Top Gun (37 page)

Layten, remembering to stick to the middle of the trail, hurried down the sandy slope to where Campbell was standing with
his hands resting lightly on the butts of his guns. About fifty feet beyond Campbell, some tough-looking men dressed in denim
and protective leather were beating the brush. The men were looking for something; they hurriedly prodded into holes and beneath
rocks with long, hooked sticks.

“Get a move on, you assholes!” Campbell yelled at the men. “Find me something, or else it’ll be
your
asses I’ll shoot!”

“Sir,” Layten called out, coming up behind Campbell.

“Yeah, what?” Campbell gruffly began, turning. “Oh, it’s you, Turner.” He sounded more bored than surprised. “What brings
you out here, son?”

“Mr. Campbell!” shouted one of the men out beating the brush. The guy sounded excited and a little scared. “I got you a big
one here!”

“I’ll be the judge of that, son!” Campbell growled. “Come on, then! Throw it over, and we’ll see.”

Layten watched as the man raised his hooked stick with something coiled around it and then hurled that something twisting
and turning through the air toward the clearing. It hit the dirt about twenty feet from where Layten and Campbell were standing,
and then coiled, ready to strike as it emitted a dry, rasping, rattling that sounded incredibly loud in the still desert.

“Oh, yeah, that’s a big’un, all right,” Campbell murmured.

Layten couldn’t reply. He felt like throwing up, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the rattlesnake. He’d always been afraid
of snakes. Always. This one was at least five feet long and as thick around as a man’s wrist. Its skin was a diamond variegation
of brown the color of dead grass, and yellow the color of urine. As Layten stared at the snake it began to elegantly, silently
slither toward him. Its flat, black eyes the color of onyx seemed to fix on Layten, making him weak in the knees. He began
to shiver uncontrollably as the rattlesnake’s tongue flicked out to taste the air

Campbell drew his nickel-plated, elaborately engraved guns. They were custom-decorated, .22-caliber, six-inch-barrel Colt
Peacemakers.

“Ain’t that snake a beauty,” Campbell breathed in admiration as he thumbed back the hammers on his single-action weapons and
tired two shots at the rattler, which was now less than ten feet away.

The .22-caliber six-guns’ reports sounded more like the snapping of twigs than, say, the loud crack of the .38 Smith & Wesson
Layten wore. One of Campbell’s shots missed, kicking up a spout of dirt, but the other hit the rattler square in the head,
blowing its skull to bloody bits.

Layten sagged in relief as the decapitated reptile writhed in death, its tail rhythmically beating the blood-soaked sand.

“Yeah.” Campbell nodded, sounding satisfied as he holstered his guns. “These .22 Magnums do the job. Find me another, boys!”
he shouted to his beaters, who’d been watching the show. He then glanced at Layten. “That makes twenty I shot this afternoon,”
he confided.

“Yes, sir.”

“Last time I was here, some environmentalist types got wind of what I was doing and complained ‘bout how I was fucking with
the ecology or some such cowpie by shooting up all these rattlers.” Campbell shrugged. “So I paid off some of the local pols,
and I ain’t heard a peep from nobody about it since.” He winked. “Take it from me. son. With enough money, you can kill
anything.”

Layten reached inside his safari jacket for the copy of
Aviation Weekly.
He turned to the page with the GAT announcement concerning the GC-600’s debut at the Paris Air Show, and handed it to Campbell.

“This is just out today, Tim. As soon as the copy reached my office, I figured I’d better get out here to apprise you of the
situation.”

Campbell nodded. “Hold off on them snakes!” he yelled to his men as he quickly scanned the page. “Well, well, well…”He handed
back the magazine to Layten. “Turner, you’ve done real well. I have to admit I didn’t think you could do it when you suggested
placing a spy inside GAT.”

“I didn’t place a spy, Tim,” Layten respectfully corrected. “I
turned
one of their own people by bribing him to do our bidding.”

“Cost us a pretty penny, too,” Campbell said mildly.

“I’m sorry about that,” Layten apologized. “But our expenditures concerning Icarus are about to end.”

“How’s that?”

Layten savored the moment: It happened so rarely that he was in a position to explain things to Tim Campbell. “Now that Icarus
has been working for us long enough to establish a record of duplicity against GAT, we no longer have to pay him, but merely
threaten to leak his identity, effectively destroying his career and his life, if he doesn’t continue to cooperate.”

“That’s very good. Turner,” Campbell complimented him. “But, in retrospect, I’m not surprised that an old ex-CIA spook like
you could so easily switch over to
industrial
espionage.”

