The Hot Pilots (16 page)

“Fuck Brown, and fuck his boss, Cooper, as well.” Steve scowled. “I’ll be back in Washington next week, and when I am, I’ll
go right to the top.”

“Lieutenant Colonel, you can’t go in there—”

Steve Gold had always coveted Jack Horton’s secretary. From his previous visits here he’d learned her name was Joyce. She
was an auburn brunette with hazel eyes and an outstanding set of tits. Today she was wearing a tan, thin wool dress that clung
to her curves. Steve enjoyed watching her breasts bounce as she jumped to her feet, moving fast around her desk as if she
were going to tackle him to keep him from getting past her.

He should be so lucky … He wouldn’t mind a little unarmed combat with this one … But he did want to keep his confrontation
with Jack Horton’s doorkeeper down to a dull roar. He couldn’t afford to attract the attention of building security. He was
wearing his Air Force uniform, and pinned to his lapel was the laminated pass that Horton had arranged to be issued him, so
he’d had no difficulty getting this far into the building, but he knew that he had no right to be here uninvited …

“Please, sir,” she began again. “You know how busy Mister Horton is. You should have called for an appointment—”

“If I’d called for an appointment you would have put me off for a week,” Steve chided, and then he smiled. “Why, I bet it’d
be harder to get penciled in to see old Jack then it would be to get
you
to see me on a date …”

“Is that what you’d bet?” She tilted her head to look him in the eye, a slight smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

Made in the shade
. Steve thought. “Uh-huh …”

“What happens when you lose your wagers, Lieutenant Colonel?” she asked playfully.

“I pay off.” Steve paused. “Say this Friday night …?”

“All right … I’ll write down my number…” She turned to bend across her desk to reach pen and paper, the tan wool stretching
to mold her backside.

Outstanding upstairs
and
downstairs
, Steve thought, tempted to tarry another moment to enjoy the view.
Business before pleasure
, he reminded himself. While she was occupied he tried to slide past her, but she was fast—he’d have to remember that—and
managed to plant herself in his path.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said firmly, all business again even as she deftly unbuttoned the flap of his jacket’s breast pocket
to tuck away the folded slip with her telephone number. “Mister Horton is in a meeting. He mustn’t be disturbed.”

Steve caught a whiff of her perfume as he watched her button the pocket flap and smooth it down with a proprietary little
pat. “I like a girl with nimble fingers, but what I have to say to Jack can’t wait.”

He placed his hands on her waist and gently, easily, lifted her out of he way, enjoying her startled protestations as her
feet left the carpet. As he set down the flustered girl he winked. “On Friday night I’ll pick up where I left off.”

He opened the double doors to Horton’s office. Jack was behind his hulking, black laquered desk, going over some papers with
his assistant, Turner Layten, who was seated nearby in a spindly, straight-backed armchair. Horton glanced up, obviously surprised
by the intrusion.

“I’m so sorry, sir,” Steve heard the secretary feverishly apologizing from behind him as he stepped into the office. “I tried
to stop him, sir, but—”

“She couldn’t,” Steve said pleasantly, finishing her sentence.

“That’s all right, Joyce,” Horton said.

“See, Joyce?” Steve said, glancing back over his shoulder at her. “I told you your boss was a great guy.”

“Thank you, Joyce,” Horton said. “Now, if you’ll excuse us…”

“Yes, sir.”

Steve gritted his teeth, trying not to wince as Joyce gave him a hard pinch on his butt before backing out of the office,
shutting the doors behind her.

“This better be important, Gold,” Turner Layten blustered. Layten was in his thirties. He was pear-shaped, with rounded shoulders,
baby-smooth jowls, small gray eyes, and waxed black hair parted on the side. Like his boss, he was wearing a gray suit, white
shirt, and red tie, except that his shirt had French cuffs, from which gleamed heavy rectangles of gold. “You’ve got a lot
of nerve barging in this way,” Layten continued.

Steve ignored him. Layten was a “yes man”; a fawning jackal to Horton’s lion. Steve, who during his military career had been
unable to bring himself to kiss ass, and had paid the price for it, despised Layten’s breed. “Your secretary said you were
in a meeting, Jack,” Steve said. “But I don’t see anybody.”

