or a nodded head. After a bit, he remarked, “Hard to believe, isn't it, that the original white settler is still alive? The country is young.”

Finally Scheer brought the Jeep to a stop on a low ridge. He pointed through the windshield. “See that low peak? Way out there? My line cabin is just under that peak. It's twenty-five miles from the house to that line cabin.”

“This ranch isn't
that
big!”

“But it is. Most of it lies along this creek, and up there is the head of it. The ranch is the watered grazing land. Everything else belongs to the government. Pretty, isn't it?”

“You could come back to this, after the war.”

“Let's not kid ourselves, Mr. Cassidy. A lot of the guys you recruit are going to get killed.”

Cassidy didn't say anything.

“I'm going to do my living and dying right here, waking up every morning to this.”

“Why don't you level with me?” Cassidy asked. “You didn't have a wife of twenty years divorce you. You didn't get fired from your job; you aren't hiding from the law. You aren't a hermit, an alcoholic, or a dope addict. Why are you rusticating out here in cow-patty heaven, smack in the middle of goddamn nowhere?”

Scheer looked at Cassidy. He turned off the engine and climbed out.
“You're the first one who asked,” he said. “Oh, they asked, but not like that.”

Cassidy got out, too, and stretched.

“I'm HIV-positive,” Scheer said. “Anally injected death serum. Had it for years. Lived longer than I thought I would.”

“So?”

“It's a death sentence.”

“Man, life is a death sentence.”

“We all go sooner or later. I'm one of the sooners.”

“Your ‘the time has come' speech—that's for the local yokels, right?”

“You're a real smoothy, aren't you, Cassidy?”

“Come to Russia with me. It'll be a hell of a fight. You live through that, you can come back here to wait for the Grim Reaper, watch the cows chew their cuds, listen to the wind, think the big thoughts when the temp drops to twenty below.”

“You're a colonel, right?”

“Right.”

“I didn't get AIDS by licking toilet seats, Colonel.”

“Did you get in any trouble in the Air Force? Or at Lockheed?”

“No.”

“You must have kept your love life and your professional life separate. Keep doing that.”

“So you'd take me to Russia?”

“Of course.”

“You're the first blue suiter I ever told about my sexual orientation.”

“I wouldn't tell any more of 'em, if I were you.”

“But you still want me?”

“You're healthy, right?”

“No symptoms.”

“I don't think we'll do physicals. My branch of the Russian air force won't be very picky. We'll need to fit you for a full-body G suit if they don't still have the one you wore at Lockheed. We will do all the shots. Don't want anyone getting diphtheria or cholera or some other weird disease.”

“I already got my disease.”

“Take me back to my car.”

They got into the Jeep and Scheer started up.

“Here's a card with my telephone number. You know the airplane inside out, and you can teach it. I need you, Scheer, or I wouldn't have made this trip. Think it over and call me.”

They rode the rest of the way back in silence. Scheer didn't drive any faster than he had coming out, but he didn't bother to slow for the mud holes and fords. Cassidy hung on with both hands.

When they pulled into the yard by the house, Scheer killed the engine and said, “I'll come. Take me a few days or so to find someone to keep an eye on the cattle while I'm gone.”

“Okay.”

“Lockheed oughta still have my G suit. My weight hasn't changed, so it should still fit.”

“I'll call them.”

“I'm assuming that you'll keep this conversation to yourself,” Paul Scheer said.

“I'm making a similar assumption about you,” Cassidy replied, and stuck out his hand to shake.

“What's the Russian air force pay, anyway?”

“I don't know exactly. Washington is still working out the details.”

“I hope the money covers the cost of hiring a hand to look after this place.”

“Well, it will if you get a Zero or two. Probably pay a bonus for every one you knock down.”

“Whose idea was that?”

“Not mine, rest assured. Some Russian experts in the State Department suggested a bonus for every confirmed victory. They say that will impress the Russians with our seriousness.”

“Seriousness.”

“Seriousness is very big in Russia. They didn't just adopt capitalism, they swallowed it.”

Bob Cassidy got into the rental car, headed for the hard road. A mule deer leapt from the brush onto the road in front of him. He checked that his seat belt was fastened.

 

Cassidy waited in the break area outside the building. The sun felt hot on his arms and face; the breeze coming in off the Pacific felt soothing. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. If only he could forget the problems for a little while and just relax, enjoy the heat and the breeze.

“Are you Colonel Cassidy?”

He started to stand, but she motioned for him to stay seated.

The woman before him was of medium height, with short brown hair that framed her face. She cocked her head as she looked at him, and her eyebrows arched slightly.

The thought occurred to him that she was lovely, in a way.

“You're Daphne Elitch?”

“Please! Dixie. Even my mother calls me Dixie.”

“Have a seat, Dixie. Pleased to meet you.”

“So what brings you to Orange County, Colonel?”

“Recruiting.” Cassidy launched into his spiel.

Dixie Elitch listened politely, saying nothing. The breeze played with her hair. Cassidy watched her eyes, which were dark brown and restless. They scanned the other students in the break area, the sky, the grass, and the colonel. Those intelligent eyes didn't stop moving.