Layten smiled thinly, clenching his teeth. “Spook” was what Steven Gold had always called him.

“Yep, you just keep running your little spy or informer or whatever,” Campbell murmured. “And keep me posted.”

“Tim, I still don’t understand the point of this,” Layten said. “I mean, where is it going?”

“Well, now. Turner,” Campbell mused. “I don’t rightly know. It’s like when you throw a rock into the center of a still pond
and the ripples start spreading. For now, it’s enough that we’ve railroaded GAT into making that announcement. Once again,
we’re acting and they’re reacting. GAT is on the defensive while we’re on the offensive.” He thumbed back his cap to wipe
his brow with the bandanna around his neck. “There’s times I think GAT has more lives than a cat, but that’s all right with
me. Turner, because I have patience. I’ll just keep forcing GAT to use up its lives, and eventually they’ll be down to scratch.”

“Yes, Tim, it’s just that…” Layten trailed off hesitantly.

“Speak up. Turner,” Campbell ordered. “Say what’s on your mind.”

“Well, sir,” Layten worried, “it’s just that this is the first time since we’ve worked together going after GAT that we” ve
actually crossed the line.”

“What line?”

“Tim, we’re breaking the law.”

“Fuck the law!” Campbell said sharply, but he must have seen Layten flinch, because he immediately softened his tone. “Turner,
you listen to me. Take them rattlers out there. Them snakes are fierce, implacable, cold as ice, and yet you give an old man
like me the right assets—anti-snake bite boots and a gun—and that rattler is going to lose every time.”

“You’re implying that your wealth puts you above the law,” Layten said slowly.

“I know it does. Turner. I ain’t exactly been a choirboy my whole life.”

Layten didn’t say anything, but his thoughts reached back to Jack Horton. his old boss at the CIA. Horton had thought he was
above the law. but thanks to Steven Gold, and a congressional investigation. Jack had found out otherwise. Trouble was, when
Jack Horton fell, he took Turner Layten with him.

“Mr. Campbell!” eagerly shouted one of the men out beating the brush. “I got two of ’cm, here, Mr. Campbell!”

Campbell chuckled to Layten. “I pay these boys fifty bucks a pop for every rattler worth shooting they find me.” He shouted:
“Throw ’em out!”

Layten watched as the pair of rattlers hit the dirt fifteen feet away. They were smaller than the first, but quicker. They
began crazily slithering, tracing S patterns in the dust as they headed for the side of the trail and the sanctuary of the
brush.

“Here, try your luck, son.” Campbell handed Layten one of the six-shooters.

Layten gripped the Peacemaker with both hands, sighting down the barrel toward the nearer snake. He thumbed back the hammer
and was about to squeeze off a round when Campbell, shooting from the hip, fanned off a flurry of shots from his remaining
Peacemaker. The gun volley plowed up dirt without hitting either of the snakes. Then Layten fired, scoring a lucky shot that
blew off a snake’s rattle.

“Beautiful, Turner!” Campbell laughed as the snake disappeared into the scrub, trailing blood. “You just cut that fucker a
new asshole!”

“Yes, Tim.” Layten forgot his misgivings about the industrial-espionage laws that he was breaking on his superior’s behalf
in his own pleasure at having amused Campbell. “Let’s hope I can perform the same service for Donald Harrison and Steven Gold.”

(One)

Axel Lyegate Memorial Auditorium

Tactical Air Combat Center

Ryder AFB, Nevada

29 May, 1978

Major Robert Blaize Greene peeked out through the curtains at the auditorium full of “visiting players,” the Air Force personnel
here at Ryder for the upcoming Red Sky air war exercise. Greene then looked back over his shoulder at the stage, which was
dominated by a dramatic forty-foot-tall rendition of the shoulder patch of his squadron. The patch was round, and showed a
winged Russian bear attacking head-on from out of a sky-blue background. The Russian bear had fiery red eyes, and golden lightning
bolts clenched in its massive jaws. Around the top of the patch in blue against gold curved the letters ATTACKERS. Around
the bottom of the patch, the same-colored lettering read: 37th ATTACKER SQUADRON

Greene watched as the pilots in his squadron filed on the stage to take their seats in front of the huge patch. His pilots
were all dressed as Greene was: olive-drab flight suits emblazoned with their rank insignia, their “Attackers” patches on
chest and right shoulder, black boots, and blood-red ascots.

