“Yessir.”
“Dolan and Bronsky are dead. I want to know what killed them.”
“A defective oxygen system killed them, CAG.”
Jake picked up the report and waved it at the officer who spoke. “This report doesn’t say that. This report hasn’t got enough facts in it to say that and make it stick. Right now this report is merely a guess.”
“We’re going to need more time, CAG.”
“Write an interim message report and send it to the safety center and everyone on the distribution list. Tell them what you think and what you’re working on and tell them when you hope to get finished. Then get cracking. I want answers. Not bullshit. Not guesses. Real answers.” He closed the report and pushed it back across the desk.
“Sir, the captain’s office says there will be some reporters out here in a few days to interview you about that boat you sank.” Farnsworth was standing at the office door.
Jake looked up from the maintenance report he was reading. “When?”
“About 1400 Wednesday, sir. They should arrive on the noon cargo plane from Naples.”
“Okay.”
“Lieutenant Reed is waiting out here to see you. Oh … and some congressmen are going to arrive on Tuesday. The XO is going to talk to you about it. I think he wants you to host them.”
Farnsworth always saved the worst for last. “Who stimulated that think?”
“YN2 Defenbaugh in the captain’s office.” The captain’s office was the administrative heart of the ship, sucking in paper and pumping it out in quantities that awed Jake. And still the yeomen there found time to tell Farnsworth everything aboard ship worth knowing!
“When should I expect the XO’s call?”
Farnsworth looked at the insulated pipes in the overhead and pursed his lips. “In maybe thirty minutes or so, sir. There’ll be three congressmen and a senator, and the captain’s office is gonna bunk ’em in the VIP quarters. Four squadrons will each furnish one junior officer as an escort. Captain James will meet ’em on the flight deck when the cargo plane arrives, then a trot to the flag spaces to meet the admiral. After that, lunch with the XO. Then I thought you might start them on a tour of the ship with the escort officers. We’ll set up a deal that afternoon down in the mess hall where they can meet their constituents. Politicians always want to shake hands with voters. Finally, dinner with Admiral Parker in the flag mess.”
“That schedule should let them find a ton or two of facts,” Jake agreed. “Firm it up and brief the escorts.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Send Reed in.”
Jake motioned the bombardier-navigator into a chair and leaned back in his own. He pulled out a desk drawer and propped his feet up on it. Wait. Where were Reed’s wings? He rummaged through his top drawer and took out the gold-colored piece of metal. He tossed it on the desk on top of the maintenance report and resettled his feet on the drawer.
Reed stared at the insignia. You could buy one in any navy exchange for about $4.50.
“You wanted to see me?” Jake prompted.
“Uh, yessir. I’ve been thinking and all. About our conversation. Maybe I should stay in the cockpit, at least until I get discharged.”
Jake grunted. He picked up the metal insignia and tossed it across the desk. It landed in front of Reed, inches from the edge. The bombardier palmed it.
“Still going to get out, huh?”
“I’ll have to think about it. Talk to my wife.”
Jake found himself searching his pockets for cigarettes and consciously grasped the arms of his chair to keep his hands still. “You may spend another twenty years in the navy and never get shot at again. It’ll be train, train, train, bore a lot more holes in the sky, kiss your wife good-bye for cruise after cruise.”
“It sounds like you think I should get out.”
“What I’m telling you is that this job isn’t Tom Cruise strutting along with his balls clicking together, ready to zap some commie before breakfast.” The movie Top Gun was going through the ready rooms, for about the fourth or fifth time.
“We need people with brains and ability to fill these cockpits, but there’s no glamour. None. And you aren’t ever going to be the guy who helps win the big one for our side. If there ever is another major war, the first and last shots are going to be fired by some button-pushers in silos or submarines. Then the world will come to an end. Everyone who isn’t vaporized by the explosions, or who doesn’t die from burns, shattered skulls, or asphyxiation, is going to die slowly of radiation poisoning. And who in his right mind would want to survive? Civilization will be over. The birds and animals will all die, the seas will become sterile as the fallout poisons them … about the only creatures that will survive will be the cockroaches.”
Jake was feeling for cigarettes again. He stared at Reed dolefully. “What the navy has out here on these carriers are jobs for warriors. It’s an ancient and honorable profession, but just about as obsolete today as horse cavalry. The button-pushers who are preventing a nuclear war, and who will wage it if it happens, aren’t warriors.” Jake shrugged. “Maybe they’re professional executioners. Hangmen. Whatever the hell they are, they’re not warriors.”
He settled his new glasses on his nose and flipped a few pages of the maintenance report.
“I understand,” Reed murmured.
“I don’t think you do.” Jake closed the report on a finger and eyed the younger man. “The people in the navy are first-rate. Our enlisted men are the smartest, best educated, best trained on the planet. You’ll never work with better people. The flying is pretty good. The pay is adequate. The family life sucks. Most officers get squeezed out of the service after twenty years or so because they can’t all be captains and admirals. Now that’s the stuff you should be talking over with your wife. But … while you wear that uniform I expect you to fly when you’re scheduled and to give it the best you’ve got. Use every ounce of knowledge and brains and ability you have. You owe that to your country.”
Jake gestured toward the door. “I have work to do.” He spread the report open on the desk and began to read as the lieutenant departed. When the latch clicked shut, the captain leaned back and stared over the top of the glasses at the gray metal door. At length he shook his head slowly, wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and picked up the report.
Ali held the door open for Colonel Qazi. Ali wore a chauffeur’s uniform, and after Qazi had passed into the real estate office, he went back to the limousine, took a rag from the trunk, and began to wipe off the few flecks of dust that had accumulated on the car in the ten-minute drive from the agency where he had just rented it.
Inside the real estate office, Qazi stood impassively as the receptionist whispered hurriedly into her telephone, then gave a barely perceptible nod to the office manager when he came rushing out. He was a breathless, corpulent man with only a fringe of hair remaining, one lock of which had been carefully placed so as to run back and forth across his shiny pate. The manager guided him into his office while the receptionist stared after him.
As Qazi sat on the overstuffed sofa and removed his sunglasses, the manager settled behind his desk. The manager saw the visitor staring at his overflowing ashtray, so he whisked it away. He placed it in a bottom drawer of the desk, then crossed his hands and beamed at his visitor.
Qazi wore a white caftan and burnoose. Black whiskers flecked with gray adorned his chin. He looked, he hoped, like a young King Faisal.
“I wish to rent a villa, Signor Livora,” Qazi said in very British English.
“Ah, you know my name.”