The screen faded and the lights came up slightly, showing Luke standing at the lectern in front of the room. He turned down the music. “Good morning. My name is Luke Henry. My call sign is Stick. You may hear that it’s because I’m skinny. That, of course, is false,” he said, as they all snickered, examining his lean frame under his flight suit. “The truth is, I was the best stick at TOPGUN, and my call sign is simply an acknowledgment of that fact by the other pilots.” They laughed.
“That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. What you have been watching is a videotape of the MiG-29, one of the best fighters in the world. It is the jet you are most likely to face if the balloon goes up.
“The reason you’re here—the reason we’re all here—is that airplane. We have them, we know how to fly them, and we want to teach you how to fight them and fight them effectively. In the course of learning to fight the MiG-29 you will learn fighter maneuvers that will put you in good shape to fight any other fighter you might encounter, because the MiG-29 is about the best fighter out there. It has been the leading export fighter from Russia since 1985.
“Let me welcome you to the Nevada Fighter Weapons School. It is an honor to have you here.” Luke looked at all their eager faces. He glanced around the spotless, fresh ready room. The NFWS colors of desert camouflage and black and silver dominated the entire room. The ready-room chairs were the same chairs one could find in a squadron ready room ashore or at sea. They were the Navy standard-issue one-hundred-pound steel chairs with leather seats and high backs that reached up above one’s head. Glenda, Raymond’s wife and the co-proprietor of the Area 51 Café—as they’d insisted it be called—had stitched head covers for each ready-room chair out of black leather embedded with the squadron’s logo.
“All the instructors have had at least one tour as an instructor at TOPGUN. This is probably the best accumulation of pilots anywhere in the world. That’s the good news for you, because they are really good instructors and they really understand flying fighters. It’s also bad news for you, because you’re going to have to fight for your life every day against those pilots in Russia’s best fighter and the number one threat you will ever face. Let me introduce them to you.” All the instructors stood and were introduced in turn, after which Luke ran through his PowerPoint presentation of the class syllabus.
“We want to get you flying right away. After a couple of lectures we’ll start with basic fighter tactics. 1 v. 1 maneuvering. We will show you how to maintain your lookout, how to make your opponent’s lookout more difficult. We will teach you energy maintenance and various nuances of air combat. Some of you may know most of the things we’ll teach you, in which case we’ll just refine your skills. The first lecture will be given by Stamp—Lieutenant Commander Paul Stamper, the operations officer. That class will commence in”—Luke glanced at the clock on the back bulkhead—“forty-five minutes, at 0830. Other lectures will follow during the morning, including the AIM-9 missile. I will be giving that lecture at 1000. Then we will break for lunch. In the afternoon each of you will have your first 1 v. 1 hop against an instructor.
“By the way, unlike in the movie, neither the real TOPGUN nor this school will rank you. There is no TOPGUN trophy, and there will be no NFWS trophy. But we will know. And you will know. The best will percolate to the top. We expect you to be at your best. Any questions?”
Major Khan had been staring coldly at Luke throughout the lecture. He raised his hand, and Luke recognized him reluctantly. “Are you willing to consider changes to the syllabus to better fit your students’ needs?”
Luke smiled. “Major Khan.” He looked at the other students and spoke to the group before responding to Khan. “These are the pilots from Pakistan. Their lead pilot is Major Riaz Khan. Let me introduce him.”
The other students murmured their hellos. Khan continued to stare at Luke. Luke kept a friendly tone in his voice, but the words had very sharp edges. “Major Khan, as I told you this morning at the special meeting we set up to discuss that very topic, we’re not going to be changing the syllabus. We told you that we would be willing to accommodate you with two or three additional hops so you could get the additional air-to-ground training you yearn for. You told me that was not good enough.” He paused. “I understood you when you said that. I would really prefer that you and I discuss this at a later time. Clear?” Luke stared back. Khan didn’t respond at all.
“After your flights at the end of the day, I’d like to invite you to our first social event at the Officers’ Club—the 94th Aero Squadron, as it is called—which is the next building over. It is the old Officers’ Club from when Tonopah was an Air Force base, but we’ve added our own touch. We call it the 94th Aero Squadron because that was the squadron in which the first Navy ace flew, in World War I. He was nineteen years old when he got his fifth kill.”
Luke paused. “We’re here to give you the tools to be an ace if you ever find yourself in combat. But what makes an ace? What makes one man seize history by the balls and shoot down dozens of enemy airplanes while his squadron mate, with the same airplane and the same opportunities, gets maybe one kill over the course of the same war, or two, or none, and has a lot of mechanical problems that ‘make him’ go back to the base before the real fighting starts?” He scanned their faces. “What is it that makes the difference? If you talk to aces, they’ll tell you that in their squadrons they were able to predict who was going to get the kills before the shooting even started. Some never seemed to see the enemy. Some would engage but never get a shot off.” He paused again.
“There are a lot of ingredients that go into it. Courage. Tenacity. Eyesight. Or is it all just ‘luck’? I don’t believe in luck; I believe in physics. But there are other factors. Training, maybe. Skill—being a great pilot—that also comes into play. But there is an intangible.
“There aren’t that many aces around anymore. There was only one Navy ace in Vietnam, Duke Cunningham, and one Air Force ace, Steve Ritchie. Think about this,” he said intensely. “The youngest American ace is over sixty.
“We’re going to see if we can help you find your intangibles. The things that will make you stand up and be counted when it really matters.
“So tonight, after your first flights, come over to the O’ Club. I think you’ll like the World War I decor. There is a Nieuport and a Fokker triplane parked out front. You can’t miss it. And on the inside are sandbags and our Wall of Fame—the wall in the dining room where every ace in American history is mentioned. We’ll convene there about 1900, after you’ve had a chance to have some dinner. We’ll grab a beer and debrief and—”
“We do not allow alcohol,” Khan blurted.
“Feel free to have iced tea, or lemonade, or a Coke, or… water. Whatever you want,” Luke replied, ignoring Khan’s smoldering stare. “We will adhere to the standard Navy policy of twelve hours from bottle to brief.” He stopped. “Any questions?” There weren’t any. “All right. Let’s get this class under way.”
Brian Hayes stared at the new digital telephone on his desk. He picked up a pencil and began doodling on the notepad in front of him. He felt like someone who was leaving on a trip and was forgetting something critical, that jarring, “damn it!” feeling. It was with him all the time, as if something right in front of him were about to explode. Whenever he tried to trace the feeling, it always came back to Khan. He didn’t know why exactly, just that in the back of his mind it was always about Khan.