“They all here. Buck?” Greene asked his administrative assistant. Captain Billy Buckmeyer.

“Yep, everyone’s present and accounted for on both sides of the curtain,” Buck said from offstage. “You ready to start hamming
it up, Robbie?”

Greene started out shooting Buck a dirty look, but was unable to stifle his grin. “Well, maybe I do ham it up a little,” he
admitted. “On the other hand, it never hurts to instill a bit of awe and mystery about the Attackers into our guests.”

“You just like to strut and bluster,” Buck playfully admonished. wagging his finger like the schoolmaster he so resembled.
Billy Buckmeyer was in his thirties, a balding, dark-haired, bookish man with black horn-rimmed glasses who favored wearing
his full service uniform—tie, jacket, black-visored officer’s cap—no matter how hot the weather. Buck wasn’t a pilot, but
he could handle paperwork the way Greene’s hottest jet jockies could handle their airplanes. Greene respected and desperately
needed Buck for his abilities, but in addition to Buck being the chief cook and bottle washer around “Red Square,” the Attackers’
operations building. Buck was also Greene’s best friend.

“You know, you missed your true calling,” Buck was telling Greene. “You should have been a movie star.”

“I
am a
movie star.” Greene laughed. “I star in the action epic Red Sky, and my role is that of chief villain. That’s what the Attackers
are all about, right?”

Greene took one final look around the stage to make sure that all of his people had taken their seats, and one final peek
through the curtain, to make sure the auditorium was settled. Then he nodded to Buck, who relayed the signal to start the
proceedings.

This auditorium also served as the players’ main briefing hall. (The Attackers had their own briefing hall back at Red Square.)
The auditorium had plush Air Force-blue seats and carpeting, and sophisticated AV equipment. It was located in the below ground
level of the Tactical Air Combat Command Center, a sprawling complex with a flat roof that was festooned with a nightmare
forest of radio, microwave and radar transmitting gear. In addition to the auditorium, TACCC housed the Range Control Center,
the Red Sky Operations and Intelligence offices, a series of smaller briefing rooms, and the visiting players’ Personal Equipment
Room. Across the street from the TACCC was the ramp where the visiting players’ aircraft were parked and serviced.

“It’s showtime,” Buck called softly.

Greene, nodding, waited as the large silver screen was lowered. Visual aids would be projected on the screen during Green’s
presentation, and the screen would also serve to temporarily block the giant insignia patch and the seated Attackers squadron
from the audience’s view until the dramatically right moment.

The house lights dimmed slowly and then winked out, plunging the audience into movie-theater darkness. The curtains parted.
Greene, guided by the glimmering stage footlights, took his place at the podium located stage right. He took several deep
breaths to calm himself—he always suffered a twinge of stage fright at the start of these presentations—and then switched
on the podium microphone.

“You don’t know him,”
Greene began. Like always, the amplified sound of his own voice booming from the auditorium speakers took him by surprise.

“You call him bogie, bandit, gomer, Ivan, and countless other disparaging names, but all of your mockery does nothing to dispel
your fear, because you don’t know him.”

Greene glanced at the screen, where slides of Soviet and Warsaw Pact MiG-21s and -23s—NATO code-named Fish-back and Flogger—were
being flashed.

“You don’t know how the enemy pilot thinks. How he fights…”

Now the screen alternated between showing slides, newsreel, and gun-camera footage of USAF Sabres and Broad-Sword fighters
mixing it up with MiG-15s, followed by Vietnam-era footage of Phantoms and Thuds dueling with MiG-17s and -21s. The light
reflecting off the screen allowed Greene to study his audience. As tradition warranted, the first few rows were taken up with
air-to-air fighter jocks. The rest of the seats were occupied with personnel belonging to Airborne Warning and REC, Defensive
Suppression, Offensive Counter Air, Close Air Support, and transport/refueling sectors. Airborne Warning and REC included
the reconnaissance people who crewed the unarmed F-4s, the AWAC aircraft crews, and the RESCAP specialists who flew spotter
slow-movers and choppers; DeSup belonged to the Wild Weasle F-4 crews who ferreted out SAM and his AAA brethern; OCA were
the close-air support fliers who piloted A-7 Corsair Mud Movers, while CAS was the province of the A-10 Thunderbolt Warthogs
who killed tanks; and then there were the crews who drove the gargantuan C-130 Hercules transports and the crucial KC-10 aerial
refueling tankers. Everybody who was anybody came to play war at Red Sky, because in the event of a real war, everybody here
would be playing for keeps.