Dixie had been a middle-distance runner at the Air Force Academy and had almost made the U.S. Olympic team. She got her degree in astronautical engineering, number two in the class, and turned down an assignment to Cal Tech, where she would have gotten her doctorate. She went to flight school instead, finished first in her class, got F-22s—even though the program was closed at the time—because the commanding general called the chief of staff.

When Cassidy finished, she didn't say anything. After a bit, Cassidy asked if she had questions.

“No. I'm just trying to visualize how it will be. The F-22 is a good plane, but obtaining spare parts, weapons, and fuel will be a horrific nightmare. Everything will be a problem—intel, early warning, basing, everything. What will you do for hard stands? If the enemy catches you on the ground, they'll wipe you out unless the planes are in revetments.”

“We're working on that.”

Dixie examined his face with those restless eyes. “You aren't going to discuss it because you don't know the answer, I haven't signed on, or you don't want me to bother my pretty little head with men's problems? Which is it?”

“I don't know the answers.”

“You're leading with your chin. What is it you want me to volunteer for?”

“I want you to fly with us.”

“You can't even assure me you're going to fly.”

“I'll solve the problems or live with them, as they arise. That's all I can do.”

“I'm out of the ‘yessir' crap now,” she said. “I've got two more weeks of class; then I'm going to be a stockbroker.”

“I see.”

“Cold-call people, explain why they should let me show them the best investments.”

“Uh-huh.”

“How they can get rich in the stock market.”

“Sounds exciting.”

“Why they should pay commissions to my company.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Even though I have no money myself and couldn't take my own advice, even if I were foolish enough to want to.” She laughed, a pleasant, full-throated woman's laugh.

Bob Cassidy felt warm all over. He bit his lip. He wasn't supposed to feel like
that
. This is a professional relationship, he told himself stiffly, and looked away from Dixie Elitch.

“The market is in freefall this afternoon. The Dow industrial average is down to eighteen thousand five hundred, off eighteen percent from its high last week.”

“Sounds like a hell of a time to start selling stocks.”

“Oh, the market will come back. Sooner or later. It always does.”

“So you're not worried?”

“Colonel, we've just been presented with one of the greatest buying opportunities of our age, courtesy of the Japanese government. They will make a lot of people very rich. I hope to be one of them.”

“I see.”

Dixie shivered. “I'll be glued to a chair in this suburban utopia, wearing my little designer telephone headset, sweet-talking Orange County plutocrats into buying nursing home stock. Meanwhile, you and your friends will be shooting down those poor innocent Japanese boys in their shiny new airplanes, blowing them out of the sky.”

“Something like that,” Cassidy allowed. He passed her a card with his telephone numbers.

Dixie pressed on the sides of her head. “Why did I ever think I could do this? I couldn't sell cold beer to a man on his way to hell. I should have my head examined at the funny farm.” She rubbed her face, then glanced at her watch.

“Win the war for us, Colonel. Speaking for myself, I will enjoy the money.”

She stood and held out her hand to shake.

“We could use you in one of those cockpits,” Cassidy said.

“I have committments here.”

“You're not a stockbroker. You're a fighter pilot.”

“Used to be,” Dixie Elitch acknowledged, then joined the other students returning to the classroom.

 

“Siberia!” Clay Lacy pronounced the word as if it were a benediction. He took a deep breath and said it again.

Bob Cassidy couldn't suppress a smile.

They were sitting in the student union at Cal Tech, where Lacy was working on a masters in electrical engineering. With his military haircut, trim physique, and neat, clean clothing, he looked out of place among the longhaired, sloppily dressed techno-nerds, or so Cassidy thought. But to each his own. Isn't that the mantra of our time?

“Russia.”

“I suppose you've been reading the news, watching the mess on TV?” Cassidy said conversationally. CNN was devoting half of each day to the invasion and half to the falling stock market, which was down to 17,800 now. Just now scenes from Vladivostok were showing on the television at the other end of the room, although the commentary was inaudible. There, a map, showing the Japanese thrusts. Two students were watching. The rest were eating, reading textbooks, holding hands, talking to one another. One was playing a portable video game.

“Oh, a little,” Clay Lacy replied, glancing at the television. “But I'm so busy. If the world were coming to an end, I wouldn't have time to do more than glance at the headlines.”

“This story is not quite that important,” Cassidy acknowledged. “Still, we could use you in Russia. You could go back to school when it's over, maybe in a year or so. Do some flying, pocket some change, help out Uncle Sam.”

“It didn't look like we were ever going to have a war,” Clay Lacy explained. “At least during my career. That's why I got out. That ‘Peace is our profession' BS is a real crock.”

Cassidy finished his coffee.

“You aren't CIA, by chance?” Lacy asked.

“Just plain old U.S. Air Force.”

“You wouldn't say if you were CIA, would you? You'd say you were in the Air Force.”

“You'll have to trust me, Lacy.”

“No offense, sir.”

“Ask me no secrets and I'll tell you no lies.”

Cassidy's mood was growing more foul by the second. Lacy was a flake. Perhaps he would be better off without him.

After a bit Lacy said, “The F-22 is one hell of an airplane,” almost talking to himself.

“So is the new Zero, they tell me,” Cassidy muttered.