“Goddamn it!” Layten began.

“That’s enough,” Horton said crossly, nervously fingering his mustache. Layten shut up like a clam.

Steve allowed himself to smirk.
Sure it was juvenile
, he thought,
but what the hey, nobody’s perfect
.

“I wasn’t aware you were back in town,” Horton said.

“I just got back from Nevada yesterday.” Steve looked around Horton’s vast burgundy-carpeted office filled with curios. “I
see you’ve added some new pieces since I was here last.” He wandered over to the end table next to the black leather sofa
and picked up a small tulip-shaped purple glass vase overlaid with silver. “For instance, this is new, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Horton said. He seemed to flinch as Steve balanced the vase on his palm.

“I swear, Jack, you’ve got enough art deco stuff to open up your own shop on King Street.”

“Actually, that’s art
nouveau,
” he said, his jaw clenched. “And it’s
very
delicate, and very expensive. Please be careful with it.”

So I’m a bull in a china shop, eh?
Steve thought as he put down the vase.
Then beware my horns
…

“Anyway, Steve, to what do we owe the
unexpected
pleasure of this visit?” Horton’s smile remained, but his eyes behind his black horn-rimmed eyeglasses were flat, dark gun
muzzles.

Steve reached into his trouser pocket as he approached Horton’s desk. “I came by to discuss this with you. It’s a little something
I got from one of the pilots at Whetstone,” he added as he tossed the silver dollar onto the desktop.

Horton had to block it with his hand to keep it from skidding clear across the waxed surface and into his lap. He then gingerly
picked it up and placed it carefully on his desk blotter. He and Layten took a moment to distastefully study it.

“You know you shouldn’t have this …” Horton said.

“It’s totally against regulations—” Layten rushed to agree.

“Keep your shirts on, guys,” Steve replied, drawing up a chair and sitting down. “That’s a
genuine
silver dollar, not the little door prize your boys were handing out to my pilots—”

“
Your
pilots—?” Layten snickered gleefully.

“Where do all you guys with two last names get that obnoxious, snorting-honking sort of laugh?” Steve inquired. “I mean, are
you guys
born
with it, or do they bring in geese and hogs at prep school to teach it to you?”

“Is there a point to this, Steve?” Horton asked tiredly.

Steve nodded. “First, I wanted to know if
you
knew about what was going on at Whetstone, and now that I
do
know that, I want to know how you could condone handing out cyanide-dipped pins—”

“Actually, it’s a shellfish toxin,” Layten said earnestly. “We’re quite proud of it. It’s instantly fatal; a really great
advance in the field …”

“You’re up on your poisons, aren’t you, Layten?” Steve asked.

“Actually, I was in charge of research and development of this particular toxin.”

“Now how did I know that?” Steve mused. “Were you also in charge of the suicide bomb?”

“What ‘suicide bomb’?” Horton interrupted.

“Come
on
, Jack.” Steve scowled. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. Don’t make things worse. You’ve already made some terrible
mistakes with this poison pin crap, and this crap about putting bombs in the airplanes and expecting the pilots to detonate
them before bailing out.”

“The self-destruct device in each plane is timed to allow the pilot ample time to eject—”

“So you say!”

“You don’t believe me?” Horton protested.

Steve had to give the guy credit. He actually managed to look hurt. He wondered if they taught acting classes at the Company
training center. “It’s not what I believe that matters,” Steve said calmly. “Your pilots don’t believe you. You’re facing
a mutiny in the ranks at Whetstone.”

Horton was shaking his head. “That’s not the information that Layten has been relaying to me.”

“Then you’re a horse’s ass for buying it!” Steve shot back.

Layten began to say something, but Horton held up his hand. “Let him finish,” he said affably.

“Thank you.” Steve nodded. He glanced at Layten. “Look, seriously, Turner, no offense to you, but you weren’t there. I was.”

“I’m in constant communication with Whetstone,” Layten replied defensively.

“Then you’re being fed false information,” Steve countered, struggling to keep the scorn he felt toward Horton’s lapdog out
of his voice.

“My network is absolutely reliable,” Layten said firmly, glancing anxiously at Horton.

