“I doubt if it’s a permanent condition,” Furry said. The wizzo had seen it before — matt was suffering a massive case of self-doubt. If he was to have a future flying fighters, Matt would have to find his self-confidence; the belief that he was the meanest, toughest, best fighter pilot on the block and any comers had best know it.
The pilot said nothing.
“I understand you haven’t been matched with a new wizzo. You want me in your pit?”
Matt couldn’t believe it. Locke’s old wizzo, one of his best friends and probably the best backseater in the wing, was now volunteering to be his wizzo. What was going on? then it came to him — his grandfather’s influence. Matt wasn’t going to have it. “Why?” he challenged. “A phone call from some general in the Pentagon?”
“You think I work that way?” Furry shot back. “Then fuck off.” He started to leave.
“Why?” Matt was confused. “I’ve got to know.”
Furry stopped. “I was talking to Jack the day before the accident. He said you were one damn good stick.” Furry paused, recalling the conversation, controlling the emotion he felt. “He claimed you’re a rerun of him and living proof of what the Tactical Air Force is all about.”
“And what’s that?” Matt asked.
“Fighting and fucking, everything else is a surrogate.”
“Colonel Locke said that?” Matt was incredulous.
“It’s not original but yeah, he said that.” A rueful look played across Furry’s round face as he thought about his old friend. “There’s one other thing I can’t get past — Jack wouldn’t have picked you to fly as number two with Ramjet Raider along if he had any doubts about your ability.”
“But why take a chance on me? Hell, like I said, I don’t know what happened up there and everyone is saying I caused the midair.”
Furry’s face was impassive. “I don’t think you did.”
8
“Mr. Fraser,” Melissa called, stopping the President’s chief of staff as he hurried past her desk. “B. J. Allison called ten minutes ago and asked for you to call her immediately.”
A worried look flicked across Fraser’s face and he glanced at his watch. It was 6:32 in the morning. “What does she want so early in the morning?” he grumbled to himself and scurried into his office. Barbara Jo Allison was well known to be a night person, often working till four in the morning and then sleeping until noon. She would be at her bitchiest if she had been working all night.
Melissa saw the telelight for one of Fraser’s private lines flash on her com panel. Fraser had left strict instructions not to interrupt him when that light was on. The light was still flashing six minutes later when the President called. “Melissa, don’t you ever go home?” Pontowski asked. The warm humor that always floated underneath the surface whenever he talked to her was still there, enchanting her.
“I just got here, sir.” It was a lie. She had been at work for over an hour. For her troubles, she was paid $53,000 a year, had no private life, and never had time for a vacation. She could feel the first twinges of cynicism sour her personality as menopause approached, and she realized she would never have a family. Yet, when she was honest with herself, she admitted she would have it no other way. Melissa Courtney-Smith loved Zack Pontowski and had long ago given him her loyalty, willingly devoting her life to his career. When she was younger, she often indulged in a fantasy that included her body in that devotion. But that fantasy had been laid to rest years ago. Part of Zack Pontowski’s appeal was his faithful loyalty to his wife.
“Is Tom around?” Pontowski asked. “He’s not answering his line.”
“He’s in his office, sir. He often turns the bell off when he’s working. He probably didn’t see the light. I’ll get him.” It was a minor snafu, the kind that Melissa often handled — smoothing out communications in a busy office. She didn’t hesitate and walked directly into Fraser’s office to tell him that the President was calling him on the direct line to his office. She deliberately did not knock, curious to see what was distracting Fraser.
“Damn it, B.J., I’m doing what I can …” He was still talking on the phone, his back to the desk.
“Excuse me, sir.”
Fraser whirled around in his chair, furious at the interruption. Melissa pointed at his intercom panel. The light for the direct line to the President’s quarters was flashing. “The President.”
“I’ll call you right back,” he said and cut off B. J. Allison. Melissa closed the door as he glared at her.
Now what was that all about? Melissa thought. That’s the third time this week Allison has called him.
Ambler Furry was not impressed with Matt’s mission brief for their first single-ship, low-level mission. “Is that all you’ve got?” he asked.
“Yep, let’s go do it,” Matt answered, glad to see they had plenty of time for him to get a cup of coffee and relax in the crew lounge before the flight. He also wanted some time to screw up his courage and drive his self-doubts back into the shadows.
“Let’s get a cup of coffee and then let me show you how I’d brief the mission,” Furry said. It was not a request.
“Don’t you think it’s a bit stupid to go through the entire briefing guide just for a single-shipper? We both know what we’ve got to do and can talk about it in the air.”
Furry grinned at him. “If it’s stupid but works, it ain’t stupid.” Matt started to protest, but Furry just grinned. “That’s one of ‘Furry’s Rules for Survival.’ ”
“‘Furry’s Rules for Survival’?” The pilot was intrigued.
“I’ve got a whole list of ‘em.”
“What’s the first rule?” Matt asked. He liked the wizzo’s way of thinking.
“Never forget your jet was made by the lowest bidder.”
“Okay, forget the coffee. You brief.”
For the next twenty minutes, Furry machine-gunned Matt with procedures, techniques, options and what ifs. When they walked out of the briefing room. Matt knew that he had a hard-nosed professional flying in his pit who probably knew more about how to handle the sophisticated, multilayered systems in the Eagle than anyone he had ever met. “You make it sound so simple,” Matt told him.
“The important things are always simple.”
“Is that another one of your rules?”
“Yep. But it’s got a tough partner — the simple things are always hard.”
From the moment Furry stepped off the crew van that delivered them to the hardened concrete bunker that sheltered their aircraft, Matt could sense a change in the wizzo as he neared the F-15—his easygoing demeanor disappeared, his step quickened. Then Matt realized he was teamed with a professional killer, a man more than willing to enter the combat arena, risk his own life, and purposefully bring death and destruction on an enemy. Matt felt a sense of purpose settle over him as he started his preflight. He wanted to do it right.
“This is one healthy jet,” Matt said. They had just come off a tanker after an air-to-air refueling and were letting down for a second low-level run. On this run, they would head south, working their way through the hills of northern England and onto an RAF range that sported a host of simulated Soviet air defenses. Their job was to get through a ring of simulated antiaircraft artillery (AAA, or triple A) and surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) that were backed up by very real radars and electronic jamming. Once through the defenses, they were to drop an inert laser-guided bomb on a mock-up of a Soviet command bunker.
“All systems are go,” Furry told him. “Couple the TFR to the autopilot.” Matt did as the wizzo suggested and set the clearance limit for five hundred feet for the low-level run. Deep inside, he did not trust the Terrain-Following Radar. Gingerly, he relaxed his hold on the stick, ready to “paddle” the autopilot off and hand-fly the jet. “Come on,” Furry groaned, “five hundred feet ain’t low. Take it down to at least three hundred. Nice picture on the Navigation FLIR.”