Steve gave up on Layten. “Jack, you listen to me now. What you’ve got at Whetstone is a little cold war going on between your
personnel and the pilots I recruited. It’s easy to see how it got started: Your personnel are self-reliant lone wolves trained
to operate behind the lines. From day one they’re probably taught that they’re expendable.”

“That’s true.” Horton nodded.

“Are you saying that Air Force pilots are taught something different?” Layten demanded, looking amused.

“In a way, they are …”

“But the men you recruited were all fighter pilots: lone wolves, as well!” Layten said triumphantly.

Steve shook his head. “I can see how it might look like that to you …” He smiled. “To tell you the truth, I thought the same
way once, but since then I’ve learned that despite how it might seem, flying a fighter requires
teamwork
and trust. First, you’ve got to trust your flight crew to see to it that your airplane is in top condition. Then you’ve got
to trust your wingman to work with you during combat. Finally, if things should go wrong, you’ve got to trust S & R—”

“Pardon?” Layten asked.

“Search and Rescue,” Horton told him softy.

“Right,” Steve said. “You’ve got to trust Search and Rescue to bust their asses to find you and bring you home safe and sound.
You plant doubts in a pilot’s mind about
any
of that and his morale and concentration—in other words, his performance—is going to suffer.”

“Dammit, you’re right as rain.” Horton nodded vigorously.

“Huh?” Steve blurted, taken aback by Horton’s sudden turnaround. “You understand what I’m telling you?”

“I certainly do: You’re saying that we’ve inadvertently planted a time bomb of a different sort, and now it’s ticking away.
Unless we deactivate it it’s going to blow apart the entire project.”

“Exactly,” Steve said, vastly relieved.

“I can’t thank you enough for bringing this to my attention,” Horton said. “And I can tell you right know that I intend to
make some immediate changes. You just leave everything to me.”

“That’s great, Jack. Let me thank you right now on behalf of the men …”

Horton grinned benevolently. “But where’s my manners?” He snapped his fingers. “Layten, would you ask Joyce to get us some
coffee? Now then, Steve, I want you to tell me more about what’s going on at Whetstone. You’ve done a first-rate job for us.
I want
all
your input. Your opinion
counts
…”

“Excuse me, sir,” Turner Layten said respectfully once Lieutenant Colonel Steven Gold had left the office. “But wasn’t placing
the bomb in the MR-1 the Director’s idea?”

“More or less,” Horton replied. They’d moved to the sofa and armchairs in his office for their coffee. Horton now took a paper
napkin from the coffee table and began to tear strips off its edge.

“The gist of the Director’s memorandum was that nine times out of ten, a carefully selected, properly motivated individual’s
conscience will lead him to do the right thing,” he lectured his assistant. “But every once in a while you might have to prod
the recalcitrant onto the duly appropriate path with a judicious push …”

“Yes, sir…” Layten seemed to hesitate. “But sir, you told the lieutenant colonel that you would have the devices removed from
the MR-Is …?”

Horton nodded. The Mayfly had been reclassified the Meteorological Research I to coincide with the National Advisory Committee
on Aeronautics’ recent public announcement that the spy planes’ flights would be for the purpose of studying weather patterns.
“I tell people a lot of things, don’t I, Turner?”

“Yes, sir. I do see, now, sir…” Layten was beaming. “But what do we do about the lieutenant colonel, sir?”

“We’ve done it already,” Horton replied. “Now we need only continue to string him along.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But we do it with kid gloves,” Horton added quickly. “I want Steve Gold treated with the utmost respect. He’s made himself
a lot of friends in high places, Layten. Friends in the Pentagon, and up on the Hill. If he were to go rogue on us the Air
Force would be on our backs in an instant. You know that SAC is just itching for the opportunity to grab control of the MR-1
program. A controversy about how we’re handling the pilots they’ve loaned us would be just the opening they’d need to pounce.”

“But sir, how do we keep the lieutenant colonel from finding out that nothing has changed?”

“Steve’s job is done. The pilots are in place. We’re about to go operational. When we do, the pilots will be scattered to
remote, foreign air bases. When that happens their little rebellion will fizzle, and Steve Gold won’t know anything further
about the MR-1 program unless we tell him.”